'I went straight to Weight Watchers and that was mainly to educate myself on how to cook properly, how to portion control,' she said.
Ethan ‘was young when we started and I didn't make a big deal about it because I didn’t want him to think he was fat, but he knew himself - he had a mirror'
Mrs Van Dyken, who weighed 147kg at the start of her journey has lost almost half of her body weight, she now weighs 74kg.
Rod, has lost a total of 35kg since 2013 dropping from 120kg to 85kg.
Ethan has also lost more than 10kg and now as a teenager weighs less than he did at age 10. He also finished third in his cross-country race this year.
'Changing habits was what we needed to do to lose weight and become successful at it, but I definitely didn’t deprive us of anything.
'I could never go back to eating the way I was before, I think it would really make me sick,' she said.
'We quite enjoy the way we eat now, I think this is what life’s supposed to be like
'Instead of having ice cream after dinner we had a fruit salad. Ethan was happy with it, Rod was happy with it and we saw the results,' she explains.
'I just really hope that if someone out there can read my story and read what we've done, they'll realise they can do it too.'