November 7, 2023 • 22 mins
It's hard being vulnerable... but when every aspect of your life Is put out on display for the world to see, it's hard to keep your internal battles a secret. In light of BRAVOCON going down this week, I have Jackie Goldshneider from RHONJ on to chat about her new book "The Weight Of Beautiful" and how she struggled with body dismorphia & an eatting disorder that severely impacted her life.
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(00:01):
Recorded live at the iHeart Studios inPhiladelphia's ACTI Markets. It's serving Sir Ray
yet now here's rache ye Hia.Sorry story in my life. Technology do
not get along time. They're notautomated. No, no, no,
(00:24):
we'll just use That's perfect. Yeah. I even though you look stunning as
always, oh I do not.I am like so casual right now,
but I'm so sad to talk toyou. Thank you for having me,
No, thank you for giving methe opportunity to talk to you because we
have so much to discuss. AndI feel like, even just knowing you
(00:44):
from Real Housewives of New Jersey obviouslyand now reading your book, I feel
like you're the long lost soul sisterI've been looking for to like help real
life. Oh my god, Likeyou speak what my brain thinks, and
sometimes I like think my brain isabsolutely insane. And it just makes me
feel so much better reading what youwrote, knowing that, like, I'm
not alone in this journey that alot of young women and honestly, like
(01:06):
throughout our growth as women tend tofeel, you know what I mean?
Yeah, And that's exactly what Iwas going for. By the way,
well crushed it You're welcome. No, thank you, thank you for everyone
that's listening. This is Jackie Goldenschneiderjust wrote a book, The Way of
Beautiful, and of course we allknow and love you from Real Housewives of
New Jersey, my fellow Jersey girl. So I always resonate with a Jersey
(01:30):
girl, especially when one is willingto be vulnerable and open with us outside
of what we normally see on TV, which is vulnerable in and of itself.
By the way, your whole lifeis documented on camera. So what
does it mean for you to likeput it into writing, because this isn't
the first time you've written No,no, no, I've been a journalist
for a decade, but crazy peopleforget that sometimes. Yeah, I no,
(01:53):
I know. I just had allof the It's so liberating because I
had all of the is terrible timesover the past twenty years where I was
really torturing myself that all of themjust stayed in my head and I always
thought about how many occasions and celebrationsI just destroyed for myself over the years.
(02:21):
And now not only are they outthere and like out of my head
and on paper, so I cankind of get rid of them. But
they're also serving a bigger purpose,you know, because they're going to show
people that they're not the only onlyones going through this, and you know,
it's it's great to have them outhaving another function besides torturing me,
(02:47):
you know, no, one thousandpercent. And for anyone that's curious as
to what The Way of Beautiful isabout, I brought the book with me
because now it's like my safety blanket, my safety net. It's like the
Bible. Literally, just bring itwith me. But it talks about obviously
your struggles with anorexia and eating disorders, which and this is so sad to
say out loud, and maybe thisis just coming from my personal experience,
but I feel like at some pointin time, as women, we all
(03:12):
dabble in the insecurity of feeling likewe're not enough. And that's just like
society's like like the way it implementsthe body imagery that women should tend to
have in order to be famous orsuccessful, and it's very it's it's terrifying
to find that women no longer canlike look at each other as companions rather
than competitors, you know what Imean, Like we're staring at each other
at looking each other up and down, comparing ourselves, whereas we should be
(03:36):
building each other up. And Ifeel like the Weight of Beautiful your book
is a start to that to helpus like dissect what the issue is.
There's a part actually that I wantto bring up here. I love Teresa,
by the way, so many.I have so many favorite parts that
I'm always curious what other ones.Yeah, what other peoples are. You're
gonna be so mind blown by this, because I don't think anybody else would
(03:58):
probably say this is their favorite part. But it's the one that resonated with
me the most. That's because Iknow Teresa and like, that's my queen.
I love her so much. Butyou actually bring up a part because
I do this all the time,and I like, this is the moment,
the aha moment that I had whilereading her book. I was like,
God, it's not just me.It's a part where I guess you
guys were on set and Teresa wasdescribing being on a strict diet she followed
(04:20):
a train for her bodybuilding competition,and you noted, and you were looking
at her cooler bag filled with grilledchicken and broccoli, and you studied her
plate as she talked, and Iliterally had the oh my god, I
do that moment. Yeah, Andjust to give you like a little insight
as to like what my body imageissues have been like growing up young girl,
(04:42):
grow up with a booty okay andlikes it's now a blessing in disguise,
but growing up as like a millennial, having a big butt was like
a fat ass, and all Iheard was fat, you know what I
mean? So I just associated myfat ass with being like fat, and
back then it wasn't like, oh, having a j low butt is cool
until Kim Kardashian made it cool.So my whole life, I just battled
this butt of mine. I'm learningto love her, but it's still an
(05:06):
insecurity of mine because like you're justconditioned to think that, like the that
F word is the only one thatmatters. So I'm so curious as to
like what your growth process obviously isoutlined in the way of beautiful, But
for you, do you find thatsometimes you're triggered by little things because I'm
still learning to battle that as well. You mean now now like when you
(05:27):
look back on it, so areyou talking about like how I'm feeling right
now? Or did I find thatagain in the past that things triggered me
right right now, like if youdo like little things even running the mill,
Yeah, no, right now.I there is nothing that you could
say about me or my body thatwould make me move backwards. I love
(05:50):
have separated. I've done so muchwork in therapy, but I've really succeeded
at separating what people think of mybody from how I feel about myself.
That I have succeeded all the wayon what I'm still in. You know,
I would say that I still havea little ways to go. I'm
(06:13):
about eighty percent recovered from a eatingdisorder. I would say still have a
little work to do. I stillhave fears around certain foods. I still
get nervous around certain foods, andyou know, understandably because it was twenty
long years of this stuff. ButI don't get triggered by anything that anyone
says about me anymore because I knowwho I am. I know that I'm
(06:36):
beautiful, and you know, Ialso know that it's not black and white.
It's not eating makes you fat andmiserable and starving makes you skinny and
happy and beautiful. I know itdoesn't work like that now, so I
don't worry so much about you know, spiraling and things like that, so
(06:57):
I don't get triggered. I don'treally get triggered. That's great, No,
And it's very inspiring because I feellike what you're you're explaining seems to
be more of like an internal battleversus the opinions of others, and that's
almost scarier to face head on thanit is to like address like an issue
with someone else, You know whatI mean, Yeah, for sure,
But I will say that, youknow, recovery is twofold. It's you
(07:20):
have to learn how to feed yourselfagain, and feed yourself and use food
not as a mechanism for just losingweight, but you know how to eat
for enjoyment and celebration. But youalso need to work on what was making
you sick in the first place,what was keeping you there? And once
(07:42):
I you know, until I reallygot to a place where I accepted myself
no matter what I look like,and I was I was not paying attention
to what people would say about mybody anymore. Until I got to that
place, I felt like anorextyo wasaway. They're waiting for me just because
oh I need it that feels likeboth parts are very important. Yeah,
(08:05):
And I feel like as I atleast get older, I'm learning so much
through my friends, like the onesthat are like having babies and like the
real seriousness of postpartum depression and thebodies that they obviously develop after giving birth.
Like I haven't had that experience yet, but I could imagine it's something
very similar to any type of eatingdisorder. Would you agree having kids yourself?
(08:28):
Do I think that the body imageissues after having kids is like,
yeah, I mean it's very hardas a woman when society, you know,
is constantly commenting on whether or notyou've gained or lost weight. It's
very hard to see the changes thathappen to your body after children. For
me at least and for many people, I know, your body doesn't snap
(08:50):
back in the same way, andit's tough because people make comments. You
know, it is hard, andI know a lot of mothers that struggle
with dieting and feel a lot ofpressure to lose weight right after they have
children. So yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate what we do to each
other. And the way that youknow, in social media doesn't help e
(09:11):
There not even a little bit,but you with you being in the limelight,
I'm sure like that pressure is obviouslylike augmented. But with that,
your whole life is on display forpeople to see, which makes it harder.
But with that, there's a partin your book and I don't want
to divulge too much for those thatare interested in reading it, So I'm
going to try and like backpedal alittle. In your book, you talk
(09:33):
about how your life is on somuch of a display, but you were
internalizing this secret from these cameras,and it seems that, like in your
book, no one really noticed.Was there one person who really ever reached
out to you and was like,hey, do you like want to talk
or like I'm noticing this about you? Not one person, no the first
time. But it's not anybody's faultbecause I was very secret there and very
(09:56):
stubborn, and this was you know, my eating disorder was mine and I
didn't let anyone mess with it,nobody. So I don't really fault anyone
because I was very stoic. Butthey did notice my second season, and
you know, we're on a show, so they have to they have to
(10:18):
call me out on it on camera. They can't bring it to me privately.
Yeah, so I was called outon camera, but I was prepared
for if and when that would happen, and I had stories ready to go,
and I had excuses ready to go. So I explained it away and
it went away. Good for you. Okay. Now, I don't know
(10:39):
if you're allowed to like divulge this, but when things are brought to you
on camera, are they genuinely likeshocking to you, or did the producers
like warm me up to like theidea of what that's how that's going to
go? They're shocking to me.I had no idea that my castmates noticed,
but you know, I had excusesand I explained it away and that
(11:00):
was enough for them, and soit kind of went away. So I,
you know, I wasn't ready torecover and and I didn't want to
be forced into it. So Iwas very, very relieved that I was
able to make excuses and it reallydidn't come up again until I decided to
(11:20):
recover. So keyword is you decidedto recover. And I kind of weirdly
in a way. I don't knowif I should say I loved that you
said this, but like your yourdisorder was yours and no one could like
take that from you kind of thing. And that's that's weirdly, that's weirdly
encouraging to hear because it's something thatyou have to tackle and you have to
(11:41):
be ready to tackle on your ownterms. So you can't let anybody like
force that upon you, right,And I mean, if you're a child,
if you're a minor, your parentscan send you to you know,
to get to recovery. But asan adult, you really can't force another
adult to recover. And I findthat until I was truly ready to recover,
(12:03):
I had no real interest in stayingcommitted to it. But once I
was personally ready, I you couldn'tstop me. I was so I was
so committed to it. Once Isaw a little bit of what life could
be like without it, I was. I was really committed to it.
Good. Yeah, do you havedo you have? I mean, I
(12:24):
had the AHA moment in your bookreading it, But did you have the
aha moment when you're like, Ineed to make a change, Like what
was your Yeah, what specific situationor was there one that happened that you
were like, I need to snapout of it? Yeah? So I
had always been, you know,for twenty years, been living with anorexia,
and it was always there controlling me. But there were times of a
(12:48):
little more food, and there weretimes of less food, like I would
tighten my restrictions if I got stressedout. So I mean, there was
never enough food, but there waseven less and it was more exercise when
I would get stressed out. SoI used food when you know, to
handle my emotions. And something happenedon the show, which I'm sure everyone
(13:11):
knows about, and you know,it translated into my home life. And
my husband was very upset and wewere fighting, and the world was weighing
in and social media was tearing usapart, and I really stopped eating like
it was bad, and I dealtwith stress by running, and I got
(13:33):
myself so thin and so my bodyhurts so bad that I one day just
you know, after I worked out, I just lost it. I fell
to the floor. And it wasthe first time that I really said to
myself, what what would life looklike if I stopped? And I realized
(13:54):
that if I didn't stop now,I just keep going. And one day,
if I even made it to sixtyfive, I would still be doing
this shit right, And I knewin that moment that it's now or never,
and so I I seized on thatmoment in case I would change my
(14:16):
mind, and I told Evan,I'm sick and I need help go for
you. And that was a realthat was a real turning point. And
I would encourage anyone if you everhave that moment before you lose that's trying.
Don't tell somebody that you love thatyou want them to help you,
because then that door is open,you know, thousand percent. And as
a mom, do do you fearthat like sharing your story would kind of
(14:39):
even shed a light on something likethat for your kids, or like,
would you, if your God forbidyour kids felt any type of way that
you used to feel, would youlike you had mentioned send them somewhere to
get help, or would you nowknow how to help them on your own?
Oh no, I think that professionalhelp is definitely needed when you have
an eating disorder, a full fudgedeating disorder. So I know that I
(15:01):
did a lot of damage to mykids, and there's no one who could
love their kids more like I justlive and die for my kids. But
yeah, I have to acknowledge thatI modeled some incredibly dangerous and unhealthy behaviors
in front of them when it cameto food and exercise. So I have
you know, I try very hardto model now really healthy behaviors in front
(15:26):
of them. I'm always eating withthem. I share food with them,
I don't restrict. My exercise ismoderate. I you know, I'm not
the best at the language that I'msupposed to use, so I try more
to model behaviors. But it's hardwarefrom Jersey. I'm learning how to talk
to them. Yeah, I'm learninghow to talk to them about it.
I encourage moderation. I encourage justbeing outside and getting some you know,
(15:50):
fresh air and physical exercise. Butyou know, I do worry about it,
and there's no there's no denying that. I really, you know,
let them see some bad stuff.So if that day does ever come where
they think about, you know,I want to lose some weight and what
did mommy do? And they tryto do but I did, I am
(16:10):
prepared to handle it and have sometalks with them. But hopefully, you
know, hopefully they see what I'mdoing now and they know how dangerous what
I did in the past was,and hopefully that never happened. Well for
what it's worth, I love watchingyour journey. I love reading about your
journey in the weight of Beautiful.So for anyone that hasn't ready yet,
definitely recommend. The last thing Iwant to talk about before I let you
(16:33):
go is you just mentioned the dinnertable. I mean, growing up in
the New York Jersey area, youknow how important dinner time is to Italiano's
like me. So with that beingsaid, I always sometimes find like my
unhealthy relationship with food, and likeif I ever came home from college,
my mom would see like, ohI'm losing weight, Like oh I'm gaining
weight, and she'd be like,oh you're too thin, Like here,
(16:53):
eat more, eat more. So, like, the dinner table is very
It's a hot topic. I thinkto our area, like this is where
the family comes together. Food issocial for us. So how is your
dynamic now at dinner time with thefamily now that you've are you cooking?
What kind of conversations? No,you're not cooking, Okay, I did
(17:14):
not have to cook me neither,you know what, So it's a terrible.
So you know, I grew upin a house that did not have
dinner together. Sure, so inmy in my head, it's never been
a thing. Unfortunately, it's neverbeen a thing. But now with with
my kids, they're athletes, sothere's constant practices. And I have four
teenagers, so it's not easy forus all to get together and sit down
(17:38):
at the table. But we dohave at least one or two a week.
That's good. Yeah, So whenwe all eat together. They used
to I used to not care atall because nothing was more important than maintaining
my eating disorder. I didn't carewhat they saw. I didn't care who
wanted me to eat something. Mytheory was like, it doesn't it shouldn't
(17:59):
matter to you what goes down myyou know, throat. You know.
So I always convinced myself that itwas nobody's business but my own. But
now I make sure that they seeme eating everything with them. I make
sure to even if I want to, like check a menu first, or
(18:23):
you know, if I want toorder the healthiest thing on the menu instead
of something I want I don't,you know, I make sure that I'm
fully connected to them during the meals. I'm just trying to undo all the
damage I did. I really enjoymy life as you should, and enjoy
food. Yeah, and enjoy food. Really, it's like the first time
in my life that I've ever enjoyedfood, even though I've only been out.
(18:44):
I was only anorexic from twenty Fromage twenty six forward, I really
had such a fractured relationship with mybody and with food ever since I was
thirteen. Right, so this isreally the first time in my life I'm
ever really enjoying food, you know, And it's it's amazing. It looks
amazing just based off of not onlyhow and you know what I think.
(19:07):
Sometimes it's difficult, especially in situationlike situations like this, like when I'm
losing weight. Personally, I feelrewarded when people are like like, damn,
you look good. But like sometimesthat's like if you're losing weight,
that's not always good, you knowwhat I mean. So when people and
that's the problem, yeah, right, when people, when people congratulate you
on how well you look or howgood you look or healthy you look.
(19:27):
Is that how do you take thatin like a personal way or differently than
so it used to be. Itused to be while I was sick,
if somebody told me I looked healthy, there was like nothing worse that you
could say to me, because mymind immediately went to, oh my god,
I gained weight, Oh my god. So I didn't know what to
do with it. Any kind ofcomments about my body would just make me
(19:48):
spiral. Now how unfortunately, Iknow that people confuse health with thin,
healthy with thin, and with fatwa with unhealthy, and it's just it's
so wrong. But comments about mybody now do nothing to me because people
(20:08):
have no idea what's going on insideof me. And you know, unfortunately
people are not you know, theproblem is that nobody talks about this stuff.
R I know, so exactly.Even if you even if you told
a woman who had just lost alot of weight because of something traumatic going
on and she stopped eating, ifyou told her she looked great, and
that's only going to encourage her tokeep going. So what I'm really hoping,
(20:32):
I mean, I hope a lotof things for this book. I
mean, I love the process ofwriting it, I love being an author.
I really hope that it helps people. I also hope that it's just
a great book that you bring ina vacation with you and like you devour
it. You know, don't don'tspoil it because it's my airplane read and
I have one more trip to takebefore I finish it, so it is
my vacation book. But I reallyhope, I really do hope that it
(20:55):
lets people feel a little more comfortabletalking about this stuff. So like if
somebody is struggling and someone says,God, you look great, you lost
so much weight, that they couldactually maybe say, oh, you know,
I've been having a hard time,so it's stressed, and I,
you know, I'm hoping that itmakes it a little less shameful to admit
that you have a problem, youknow, and that you know, people
(21:17):
don't live with it as long asI did, because I feel like,
you know, I'm missed out ona lot, and I'm sad about it,
and I try to not be sadabout it because all of those terrible
times, like I'm assuming you're alreadypast the chapter with like the Tunicans in
Mexico like that, that time alwayssticks out in my head and it makes
me so sad because I did that, even though I only told that story,
(21:41):
like I just did that to myselffor so like every vacation I was
on was another version of that,right, and it makes me sad.
But now those those moments have anotherlife and they can help people, you
know, and they can let peopleknow that they're not alone. And it
as bad as you are, Likeif you're eating your dinner like out of
(22:03):
a can in a bathroom on vacation, like you can still one day,
fully, fully make it to theother side. Well, if he gives
you any reassurance, your book isdoing exactly that for at least one person,
and that one person is Meank youso thank you so much, no,
thank you so much for sharing yourstory. And I think moving forward,
my compliment to people are is nolonger going to be like, oh,
(22:26):
you look great, It's going tobe you look happy, and that's
that's important, you know what Imean. So for what it's worth,
I'm going to do that too,right like, we'll make that path right
here. But you look happy,and that's all that we care about in
your happiness. You feel good withyourself and truly like your journey is your
journey journey, and we are sograteful that you're willing to share it with
us. So thank you for givingus the way of beautiful, because it
(22:47):
truly is so thinking beautiful. Lookat that cute little girl with the look
at her. Thank you so much. I love talking to you.
Recorded live at the iHeart Studios inPhiladelphia's ACTI Markets. It's serving Sir Ray
yet now here's rache ye Hia.Sorry story in my life. Technology do
not get along time. They're notautomated. No, no, no,
(00:24):
we'll just use That's perfect. Yeah. I even though you look stunning as
always, oh I do not.I am like so casual right now,
but I'm so sad to talk toyou. Thank you for having me,
No, thank you for giving methe opportunity to talk to you because we
have so much to discuss. AndI feel like, even just knowing you
(00:44):
from Real Housewives of New Jersey obviouslyand now reading your book, I feel
like you're the long lost soul sisterI've been looking for to like help real
life. Oh my god, Likeyou speak what my brain thinks, and
sometimes I like think my brain isabsolutely insane. And it just makes me
feel so much better reading what youwrote, knowing that, like, I'm
not alone in this journey that alot of young women and honestly, like
(01:06):
throughout our growth as women tend tofeel, you know what I mean?
Yeah, And that's exactly what Iwas going for. By the way,
well crushed it You're welcome. No, thank you, thank you for everyone
that's listening. This is Jackie Goldenschneiderjust wrote a book, The Way of
Beautiful, and of course we allknow and love you from Real Housewives of
New Jersey, my fellow Jersey girl. So I always resonate with a Jersey
(01:30):
girl, especially when one is willingto be vulnerable and open with us outside
of what we normally see on TV, which is vulnerable in and of itself.
By the way, your whole lifeis documented on camera. So what
does it mean for you to likeput it into writing, because this isn't
the first time you've written No,no, no, I've been a journalist
for a decade, but crazy peopleforget that sometimes. Yeah, I no,
(01:53):
I know. I just had allof the It's so liberating because I
had all of the is terrible timesover the past twenty years where I was
really torturing myself that all of themjust stayed in my head and I always
thought about how many occasions and celebrationsI just destroyed for myself over the years.
(02:21):
And now not only are they outthere and like out of my head
and on paper, so I cankind of get rid of them. But
they're also serving a bigger purpose,you know, because they're going to show
people that they're not the only onlyones going through this, and you know,
it's it's great to have them outhaving another function besides torturing me,
(02:47):
you know, no, one thousandpercent. And for anyone that's curious as
to what The Way of Beautiful isabout, I brought the book with me
because now it's like my safety blanket, my safety net. It's like the
Bible. Literally, just bring itwith me. But it talks about obviously
your struggles with anorexia and eating disorders, which and this is so sad to
say out loud, and maybe thisis just coming from my personal experience,
but I feel like at some pointin time, as women, we all
(03:12):
dabble in the insecurity of feeling likewe're not enough. And that's just like
society's like like the way it implementsthe body imagery that women should tend to
have in order to be famous orsuccessful, and it's very it's it's terrifying
to find that women no longer canlike look at each other as companions rather
than competitors, you know what Imean, Like we're staring at each other
at looking each other up and down, comparing ourselves, whereas we should be
(03:36):
building each other up. And Ifeel like the Weight of Beautiful your book
is a start to that to helpus like dissect what the issue is.
There's a part actually that I wantto bring up here. I love Teresa,
by the way, so many.I have so many favorite parts that
I'm always curious what other ones.Yeah, what other peoples are. You're
gonna be so mind blown by this, because I don't think anybody else would
(03:58):
probably say this is their favorite part. But it's the one that resonated with
me the most. That's because Iknow Teresa and like, that's my queen.
I love her so much. Butyou actually bring up a part because
I do this all the time,and I like, this is the moment,
the aha moment that I had whilereading her book. I was like,
God, it's not just me.It's a part where I guess you
guys were on set and Teresa wasdescribing being on a strict diet she followed
(04:20):
a train for her bodybuilding competition,and you noted, and you were looking
at her cooler bag filled with grilledchicken and broccoli, and you studied her
plate as she talked, and Iliterally had the oh my god, I
do that moment. Yeah, Andjust to give you like a little insight
as to like what my body imageissues have been like growing up young girl,
(04:42):
grow up with a booty okay andlikes it's now a blessing in disguise,
but growing up as like a millennial, having a big butt was like
a fat ass, and all Iheard was fat, you know what I
mean? So I just associated myfat ass with being like fat, and
back then it wasn't like, oh, having a j low butt is cool
until Kim Kardashian made it cool.So my whole life, I just battled
this butt of mine. I'm learningto love her, but it's still an
(05:06):
insecurity of mine because like you're justconditioned to think that, like the that
F word is the only one thatmatters. So I'm so curious as to
like what your growth process obviously isoutlined in the way of beautiful, But
for you, do you find thatsometimes you're triggered by little things because I'm
still learning to battle that as well. You mean now now like when you
(05:27):
look back on it, so areyou talking about like how I'm feeling right
now? Or did I find thatagain in the past that things triggered me
right right now, like if youdo like little things even running the mill,
Yeah, no, right now.I there is nothing that you could
say about me or my body thatwould make me move backwards. I love
(05:50):
have separated. I've done so muchwork in therapy, but I've really succeeded
at separating what people think of mybody from how I feel about myself.
That I have succeeded all the wayon what I'm still in. You know,
I would say that I still havea little ways to go. I'm
(06:13):
about eighty percent recovered from a eatingdisorder. I would say still have a
little work to do. I stillhave fears around certain foods. I still
get nervous around certain foods, andyou know, understandably because it was twenty
long years of this stuff. ButI don't get triggered by anything that anyone
says about me anymore because I knowwho I am. I know that I'm
(06:36):
beautiful, and you know, Ialso know that it's not black and white.
It's not eating makes you fat andmiserable and starving makes you skinny and
happy and beautiful. I know itdoesn't work like that now, so I
don't worry so much about you know, spiraling and things like that, so
(06:57):
I don't get triggered. I don'treally get triggered. That's great, No,
And it's very inspiring because I feellike what you're you're explaining seems to
be more of like an internal battleversus the opinions of others, and that's
almost scarier to face head on thanit is to like address like an issue
with someone else, You know whatI mean, Yeah, for sure,
But I will say that, youknow, recovery is twofold. It's you
(07:20):
have to learn how to feed yourselfagain, and feed yourself and use food
not as a mechanism for just losingweight, but you know how to eat
for enjoyment and celebration. But youalso need to work on what was making
you sick in the first place,what was keeping you there? And once
(07:42):
I you know, until I reallygot to a place where I accepted myself
no matter what I look like,and I was I was not paying attention
to what people would say about mybody anymore. Until I got to that
place, I felt like anorextyo wasaway. They're waiting for me just because
oh I need it that feels likeboth parts are very important. Yeah,
(08:05):
And I feel like as I atleast get older, I'm learning so much
through my friends, like the onesthat are like having babies and like the
real seriousness of postpartum depression and thebodies that they obviously develop after giving birth.
Like I haven't had that experience yet, but I could imagine it's something
very similar to any type of eatingdisorder. Would you agree having kids yourself?
(08:28):
Do I think that the body imageissues after having kids is like,
yeah, I mean it's very hardas a woman when society, you know,
is constantly commenting on whether or notyou've gained or lost weight. It's
very hard to see the changes thathappen to your body after children. For
me at least and for many people, I know, your body doesn't snap
(08:50):
back in the same way, andit's tough because people make comments. You
know, it is hard, andI know a lot of mothers that struggle
with dieting and feel a lot ofpressure to lose weight right after they have
children. So yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate what we do to each
other. And the way that youknow, in social media doesn't help e
(09:11):
There not even a little bit,but you with you being in the limelight,
I'm sure like that pressure is obviouslylike augmented. But with that,
your whole life is on display forpeople to see, which makes it harder.
But with that, there's a partin your book and I don't want
to divulge too much for those thatare interested in reading it, So I'm
going to try and like backpedal alittle. In your book, you talk
(09:33):
about how your life is on somuch of a display, but you were
internalizing this secret from these cameras,and it seems that, like in your
book, no one really noticed.Was there one person who really ever reached
out to you and was like,hey, do you like want to talk
or like I'm noticing this about you? Not one person, no the first
time. But it's not anybody's faultbecause I was very secret there and very
(09:56):
stubborn, and this was you know, my eating disorder was mine and I
didn't let anyone mess with it,nobody. So I don't really fault anyone
because I was very stoic. Butthey did notice my second season, and
you know, we're on a show, so they have to they have to
(10:18):
call me out on it on camera. They can't bring it to me privately.
Yeah, so I was called outon camera, but I was prepared
for if and when that would happen, and I had stories ready to go,
and I had excuses ready to go. So I explained it away and
it went away. Good for you. Okay. Now, I don't know
(10:39):
if you're allowed to like divulge this, but when things are brought to you
on camera, are they genuinely likeshocking to you, or did the producers
like warm me up to like theidea of what that's how that's going to
go? They're shocking to me.I had no idea that my castmates noticed,
but you know, I had excusesand I explained it away and that
(11:00):
was enough for them, and soit kind of went away. So I,
you know, I wasn't ready torecover and and I didn't want to
be forced into it. So Iwas very, very relieved that I was
able to make excuses and it reallydidn't come up again until I decided to
(11:20):
recover. So keyword is you decidedto recover. And I kind of weirdly
in a way. I don't knowif I should say I loved that you
said this, but like your yourdisorder was yours and no one could like
take that from you kind of thing. And that's that's weirdly, that's weirdly
encouraging to hear because it's something thatyou have to tackle and you have to
(11:41):
be ready to tackle on your ownterms. So you can't let anybody like
force that upon you, right,And I mean, if you're a child,
if you're a minor, your parentscan send you to you know,
to get to recovery. But asan adult, you really can't force another
adult to recover. And I findthat until I was truly ready to recover,
(12:03):
I had no real interest in stayingcommitted to it. But once I
was personally ready, I you couldn'tstop me. I was so I was
so committed to it. Once Isaw a little bit of what life could
be like without it, I was. I was really committed to it.
Good. Yeah, do you havedo you have? I mean, I
(12:24):
had the AHA moment in your bookreading it, But did you have the
aha moment when you're like, Ineed to make a change, Like what
was your Yeah, what specific situationor was there one that happened that you
were like, I need to snapout of it? Yeah? So I
had always been, you know,for twenty years, been living with anorexia,
and it was always there controlling me. But there were times of a
(12:48):
little more food, and there weretimes of less food, like I would
tighten my restrictions if I got stressedout. So I mean, there was
never enough food, but there waseven less and it was more exercise when
I would get stressed out. SoI used food when you know, to
handle my emotions. And something happenedon the show, which I'm sure everyone
(13:11):
knows about, and you know,it translated into my home life. And
my husband was very upset and wewere fighting, and the world was weighing
in and social media was tearing usapart, and I really stopped eating like
it was bad, and I dealtwith stress by running, and I got
(13:33):
myself so thin and so my bodyhurts so bad that I one day just
you know, after I worked out, I just lost it. I fell
to the floor. And it wasthe first time that I really said to
myself, what what would life looklike if I stopped? And I realized
(13:54):
that if I didn't stop now,I just keep going. And one day,
if I even made it to sixtyfive, I would still be doing
this shit right, And I knewin that moment that it's now or never,
and so I I seized on thatmoment in case I would change my
(14:16):
mind, and I told Evan,I'm sick and I need help go for
you. And that was a realthat was a real turning point. And
I would encourage anyone if you everhave that moment before you lose that's trying.
Don't tell somebody that you love thatyou want them to help you,
because then that door is open,you know, thousand percent. And as
a mom, do do you fearthat like sharing your story would kind of
(14:39):
even shed a light on something likethat for your kids, or like,
would you, if your God forbidyour kids felt any type of way that
you used to feel, would youlike you had mentioned send them somewhere to
get help, or would you nowknow how to help them on your own?
Oh no, I think that professionalhelp is definitely needed when you have
an eating disorder, a full fudgedeating disorder. So I know that I
(15:01):
did a lot of damage to mykids, and there's no one who could
love their kids more like I justlive and die for my kids. But
yeah, I have to acknowledge thatI modeled some incredibly dangerous and unhealthy behaviors
in front of them when it cameto food and exercise. So I have
you know, I try very hardto model now really healthy behaviors in front
(15:26):
of them. I'm always eating withthem. I share food with them,
I don't restrict. My exercise ismoderate. I you know, I'm not
the best at the language that I'msupposed to use, so I try more
to model behaviors. But it's hardwarefrom Jersey. I'm learning how to talk
to them. Yeah, I'm learninghow to talk to them about it.
I encourage moderation. I encourage justbeing outside and getting some you know,
(15:50):
fresh air and physical exercise. Butyou know, I do worry about it,
and there's no there's no denying that. I really, you know,
let them see some bad stuff.So if that day does ever come where
they think about, you know,I want to lose some weight and what
did mommy do? And they tryto do but I did, I am
(16:10):
prepared to handle it and have sometalks with them. But hopefully, you
know, hopefully they see what I'mdoing now and they know how dangerous what
I did in the past was,and hopefully that never happened. Well for
what it's worth, I love watchingyour journey. I love reading about your
journey in the weight of Beautiful.So for anyone that hasn't ready yet,
definitely recommend. The last thing Iwant to talk about before I let you
(16:33):
go is you just mentioned the dinnertable. I mean, growing up in
the New York Jersey area, youknow how important dinner time is to Italiano's
like me. So with that beingsaid, I always sometimes find like my
unhealthy relationship with food, and likeif I ever came home from college,
my mom would see like, ohI'm losing weight, Like oh I'm gaining
weight, and she'd be like,oh you're too thin, Like here,
(16:53):
eat more, eat more. So, like, the dinner table is very
It's a hot topic. I thinkto our area, like this is where
the family comes together. Food issocial for us. So how is your
dynamic now at dinner time with thefamily now that you've are you cooking?
What kind of conversations? No,you're not cooking, Okay, I did
(17:14):
not have to cook me neither,you know what, So it's a terrible.
So you know, I grew upin a house that did not have
dinner together. Sure, so inmy in my head, it's never been
a thing. Unfortunately, it's neverbeen a thing. But now with with
my kids, they're athletes, sothere's constant practices. And I have four
teenagers, so it's not easy forus all to get together and sit down
(17:38):
at the table. But we dohave at least one or two a week.
That's good. Yeah, So whenwe all eat together. They used
to I used to not care atall because nothing was more important than maintaining
my eating disorder. I didn't carewhat they saw. I didn't care who
wanted me to eat something. Mytheory was like, it doesn't it shouldn't
(17:59):
matter to you what goes down myyou know, throat. You know.
So I always convinced myself that itwas nobody's business but my own. But
now I make sure that they seeme eating everything with them. I make
sure to even if I want to, like check a menu first, or
(18:23):
you know, if I want toorder the healthiest thing on the menu instead
of something I want I don't,you know, I make sure that I'm
fully connected to them during the meals. I'm just trying to undo all the
damage I did. I really enjoymy life as you should, and enjoy
food. Yeah, and enjoy food. Really, it's like the first time
in my life that I've ever enjoyedfood, even though I've only been out.
(18:44):
I was only anorexic from twenty Fromage twenty six forward, I really
had such a fractured relationship with mybody and with food ever since I was
thirteen. Right, so this isreally the first time in my life I'm
ever really enjoying food, you know, And it's it's amazing. It looks
amazing just based off of not onlyhow and you know what I think.
(19:07):
Sometimes it's difficult, especially in situationlike situations like this, like when I'm
losing weight. Personally, I feelrewarded when people are like like, damn,
you look good. But like sometimesthat's like if you're losing weight,
that's not always good, you knowwhat I mean. So when people and
that's the problem, yeah, right, when people, when people congratulate you
on how well you look or howgood you look or healthy you look.
(19:27):
Is that how do you take thatin like a personal way or differently than
so it used to be. Itused to be while I was sick,
if somebody told me I looked healthy, there was like nothing worse that you
could say to me, because mymind immediately went to, oh my god,
I gained weight, Oh my god. So I didn't know what to
do with it. Any kind ofcomments about my body would just make me
(19:48):
spiral. Now how unfortunately, Iknow that people confuse health with thin,
healthy with thin, and with fatwa with unhealthy, and it's just it's
so wrong. But comments about mybody now do nothing to me because people
(20:08):
have no idea what's going on insideof me. And you know, unfortunately
people are not you know, theproblem is that nobody talks about this stuff.
R I know, so exactly.Even if you even if you told
a woman who had just lost alot of weight because of something traumatic going
on and she stopped eating, ifyou told her she looked great, and
that's only going to encourage her tokeep going. So what I'm really hoping,
(20:32):
I mean, I hope a lotof things for this book. I
mean, I love the process ofwriting it, I love being an author.
I really hope that it helps people. I also hope that it's just
a great book that you bring ina vacation with you and like you devour
it. You know, don't don'tspoil it because it's my airplane read and
I have one more trip to takebefore I finish it, so it is
my vacation book. But I reallyhope, I really do hope that it
(20:55):
lets people feel a little more comfortabletalking about this stuff. So like if
somebody is struggling and someone says,God, you look great, you lost
so much weight, that they couldactually maybe say, oh, you know,
I've been having a hard time,so it's stressed, and I,
you know, I'm hoping that itmakes it a little less shameful to admit
that you have a problem, youknow, and that you know, people
(21:17):
don't live with it as long asI did, because I feel like,
you know, I'm missed out ona lot, and I'm sad about it,
and I try to not be sadabout it because all of those terrible
times, like I'm assuming you're alreadypast the chapter with like the Tunicans in
Mexico like that, that time alwayssticks out in my head and it makes
me so sad because I did that, even though I only told that story,
(21:41):
like I just did that to myselffor so like every vacation I was
on was another version of that,right, and it makes me sad.
But now those those moments have anotherlife and they can help people, you
know, and they can let peopleknow that they're not alone. And it
as bad as you are, Likeif you're eating your dinner like out of
(22:03):
a can in a bathroom on vacation, like you can still one day,
fully, fully make it to theother side. Well, if he gives
you any reassurance, your book isdoing exactly that for at least one person,
and that one person is Meank youso thank you so much, no,
thank you so much for sharing yourstory. And I think moving forward,
my compliment to people are is nolonger going to be like, oh,
(22:26):
you look great, It's going tobe you look happy, and that's
that's important, you know what Imean. So for what it's worth,
I'm going to do that too,right like, we'll make that path right
here. But you look happy,and that's all that we care about in
your happiness. You feel good withyourself and truly like your journey is your
journey journey, and we are sograteful that you're willing to share it with
us. So thank you for givingus the way of beautiful, because it
(22:47):
truly is so thinking beautiful. Lookat that cute little girl with the look
at her. Thank you so much. I love talking to you.
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