Victoria Kleinsman (00:01.228)
Hello lovelies, welcome to another episode. You know, I record these episodes a little bit in advance. So today it is currently Sunday, the 8th of March. I it’s so beautiful outside weather-wise. I have a few lovely clients in Canada and it’s still so snowy and so cold. And I feel very grateful that I’ve been sat outside in the sun in a strappy top, just feeling the sun on my face. feels so good.

And also looking at my vibe on video today, I kind of feel like I’m going back in time with like the gold hoops, the side ponytail, the vibrant green, got my lovely Marla necklace on, which my lovely friend and client, Karina, gifted to me. Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we? Before I get into the actual juice of the episode, which is of course a control paradox, which I’m really…

excited as always to share with you today. I want to answer a listener’s question. So let me bring her question up. And this question is by the lovely Heather. I know Heather as well. So thank you for your question, Heather. And she says: “what do I do if thinness is the only thing that makes me feel powerful and able to make it through life’s hardships?” And she said, she also in the second part,

she doesn’t know why she’s still not surrendering yet. I mean, that is a great question, isn’t it? Because she’s obviously done some deeper work to understand that the eating disorder is an attempt at control of course, hence the not surrendering yet. And the thinness, sorry, I’m getting a dog hair off my laptop. And the thinness because it’s not thinness in and of itself, it’s what we make thinness mean.

And what thinness actually gives us in terms of evidence, because you know, we live in a society where it still sadly praises thinness. And therefore we live in a dualistic world, which means if there’s left, there’s right, if there’s up, there’s down. So if we’re praising thinness and the opposite also becomes true, that fatness is bad and wrong. And for me, I also felt really powerful and very safe. It was the first layer of…

Victoria Kleinsman (02:20.962)
me discovering what thinness and looking a certain way was bringing me it was power, and desirability and control and ultimately it was safety. So her question is, again, what do I do if thinness is the only thing that makes me feel powerful? Well, the answer is the deeper work, right? So thinness doesn’t make you powerful. It makes you feel like you’re powerful, which is

why you’ve asked the question. But it’s not true for everybody. There’s lots of people out there who are not thin, who feel powerful, and safe and control. I’ve got a funny relationship with the word control, which I’m gonna go into in today’s episode. But there’s people out there who are not thin, who are very powerful, who not only see and feel themselves powerful, but other people see them as powerful too. So for you, it feels safe to be thin.

and I’m sure so many of us can relate as well. And it makes you feel worthy of existing. And there’s a big difference between the fact of thinness makes me powerful. It feels that it’s true because you’ve had that experience, but it’s actually not true. You can feel powerful, in fact, more empowered than you’ve ever felt in your life without controlling your body. Because underneath the thinness, you don’t feel like you’re enough.

You don’t feel powerful, you don’t feel worthy, valuable or deserving just as you are, right? So you’re compensating. You’re trying to earn your right to resist. You’re trying to earn your safe space to take up space. Or maybe you’re, you just want to feel desirable and powerful because it feels safe. Again, that was my root one. And thinness becomes that currency that you can use in the world that

the currency is accepted widely. I’m trying not to sneeze. I think I stopped it. So you’re trying to use this currency to buy worthiness and to buy safety. if you like. So maybe thinness does actually in reality get you attention and validation, compliments and admiration, a sense of achievement, control when everything else might feel chaotic, people treating you as disciplined or

Victoria Kleinsman (04:41.454)
or superior somehow, a feeling of being better than others and safety because you’re taking up less space and because you just feel in control and smaller and like you’ve got it all together and worthy because you’re meeting society’s standards. So the truth is that that’s not real power, that’s external validation.

masquerading as power. It’s not true power. Of course I understand why you feel that way and I felt that too, but that’s not true power. Especially when you’re spending most of your brain space and your energy thinking about worrying about food, body. all the things that is like far from being in your power. If you think about it, because real power, true empowerment is a better word I like to use. It doesn’t come from other people’s approval.

Real power doesn’t require you to shrink or to lose weight or to be small or to edit yourself or to suppress yourself in any way. Real power doesn’t depend on fitting an impossible standard. And if you follow the money in society, sadly, the trend at the moment is the hardest thing to attain and people get money from you trying to attain that standard. So that also changes depending on the trend at the moment. It’s just bullshit.

But like I say, I get it because I’ve been there as well. I felt powerful and safe when men wanted to sleep with me, when women wanted to be me. when they told me that. But underneath that, I didn’t feel like I was enough. So I compensated. I used my body, my thinness, my desirability, my sexiness to earn the worthiness and safety I didn’t believe I inherently had. So the eating disorder is doing the same thing for you.

It’s giving you something external to make you feel valuable because you don’t believe you’re valuable without it. yet. It’s compensating for a core wound. And the core wound is the belief that you’re not enough just as you are. And it’s a belief that can be changed. It’s a wound, it can be healed. So the question isn’t, how do I give up the thing that makes me feel powerful? The question is,

Victoria Kleinsman (06:55.714)
Why don’t I feel powerful without thinness? What happened that made me believe that I’m not enough without it? And that’s the root cause work here because that’s where the real healing happens. Because the truth is you are enough, you are powerful, not because of your body size, but because of who you fucking are, because you just exist. honestly. But you won’t believe that no matter how many times I tell it to you. all the people tell it to you. my daughter’s waving at me.

Hello. She’s outside, I’m in the office. So cute, I can’t ignore that. You won’t believe that until you address the wound underneath. The one that’s convinced you that you need to earn your safety and your worth through thinness. So here’s a practical piece. What would need to be true for you to even consider letting go of thinness? Because you’re not going to surrender something that feels like

It’s your only source of worth, right? Or safety. You’re not gonna surrender that until you have evidence that you can have those things without the thinness. So I want you to ask yourself, what would need to be true for you to feel safe in a bigger body? Would your partner still need to find you attractive and desirable? That was a big one for me. That needed to be true in order for me to feel safe being in a bigger body and also empowered and powerful.

Do you need to still feel confident in social situations? Would you need to believe that people would still respect you? Would you need to have experiences of being happy, powerful, and safe in a bigger body? What would need to be true for you to feel worthy without thinness? So really take your time here. What would need to be true for me to feel worthy without thinness? Would you need to achieve something that has nothing to do with your body?

Would you need validation that isn’t tied to your appearance? And would you need to prove to yourself that you matter for reasons other than being thin? For me, what needed to be true was my partner would still find me sexy and attractive in a bigger body. I needed evidence of that, not just in him saying it, but him showing it to me through his actions and his desire. And if I had a partner that didn’t find me,

Victoria Kleinsman (09:22.634)
attractive or desirable in a bigger body, he wouldn’t still be my partner anymore, trust me on that. I have experiences this is what needs to be true for me, that I could have experiences of feeling happy and safe in a bigger body, I needed to actually live moments where I was in a larger body and yet I could still feel connection and joy, safety and pleasure.

I could still be powerful and take up space without being thin. That’s what needed to be true. That I could still be powerful to take up space without needing to be thin. I needed proof that my voice, my presence, my impact in the world didn’t require me to be small. And the thing that I learned was that I had to, this is important, I had to create those experiences before I could even think about believing them. People say you need to,

Say it over and over again and then you’ll just believe it. No, doesn’t work like that. Your brain and your nervous system need evidence in order to take on a belief and have it feeling true for you. So I needed to create those experiences. What would need to be true in order for me to be safe or feel powerful without being thin, in order for me to then believe them. And then the hardest part is you have to create those experiences for yourself before you believe them and then the belief catches up.

So this is where the act as if you deserve it, even if you don’t believe it will yet work. You can’t wait until you feel worthy or powerful in a bigger body to recover. You’ll be waiting forever. You have to recover, gain the weight, let go of control, and then discover the things that you’re afraid of losing. You don’t actually lose them. That’s the thing. You think you’re gonna lose all these things. You do the fearful, scary actions and…

you know, behaviours and then what you thought you’d lost, you actually haven’t, you’ve gained so much more than you ever thought. I mean, yes, there’s absolutely grief work to be done, like letting go of what you thought your bigger body, sorry, letting go of what you thought your smaller body gave you, perhaps what your smaller body did give you in terms of how you felt and society and how you were treated. But all of that can be let go of, it can be grieved, but you’ve gained so much more.

Victoria Kleinsman (11:47.202)
So here’s your homework, obviously for you Heather and for anyone else who’s resonating too, make a list, take time for this. What would need to be true for me to feel safe, worthy, powerful, desirable in a bigger body? Then ask yourself, how can I start creating evidence for these things now, even whilst I’m still terrified? And.

that could look like having vulnerable conversations with your partner about your fears. Practicing a moment of feeling happy in your body exactly as it is today without changing it, without knowing you’re losing weight, doing something powerful that has nothing to do with your body, connecting with someone in a bigger body who has what you’re afraid that you will lose. That’s a very good one. And the reason you haven’t surrendered yet is because surrendering thinness

currently feels like giving up your only sense of safety and worth. And you can’t let go of that until your actual worth, the inherent unlearned, unearned, unconditional worthiness that exists simply because you’re alive, because you also need evidence that the things thinness is giving you, you can have those in a bigger body too. I promise you that.

So for me, when I wrote a list of like my fears, what will happen if I gain weight, it was things like I won’t be confident, I won’t be happy, I won’t be attractive, I won’t be loved. All those things are not true at all. So that’s pretty cool, because you have a power. So that’s the work. It’s not giving up power, it’s finding your real power. The kind that doesn’t require you to shrink, to starve or perform.

to access it and creating evidence that you can be safe, worthy, loved and powerful at any size because you absolutely can. All right, love, okay, so that was the answer to your question. Any other questions that you have and anyone else that has for the podcast, pop it in the questions for the podcast. Again, you can find that on my Instagram story highlights and at the bottom of my email if you’re on my email list. So back to, well,

Victoria Kleinsman (14:07.822)
diving into, because we haven’t started it yet, the episode today, of course, the title, The Control Paradox, why letting go is your only path to food freedom and freedom in general. Because it might feel completely backwards for your eating disorder brain, but you need to stay with me here. The goal of recovery is not to be in control around food. The goal is to let go of control entirely.

I know, I know. The eating disorder, probably just had a full panic attack hearing that. Because the whole point of the eating disorder it feels like the whole point is about gaining control, right? Gaining safety. Control over your body, control over food, control over your life. You will have a belief that control equals safety. But the thing, the truth that is gonna set you free is control is actually the prison.

Letting go of control is the freedom that you are seeking. And I’m not talking about swapping one type of control for another. I’m talking, I’m not talking about controlled eating or a balanced approach or moderation or any of that, in my opinion, quasi recovery bollocks. I’m talking about complete, total, unconditional, letting go of control around food and your body. And from that place of freedom,

From that place of no foods on a pedestal, no rules, no restrictions, you get to actually choose. Because choice and control are not the same thing. So let’s dive in. Let’s start with the honest truth. You did not develop an eating disorder because you’re vain, because you’re broken, because you’re weak. You developed it because at some point, control felt like the only thing keeping you safe.

Maybe your childhood was chaotic and unpredictable. Maybe you experienced trauma and needed something that you could control. Maybe you felt invisible or unheard and controlling your body made you feel seen. Maybe you were taught that your worth came from your appearance or your achievements. or how good you were or how much you helped people. Maybe you believed or you were taught and therefore you then believed and internalized that.

Victoria Kleinsman (16:34.274)
that the world felt overwhelming and controlling food felt manageable and safe. Maybe you learned that you needed to feel powerful when you felt powerless in almost all the areas of your life. And the eating disorder promised you control when everything else felt out of control. Do you resonate, my love? But here’s the thing, it worked. For a while, restriction gave you a sense of achievement.

The scale going down felt like winning. Controlling what you ate felt like having power and safety finally. But then what you thought you were in control of started controlling you. And the lines got merged. And you thought you were in control but at the same time you kind of knew you weren’t anymore. The eating disorder that promised you freedom and happiness became your prison.

The control that felt empowering became exhausting. The rules that felt safe became suffocating. And now you’re stuck in this impossible place where you cannot imagine letting go of control. It feels terrifying. The control is making you miserable and deep down you know that this is not freedom. This is not actual freedom. But here’s what I want you to understand.

The control you’re clinging to isn’t actually keeping you safe. It’s an illusion of safety. It’s your nervous system’s attempt to manage threats by micromanaging your food and body. But real safety and real freedom, doesn’t come from control. It comes from trust, from surrender, and from letting go. So let’s be clear about what’s actually happening.

with the eating disorder. It doesn’t matter whether you restrict, binge, purge, over-exercise, or any combination, they’re all attempts at control. Restriction is controlling the input. For example, if I control exactly what goes in, I can therefore control my body. Binging is of course, the body’s rebellion against control, which then creates a cycle of trying to regain control and losing it and regaining it and losing it over and over again.

Victoria Kleinsman (18:57.582)
Purging is an attempt to control the outcome after losing control. Overexercising, again, it’s an attempt to control the outcome, controlling the output. If I control how much I burn, therefore I can make up for what I did or I can therefore control my body. Obsessive planning and tracking is attempting to control every variable. Even healthy eating or even intuitive eating, depending on what.

model of intuitive eating you’re following, that can also become control. When it’s rigid, when it’s rule-bound or used to manage something, then that’s again another form of control. Like one of the principles I hate, and that’s a strong word, I hate it and I don’t follow that in intuitive eating, is something like don’t eat emotionally. When you know that you’re using food emotionally, don’t eat, do something else instead or manage your emotions in another way.

Yeah, well try telling that to someone who’s had restriction in the past, who’s restricted in their past history, who’s then binged and perhaps, let’s say they’re not binging anymore, but then they always turn to food through emotional digress, whether it’s when you’re super happy, so you eat anyway because you don’t care, whether it’s because you’re sad or bored. Emotional eating doesn’t work by trying to stop emotional eating. That’s another podcast and I’ve done a few on those things before, but.

Yeah, that’s why, yeah, good luck telling someone who eats emotionally, just don’t eat emotionally, yeah. Just, you know, feel your feelings instead. There’s so much more to it than that. So, going back to what I wanted to say around the control thing, the eating disorder convinces you that if you just find the right way to control food, you’ll finally feel safe and worthy and free. But here’s the truth, truth bomb, no amount of control will…

ever be enough because the eating disorder does not have an end point. There’s no finish line where you’ve controlled enough and now you get to be free. You know this. Am I right or am I right? The more you try to control, the more out of control you feel. The tighter you grip, the more anxious you become, the more rules you create, the more you obsess about breaking them.

Victoria Kleinsman (21:21.086)
Even if you’ve achieved what you set out to achieve, you’re now petrified of losing. what you’ve achieved and, you know, not keeping it or maintaining it. You’re trying to control your way to freedom, but control and freedoms are literally opposites. You’re trying to relax by being more tense. It’s like trying to trust by being more vigilant. It just doesn’t fucking work. Like you’re literally doing the opposite of what you need to be doing.

and it feels so wrong when you’re doing what I’m suggesting, I get it. But this is a bit that’s gonna blow your mind, right? Control and choice are not the same thing. In fact, they’re opposites. Control and choice are opposites. Let me explain. Control comes from fear. It’s rigid, it’s rule-based, it’s anxiety-driven. It’s your eating disorder or trauma response in charge of you. It feels like a…

I have to do this or if I don’t something bad will happen. It’s like a compulsion. It’s restricting choices to feel safe. It requires constant vigilance and effort. It’s exhausting and it comes from your suppressed self. Choice on the other hand, however, comes from freedom. It’s flexible, it’s values based and it’s trust driven. It’s your soul self.

in the driver’s seat. It feels like, I want this or this feels right for me. It’s having all options available and then choosing what you genuinely desire in that moment. It requires trust in yourself and your body. It’s liberating. It comes from your soul self. Here’s a concrete example. Control, I can only eat 1200 calories today.

“I have to have salad for lunch. I cannot have dessert. If I eat more than this, I have failed.” Choice. I’m hungry. What sounds good to me right now? What choices do I have? that pasta looks amazing. I’m gonna have that. And maybe I’ll want dessert after and maybe I won’t. I’ll just see how I feel in the moment. Do you see the difference? Choice is living in the present moment, in the now. Control is future planning.

Victoria Kleinsman (23:43.692)
not allowing your true desires to come through and just trying to, yeah, without saying the word again, control things. So the difference is huge. One is driven by fear and rules. The other is driven by trust and genuine desire. in the present moment. Control is I’m not allowed to have that. Choice is I could have that if I wanted to. Do I want it? Control is I have to follow these rules or I’ll lose control completely.

And choice is, what does my body actually want right now? Let’s just take it to an even easier way to look at it. Because I used to get confused between what my body wanted and what my mind wanted, but actually, what do I want? It doesn’t have to be my body or my mind. It’s just like, what feels good to me right now? It’s that intuition eating over intuitive eating. And ultimately, if there was no restriction or trauma or diet culture, eating would just…

Intuitive eating would just be called eating anyway. Control is, if I let myself eat freely, I will never stop. And choice is, I can have as much as I want, so how much do I genuinely want to have? And here’s a beautiful, terrifying truth. You cannot have choice while you’re still trying to maintain control. You can kid yourself that you’re choosing, but you’re actually not. When foods are forbidden,

you cannot genuinely choose them because the choice is contaminated by restriction and rebellion. Works both ways, restriction and rebellion. When you have rules about when, what, how much you can eat, you can’t hear what your body actually wants because the rules are louder than your body’s signals. Freedom of choice only exists when there’s no control.

when all options are genuinely available, when nothing is forbidden, when there are no rules to follow and therefore no rules to break. So when I say let go of control, I know the eating disorder is hearing chaos, binging forever, gaining infinite weight, complete disaster, unsafe, danger, alert, all these things. But that’s actually not what letting go of control means. Letting go of control means

Victoria Kleinsman (26:09.504)
unconditional permission to eat. Any food, any time, any amount. No forbidden foods, no meal timing rules, no portion limits, no compensating afterwards. Trusting your body to regulate itself, believing your body knows how much it needs. Understanding that your hunger and fullness cues will normalize when you stop overriding them.

trusting your body to settle at its natural set point weight, letting your body lead instead of your mind leading, eating when you’re hungry, stopping when satisfied once those signals return through regular eating, following cravings and desires without judgment, honoring extreme hunger when and if it shows up, resting when your body needs to rest.

Removing all food rules and restrictions. There’s no good or bad foods. There’s no earning food through exercise. There’s no categorizing foods as safe or fear foods. Just food that you love or foods that you don’t like. No tracking, no measuring, no monitoring, no moderation. Because moderation quotes, happens naturally. It cannot happen when you’re…

trying to force it or trying to control my duration, it just doesn’t happen that way. Trust me, I have tried. Surrendering the outcome, not trying to control your weight. This obviously requires deeper body image work and trauma healing work to be able to be at a place where you’re not trying to control your weight, because of what that means to you. Not trying to control how fast you recover. That’s a big one. People don’t really talk about that a lot. Let your timeline be your timeline.

not trying to manipulate the process to avoid weight gain. I used to, when I found out and understood what the set point weight theory was, I would then be like, right, okay, so if you’ve got like a set point weight range, like everyone has, it differs for some people, but my set point weight range, if I was to guess, is probably within about seven pounds, like half a stone. Sorry for those ones who aren’t British, I don’t know what that is in kilograms.

Victoria Kleinsman (28:27.118)
So I’ll be like, right, well, if I can just be within my set point weight, but be at the lowest end of my set point weight. Yeah, that didn’t work either because I was also trying to control me being in my set point weight. It doesn’t fucking work. Trust me, I’ve done it for you, so you don’t have to make that mistake again. Surrendering the outcome looks like accepting whatever your body needs to do in order to heal.

And I know that this sounds absolutely terrifying. I know the eating disorder is probably screaming right now, even if you’re still listening, right? If you are, good for you. There’s a big part of you that wants true freedom. But here’s what letting go of control is not. It’s not binging forever. It’s not eating past fullness constantly. It’s not fuck it, I don’t care about myself. I’m just gonna eat infinite foods forever because why not?

It’s not giving up. It’s not the same thing as being out of control. The opposite of control isn’t out of control. The opposite of control is freedom. And from freedom comes choice in alignment with your values, with yourself. how you want to feel, all the good stuff. So let’s be honest about why you’re actually terrified.

and afraid of when you think about letting go of control, you have this huge visceral nervous system danger experience. It might sound like if I let go of control, I will never stop eating. I will be that one person who just gains weight and gains weight forever. and ever and ever. The fear makes sense, right? Because right now, the only thing stopping you from eating everything is control, rules, restriction, willpower. But the thing is,

The reason you want to eat everything is because of the control. Can you see the paradox here? Deprivation creates obsession. Restriction creates rebellion. Control creates the feeling of being out of control. When you truly let go of control, when all foods are genuinely unconditionally available, and you do that by showing your body and yourself it’s all available,

Victoria Kleinsman (30:44.418)
Your body stops hoarding. Your mind stops obsessing. The urgency disappears. If I let go of control, I’ll gain infinite weight. The eating disorder has convinced you that only, sorry, let me backtrack. The eating disorder has convinced you that only control is preventing your body from ballooning to an infinite size. But that’s not how bodies work.

your body has a set point weight range that it wants to be at. It wants to, it works both ways, up and down. When you let go of control, your body will initially overshoot probably, yes. You’ll likely gain weight over your set point in recovery. It doesn’t happen to everyone, it did happen to me. But then, if you just get the fuck out of the way and keep eating unrestrictedly and tuning into yourself and all the things,

your body will naturally settle at its set point weight. Your body doesn’t want to be infinite. It wants to be healthy and functional and thriving. So trust it. If I let go of control, I’ll lose all discipline and I’ll become lazy. This fear is really about identity, that one in particular. You’ve equated control with worthiness, discipline with value.

restriction with success and you’ve probably had society mirror that back to you to be true, right? But letting go of control around food doesn’t make you undisciplined. It makes you free to direct your energy towards things that actually matter. Your purpose, your relationships, your life, instead of wasting it all on micromanaging your food. So when I truly let go of control around food in my body,

I thought I’d be undisciplined. dear, she’s fell over. My husband’s there, it’s okay. I thought it would make me undisciplined, but actually I’ve created a thriving coaching business. You can’t do that through being undisciplined, you know? So the fear is talking bullshit. It doesn’t even become true what you’re afraid of. You might be you will be afraid of weight gain. I’m not saying that won’t come true. That will most likely come true, but the fear you have

Victoria Kleinsman (33:02.658)
when you gain weight because, and the meanings you put behind them, they won’t come true, because that’s what healing and recovery is. You literally work through them. So you can be the happiest and freest you’ve ever been, even when facing your biggest fears ever. So the core fear underneath of all the others is usually not about food at all. It’s usually…

If I let go of control, something bad will happen. It’s not actually about food in general. It’s not even about your body. It’s about what all of that means underneath. The fear, the deep rooted core fear is your trauma response. It’s a part of you that learned early on that control equates to safety, that letting go and trusting equates to danger. But here’s what I want you to hear. The bad thing that you’re afraid of.

It’s already happened. That’s why you developed the eating disorder in the first place. You’re trying to control your way into preventing something that has already occurred. Think about that. You can’t control your way backwards. You can only heal your way forwards. I like that. That was good, wasn’t it? You can’t control your way backwards. You can only heal your way forwards. Bit cringy, but true.

So let’s talk about what happens when you’re operating from control versus true Victoria style freedom. When you’re controlling food, certain foods are on a pedestal. They’re special, they’re forbidden, they’re powerful. They have an almost magical quality to them. Like if you let yourself have them, you will lose all control. Maybe it’s chocolate, bread, pizza, ice cream, crisps, pastries, whatever your specific fear foods are.

Interestingly, they’re hardly ever foods that aren’t processed, but I did work with one client before who was restricted fruit for most of her life because of the sugar in fruit. And when she started her food freedom journey, she was just binging, quote unquote, she wasn’t actually binging because she thought she was, she was just binging on fruit because that was forbidden for her as a child and growing up. So whatever foods you have on a pedestal, you have them on there because they’re restricted.

Victoria Kleinsman (35:22.316)
And restriction creates obsession, right? So if you were to think about your biggest fear food, if you were to allow yourself to eat it unconditionally, what would that top food be? For mine it was chocolate. I wonder why, because chocolate is the thing I’ve restricted or tried to restrict the most in my entire life. It was always that I cut out first, always. And it was the hardest one to restrict because it created an obsession.

So when you can’t have something or you can only have it in tiny controlled amounts, your brain becomes fixated on it. It’s like telling a child they can’t touch something, that’s all they want to do is touch the thing. The pedestal foods have power over you on this pedestal because you’ve given them power through restriction. You’ve done it. It’s not your fault. It’s your responsibility to change it. And the good thing is if you created something,

you can uncreate it as well. So what happens when you see these foods that you have on a pedestal, these fear foods, intense craving, mental battle, should I, shouldn’t I, maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t, back and forth, if you give in guilt, shame, feeling out of control, if you resist pride, but also deprivation and obsession, either way, food has power over you.

Now let’s contrast that with what happens when you let go of control. When all foods are unconditionally available, when nothing is forbidden, nothing is forbidden in any amount. I know that sounds irresponsible and ridiculous, but again, trust me on this. I’m in this space and I am in this space in terms of the recovery space as a coach, as an expert in this field and in this space of like genuine happiness.

and health and freedom in my own personal experience for a reason. When nothing is forbidden, nothing is earned, nothing is restricted, foods come off the pedestal. It might take a while. it might take months and months of only eating that thing day in, day out, like day in, day out and thinking, my God, I’m literally going to be that person who eats it forever and doesn’t stop. I’m gonna be the person who gains infinite weight. I’m gonna be the person who’s always obsessed with this food. Nope.

Victoria Kleinsman (37:46.35)
You won’t be, if you are human, you will not be, okay? If you do the recovery in the, I don’t like to use the word in the right way, but I’m gonna say it for lack of a better expression. So chocolate does just become chocolate. It’s not the forbidden fruit. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not something you have to earn or compensate. It’s just food that tastes really fucking good. I love chocolate still. It’s not like all food just becomes like meh.

No, I love food, I’m a foodie, I get excited about food, but I’m not obsessed with it anymore. I’m not like counting down the days till I’m allowing myself to have some chocolate at the weekend or like drooling over the supermarket aisle of chocolate and like hoarding them. I’m just like, yay, there’s a new chocolate bar, I’m gonna try it. Like it just becomes an exciting, pleasurable part of life, not your entire life. And from that place, from that place of total freedom, where all foods are available,

for the rest of your life, that’s when you actually get to choose. Not control, not restrict, not battle, not rebel, just choose. Do I want chocolate right now? Yeah, I do, cool, I’ll have some. Or do I want chocolate right now? Well, actually, no, I mean could always eat some, but no, I’m not bothered. I’ll have some crisps instead, I’m.

kind of going for savory amounts of chocolate later or tomorrow. Or, do I want chocolate right now? You know what, I’m not sure. I could take it or leave it. I’ll have a bit and just see how I feel if I want more or if I don’t, because it’s no biggie. You see how different that is. When you’re controlling, the question is: am I allowed to have this? When you’re free, the question is: do I want this?

One comes from fear and restriction. The other comes from trust and genuine desire. And here’s the beautiful thing. When foods aren’t on a pedestal, they lose their power over you. Chocolate just becomes chocolate. Something that you might want, sometimes, often, daily, who knows, but it won’t be from an obsessive place, on something you might not want all the time or at go other times. It’s not something you obsess over.

Victoria Kleinsman (40:06.816)
It’s not something you binge on because I’ve already broken my diet. I may as well eat it all now, I’m allowed. It’s not something that controls your thoughts anymore. Freedom of choice only exists when there’s no pedestal, when all foods are equal and when nothing is forbidden. So what does it actually look like when you let go of control? What’s the real experience? Phase one, the fear.

and again, everyone’s different, but this is just what I see in my clients and what I experienced. The fear and extreme hunger. At first, letting go of control feels absolutely terrifying. Fear isn’t a strong enough word. Petrifying, terrifying. Like you’re gonna die, because your nervous system thinks you are because of what you make it mean. Your eating disorder is full panic mode. And your body, your body is likely in extreme hunger.

because it’s been deprived physically, mentally or both. And now that permission is finally here, it’s going to eat a lot. Now it’s worth sharing my experience here. So my anorexia morphed into bulimia and binge eating because I didn’t get the real recovery treatment that I needed. So I kind of binged my way to being around my set point without realising that I was still.

trying to control, actually controlling them, rebelling and then restricting and rebelling. But I was kind of, I binged my way, not on purpose, obviously to my set point. That’s obviously my experience. That’s not everyone’s experience. Some people go from pure anorexia to like if they have the right support to full on freedom eating and then they experience this extreme hunger. I experienced extreme hunger in anorexia recovery.

but I didn’t allow it fully. So that’s why it went to the binge eating because I didn’t fully allow the extreme hunger and it showed up as a restrict and binge pattern instead. So even when I decided to truly recover and I was actually already around my set point, probably just a little bit under, I was eating what most would consider a lot of food over the course of a week because I was binging, was restricting and binging. So I wasn’t quote, under eating if you were to look at like physical food.

Victoria Kleinsman (42:27.598)
that I was consuming but because I was mentally restricting and physically restricting in the day and all of that stuff I still ate a lot of food even though I didn’t need to gain a lot of weight to be at my set point so that’s worth sharing because a lot of people might have the question okay what if I’m not undernourished or underweight what if I’m binging you still need to completely let go and it’s okay if you’re eating a lot of food. because you’re

body and mind are rebelling against all the mental restriction and past restriction and that is okay because I promise you even if you overshoot you will go to your natural healthy set point weight when you keep allowing this okay. So it’s normal, it’s expected, it’s your body healing. You might eat amounts that, you will eat amounts that feel scary. I don’t know why I wrote might, you will. You will eat amounts of foods that are scary.

You will want food that you’ve restricted for years. You will feel out of control, but you’re not out of control. You will feel very out of control. You’re finally in process of healing. This phase is so hard. It’s so messy, but it’s absolutely crucial and necessary. You cannot bypass that. Phase two is usually the habituation. So over time,

I’m talking weeks to months of consistent, unrestricted eating mentally and physically. Something starts to shift. The foods that were on pedestal start to become normal food. You can have chocolate in the house and not be obsessing over it all day. You can eat pizza without it turning into a binge. You can have crisps and naturally stop when you’ve had enough. That might be at the end of the bag or it might be halfway through the bag. I remember one client, Dawn,

She used to binge on bags of Revels and &Ms and Minstrels and when she lived in Food Freedom through our work together she sent me a message and she was like, my god this is so funny I never understood what the little sticky thing was on the bag of &Ms or Minstrels or think it was Revels she was talking about. There’s a little sticky label you can peel off the bag.

Victoria Kleinsman (44:43.702)
And so when you’ve eaten some and not finished the bag, you can stick the label over the folded down bag. And she’d never even discovered that before because she always ate the full bag. But when she lived in food freedom and she honestly thought she was addicted to sugar, honestly, she really did. Her story is on my website somewhere, it was quite a while ago. And she was laughing at the fact that she just leaves stuff in the bag because she doesn’t need or want it all anymore. Right? Because that urgency is gone, you can naturally stop when you’ve had enough.

Not because you’re controlling yourself, but because that urgency and obsession is gone mentally and physically. When foods are always available, they’re not special anymore. They’re just options that you prefer or don’t prefer. Phase three is the body trust. So as you continue to eat unrestricted, your hunger and fullness cues start to come back online. Your body starts to trust that food is always coming. So it stops hoarding.

Your appetite regulates. You naturally want to have variety. Not because you should eat balanced meals. Not because you should eat vegetables and this much protein. But because your body genuinely wants different things. You eat when you’re hungry. You stop when you’re satisfied. And satisfied to me is I go on appetite and satiety instead of hunger and fullness. So sometimes you might have an appetite when you’re not hungry, but you want to eat, so you eat.

And sometimes you might stop eating when you’re really full or over full, but you feel satisfied mentally, emotionally and physically. And sometimes that might look like you’re not actually full, but you just feel satisfied mentally and emotionally and physically. So there’s no like hunger and fullness scale here. It’s just like whatever feels right. Okay. So you don’t have to force yourself to eat balanced meals.

you will naturally want a variety of nourishing foods because your body genuinely wants different things. There was a study done that followed, I think it was 100 toddlers aged between two and four, every day for like so many months and they had access to all these different foods from sweets and candy and chocolate and crisps to fish oil and fish and vegetables and potatoes and salads. And the toddlers were allowed to feed themselves.

Victoria Kleinsman (47:08.022)
like without any influence from any parent or any adult person. And over the course of however many months it was they were following these toddlers in this study, they all ate a perfectly naturally balanced nutritional diet, left their own devices. You have that built within you. You cannot fuck that up. You cannot lose that. It’s that body trust that your body knows what it’s doing. Are you trying to control your heart beating or your blood pumping? No.

Trust your body knows what the fuck it’s doing, okay? It does. So, this is also something I want to share without forgetting to mention it. Protein. Again, I’ve been from a gym background, I almost stepped on stage and all this, and when I have people come to me who have had a background in weight training or maybe they’re still at the gym now and they love it because of their mental health and it feels good, even in food freedom, they think they’re in food freedom, but they still have this obsession with protein. Stop.

I was there too, even in food freedom, I thought it was free. I was eating what I wanted, like all the chocolate and stuff. But I was like, but I’ve got to have protein every time I eat. No, trust your body. If your body needs protein, it will guide you to crave protein. So also the marketing companies, my God, they jump onto this protein thing and you don’t need as much protein as all these gym people make out you do. I mean, this is my statement. Everyone has a different statement.

But you don’t, you just need to trust your body and follow that. for example, if I’ve noticed that I’ve not had much protein for like a week or a day or whatever, I’ll naturally start craving like meat or some yogurt or some milk. Like your body knows what the fuck it’s doing. So if you think you’re in freedom, but you’re obsessed with protein, nope, you’re not in true freedom. Trust me, your body knows what it’s doing. As long as you offer yourself a variety of foods.

and you’re eating unrestrictedly, over time, initially, if you’re just in recovery, you probably will only want processed foods and sugar. And then people say, body needs protein to build and repair. It does, but your body knows what it’s doing. So just follow whatever it is you want. It gets to be that simple. I know it sounds ridiculous and irresponsible, but again, I’ve been through every single thing you could even imagine, even in recovery, even with the protein stuff, trust me, okay?

Victoria Kleinsman (49:34.476)
So I digress a little bit, but I really wanted to share that. You eat when you’re hungry, you stop when you’re satisfied, you crave what your body actually needs. Not because you’re following rules, but because your body is finally functioning in the way it’s actually supposed to. And part four is the freedom. Then one day you realize you’re not thinking about food all the time anymore. You’re not planning your whole day around what you can and can’t eat.

You’re not having mental battles in front of the fridge. You’re not compensating for what you ate yesterday. Food is just food. Something you enjoy, something that nourishes you, something that brings pleasure, that brings social occasions together. But it’s not something that controls your life. You have freedom of choice because you let go of control.

Let’s talk about what’s happening in your nervous system when you’re controlling versus when you let go. So when you’re controlling food, your nervous system is in a constant state of threat. Hypervigilance around food, flight or fight activation, cortisol and stress hormones elevated, body interpreting restriction as famine, and survival mode activated. Your nervous system cannot regulate when it’s under constant threat.

and hunger and restriction is threat. The control feels like it’s keeping you safe, but it’s actually keeping you in chronic stress. Your body thinks it’s in literal danger because it is in danger when you’re restricting. When you let go of control, your nervous system gets the signal: we’re safe, food is abundant, we don’t need to hoard, we don’t need to panic.”

Stress response decreases. Parasympathetic activation increases. Body can focus on healing instead of survival. Digestion improves. Sleep improves. Mental clarity returns. Letting go of control is how you signal to your nervous system that it’s safe. Obviously, when you let go of control, you’re gonna have a lot come up around panic and overwhelm of…

Victoria Kleinsman (51:58.112)
it’s not safe to be in a bigger body and then you’ll be hyper vigilant and that’s the deeper stuff we work on as well. But letting go of control is only gonna support this process. In fact, if you don’t let go of control around food, you won’t be able to reach the root cause. and the deeper stuff because the control’s keeping that pushed down. So you need to let go of control in order to heal the true nervous system pieces from your trauma and from your conditioning and from your past in order to be truly free.

So safety is what your nervous system needs to heal, to regulate, to function properly. You cannot have a dysregulated nervous system whilst keeping it in a state of control driven stress. You just cannot. So let’s bring in the sole self versus the suppressed self framework because this is crucial. Your suppressed self believes that control equates safety, letting go equates danger,

Your worth depends on discipline and control. Your body cannot be trusted. You need rules to function. Freedom is terrifying. And if you let go, something bad will happen. This is a part of you that was shaped by trauma, diet culture, and eating disorder. Your soul self, however, knows freedom equates to safety.

Control is the prison. Your worth is inherent and not earned. Your body is wise and can be trusted. You don’t need rules, you need trust. Freedom is your birthright and your natural state. Letting go is how you heal. The eating disorder keeps you trapped in your suppressed self by convincing you that control is the answer. But every time you choose control,

You’re choosing your suppressed self. You’re choosing the trauma response. You’re choosing the eating disorder. Recovery is choosing your soul self over and over again until you know that you are indeed her. And your soul self doesn’t need control. Your soul self trusts and surrenders and lets go. So I’m almost finishing up. I think this is quite a long episode, but how to actually let go.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:25.292)
Right? I did do an episode, how the fuck to actually surrender. That is definitely worth listening to if you haven’t, but how do you actually practice letting go of control when it feels terrifying? Step one is to get honest about what control is costing you. Make a list. What is the control giving you? And what is the control costing you? Be brutally honest with yourself here. The control might be giving you a sense of safety.

achievement, identity, but it’s costing you, your mental health, your relationships, your life, your freedom. Step two is to start with one meal a day of complete permission. mean, ideally you go all in and every single time you ever eat is completely unconditional without any restrictions or rules. That’s the plan. But if you need to, start with one meal a day with complete permission.

So you don’t have to go from total control to total freedom overnight. That will send your nervous system into panic. So instead, choose one meal per day where you give yourself complete permission. Eat whatever you want, eat however much you want, no compensating afterwards, no rules. Step number three, remove one restriction at a time. And again, if you’re able…

to go all in, especially with support through coaching, it’s easier. Do that. This is not a step-by-step guide for everyone. This is just giving you somewhere to start if you’re completely overwhelmed and terrified. Removed one restriction at a time. Pick one food rule and break it. I can’t eat after 7 p.m. Eat after 7 p.m. I can’t have carbs at dinner. Have carbs at dinner. I have to exercise if I eat dessert. Eat dessert, don’t exercise.

Every time you break a rule and nothing terrible happens, you prove to your nervous system that the control wasn’t keeping you safe. So you need to do this with repetition and consistency. Step four is practical, unconditioned. No, it’s not. Step four is practice, unconditional permission with fear foods. So buy the foods that scare you. Have them in your house.

Victoria Kleinsman (56:46.752)
Let yourself eat them whenever you want them. Yes, you will eat a lot of it at first. That’s normal. That’s habituation. Your body needs to learn that these foods are always available before it will stop hoarding them. Step five is to notice when you’re choosing versus controlling. Throughout the day, pause and ask, is this a choice from freedom and genuine desire or is this control from fear and rules?

Again, that’s my question, is this love or is this fear? If it’s control that you see, then make a different choice. One that comes from your soul self, not your eating disorder, suppressed self. Number six, you can talk back to the control voice, if this is helpful. Sometimes it’s helpful to dismiss it and just move your attention to freedom. Sometimes it’s helpful to talk back and if the eating disorder says,

You have to control this or something bad will happen. Respond with, hear you, control is not safety, even though it feels like it. Control is a prison. I’m choosing to trust instead and then take that aligned action to act as if you’re trusting yourself and your body. And step seven is get support. This is terrifying work. You need people who understand that letting go of control is the goal.

not finding better control. You’re not in recovery from an eating disorder just to restrict less. You’re here to live in complete freedom. So therapy, coaching, community, find support that helps you move toward freedom, not just manage the eating disorder better. Because otherwise, if you’re not gonna do it fully and live in total freedom and liberation, then what’s the point? Step eight is expect discomfort. Letting go of control.

will feel uncomfortable. It will feel scary. It will feel wrong. That’s normal. That’s your nervous system. It’s been relying on control to feel safe. Of course it’s going to resist letting go. If it didn’t resist letting go, you would already be where you wanted to be, right? But discomfort does not mean that you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re doing something new. And new is always uncomfortable before it becomes your new normal.

Victoria Kleinsman (59:10.83)
So what does it actually look like when you’ve let go of control and found freedom? It looks like, this is not too good to be true by the way, this is how I live and my clients who have recovered live. Having all foods in your house and not thinking about them. Eating when you’re hungry without checking if it’s time to eat. Stopping when you’re satisfied, not when you’ve hit a calorie limit. Choosing foods based on what sounds good, not what’s allowed.

Not compensating after eating too much. Not planning your entire day around food. Not having mental battles about whether you should eat something. Having chocolate because you want to, not because you’re being bad or because you’ve earned it. Not eating chocolate because you don’t want it, not because it’s forbidden, just because you generally don’t want it. Your body naturally craving variety without forcing balance.

food thoughts taking up way less mental space. Actually tasting and enjoying your food instead of disassociating. Not weighing yourself to determine if you’re allowed to eat or how worthy you are that day. Trusting your body to settle at its natural weight. Freedom looks like food being neutral. Not good, not bad, not earned, not forbidden, not a moral issue or identity marker, just food.

Something that you need to live. Something that tastes good, sometimes. Something you enjoy, but not something that controls your thoughts and your actions. Freedom looks like your life being about things other than just food. About your life being things other than your body and what size it is. Your relationships, your purpose, your creativity, your joy, the things that actually matter.

things that really matter. And here’s a beautiful irony. When you let go of control, you actually get what you were trying to achieve through control all along. You wanted food not to control your life, let go of controlling it and it loses its power. You wanted to feel safe, let go of the illusion of control and find actual safety through trust. You want freedom.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:01:33.812)
Let go of control because control and freedom are opposites. Here’s what I need you to hear, my love. You cannot control your way to freedom. It’s impossible. Control and freedom are fundamentally incompatible. You have, you can have one or you can have the other. You cannot have both. Every moment you spend trying to find the right way to control is a moment spent moving further away from freedom.

If there’s control, there’s no freedom. And I know that the eating disorder is trying to find a loophole right now. What if I just control it a little bit? What if I have some structure, but no rules? What if, in the blank, no, there’s no middle ground here. You’re either controlling or you’re free. And quasi recovery is just another form of control. That’s just restricting less. The eating disorder, the fear, it will try to convince you that you’re different.

that you need control, that letting go is too dangerous for you specifically. That’s bollocks. You’re not different. You’re not the exception. Everyone who has truly recovered has let go of control completely. And yes, it’s terrifying. It feels impossible. And your nervous system will resist, but it’s the only way. You can spend years

trying to find the perfect way to control food or you can surrender, let go, trust. The path to freedom is through letting go of control. There is no other path. All right, Queen. So here’s what I want you to take away from this. Control is not keeping you safe, it’s keeping you stuck. Choice and control are not the same thing. Choice comes from freedom. Control comes from fear.

The opposite of control is not out of control. The opposite of control is freedom. Foods on pedestals have power over you. Foods that are always available are just food. Letting go of control is the only path to freedom. Not better control, not balanced control, no control. Your soul self doesn’t need rules to function. Your soul self trusts.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:04:00.524)
Your soul self knows that freedom is the goal. So here’s your homework. This week, practice letting go of control in one small way every day. Break one food rule, eat one fear food, have one meal with complete permission of unconditional eating, make one choice from genuine desire instead of from rules. When the fear comes, because it will, remind yourself: control is the prison.

Letting go is the freedom. I’m choosing freedom. On the other side of fear lies freedom. You’ve spent long enough trying to control your way to freedom. It’s time to do the actual path. Surrender, trust, let go. Freedom is waiting for you on the other side of control. So my queens, let go.

All right, loves, if you wanna go deeper into this, if you want support with this, there’s my group coaching, which is where you have access to every single programme I’ve ever created, like so much juicy stuff like this with worksheets and accountability, hundreds of hours of group coaching call recording support every day in the group, that’s 295 euros, all this one-to-one coaching, which is completely tailor-made to you, and that starts from 300 and, no, it doesn’t, that’s a lie.

That starts from 3,750 for one-to-one coaching. So like and subscribe, share and all that good stuff. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening. This was a long one. I love you all and I will see you next time.