Victoria Kleinsman (00:01.294)
Well lovely bro, welcome to the podcast officially as a guest.

Brooke (00:06.28)
Thank you for having me.

Victoria Kleinsman (00:07.95)
How does it feel to be here sharing your story with the world?

Brooke (00:14.819)
nerve-racking but like surreal like it’s surreal that I’m here

Victoria Kleinsman (00:21.358)
So can you tell the listeners? Well first of all a few quick fire questions actually. So your name, where you live and what you do and I’m going to think of three more fun ones.

Brooke (00:32.798)
Okay, um, my name is Brooke. I live in Pennsylvania and I’m a live-in nanny. I’m also a barista and

I run an online clothing reselling business. Yeah, I’m 20. Also, I don’t know if anyone’s curious.

Victoria Kleinsman (00:59.8)
Yeah, I’m always curious about ages. So thank you. Yeah. And I’m 38. If anyone else is curious. What’s your favorite food?

Brooke (01:01.79)
Me too.

Brooke (01:16.336)
I love cereal. I know that’s kind of silly. I just love cereal. Or sushi. Sushi is very good.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:23.436)
I’m with you on both of those. What’s your favourite smell?

Brooke (01:31.602)
Hmm… I like…

Brooke (01:39.23)
floral smells. I’m not a huge vanilla girl, but like floral-y smells that are not extremely sweet, but just kind of like toned down.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:50.296)
Hmm. And what’s your favourite sound?

Brooke (01:55.132)
I love listening to the ocean.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:58.446)
Do you live near the ocean? No, me neither. My geography is just about as good as my Dutch, which is awful. So can you share with us a bit of your background story, like when your issues with eating started, until up to the point where you kind of found my podcast. And feel free to elaborate.

Brooke (02:00.068)
No. I want to.

Brooke (02:08.889)
My geography is terrible.

Victoria Kleinsman (02:26.176)
As long as you like, you can do a short story and I can ask you deeper questions. Whatever just feels right to you.

Brooke (02:32.389)
Okay.

So growing up I was kind of always like on the smaller side and I definitely got a bit of comments about that and I feel like that was definitely…

an important part of my story because it really got to my head. think it’s important just because you don’t think about what you say about other people’s bodies is really going to affect them, but things that people said to me at seven, I still think about now. So…

I would say I was always pretty self-conscious about that. wasn’t that I didn’t like it. I loved it. I loved the getting the, you’re so tiny. That’s so great. Like, you just have great genetics. And I remember one time, I, my mom had a Facebook marketplace pick up. Someone came over to our house. I was 11. It was right before I hit puberty. And the lady was like, my gosh, like, you should model. You’re so small. And I was like.

that’s great, because I was already kind of interested in the fashion industry at that point. And then, pretty much directly after that, I hit puberty. And I was still relatively small, but curvy. And I got really insecure about that. Just… Then people would be like, you got great proportions and stuff. And even though, like, most of it was good compliments, it was…

Brooke (04:04.857)
in my head like, but I have to stay this way. If I change, then I’m bad. And so yeah, that was tough. But then, you know, through my teenage years, I started to fill out a little bit more. And I think I got a little bit insecure about it. when I was, and I was around a lot of people that,

were insecure, all my friends were just kind of, talk about weight and food all the time and their bodies and whatever, we would like compare each other’s bodies. It was not healthy.

So right after COVID, COVID happened, everyone’s on TikTok. I had a prom in the spring of 2021 and I decided that I was actually gonna really do this and I needed to lose weight. So I, from TikTok, this is all TikTok, I learned how to count calories, I learned how to like…

track my food and restrict and all that stuff and I whatever. So prom came and went. I got a lot of praise for how I looked at prom and I kept going because I was like yeah you know okay but I can keep going and prom was in maybe like April and by July I was in a psychiatric hospital for my eating disorder because it had just gone so bad I was not able to

get myself to eat and it was just wrecking my body. Like I would eat but it was just, you know, my little eating disorder thing. So that’s kind of where it started. I went through the traditional treatment. I went through, so I was hospitalized. I was in the hospital for a month and a half and then I went to like a partial hospitalization program.

Brooke (06:13.661)
And I got out of that. I got a dietician and a therapist. And then I pretty much just like, I didn’t want to recover. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be able to control my body and my food. And so I kept myself at like the lowest end that people would be okay with for a couple years until, and then

I’d say the year after that whole experience I started going to the gym for the first time. Never been to the gym before. And then it turned a lot into a lot more of praise because my body was what, really what people wanted. And I was really struggling. Like I don’t remember a time throughout those years. So this is from 15 is when my eating disorder started, 15 to…

I started working with you when I was almost 20. So this is from then I just I kept getting I would just slowly go down and my mom would say something and then I you know get a little bit better and then I would just kind of go down my rabbit hole and my mom would say something and it get better a little bit just enough that my mom would get off my back. But the gym really I loved it.

Victoria Kleinsman (07:32.654)
Mm-mm.

Brooke (07:41.0)
but it really harmed me, the comparison and all of that stuff. But it also gave me a really good excuse for why I was watching my food and all that stuff. People are just like, she’s just being really healthy. And I told myself I didn’t have a problem anymore because I wasn’t, because according to like…

know, BMI, I was healthy when in that point I was still not healthy. So, after high school I went to Costa Rica for, just like a school program and that was really hard. I was in, in a religious program that was really hard.

and controlling and so I felt like I had no control and I slipped back like bad, pretty much as bad as at the beginning and that was like four years later. And after I got out of that program, I eventually started with a different like treatment method, kind of like a PHP. It was an IOP so it was…

Victoria Kleinsman (08:42.318)
you

Brooke (09:02.747)
It was virtual IOP. And that helped me get to, you know, that spot where I would just be okay. And around that time when I was in the program, I was just like, what is this? I need to find an answer. So I was looking on podcasts or something. I found Tabatha Farrar.

And then through watching podcasts of her, saw that you interviewed her. So that’s how I found your podcast. And I was like, my gosh, this is like, this is exactly what I needed to hear. And it was so helpful. I listened to so many of your podcast episodes and I was just like, I was still pushing things off a little bit. Like, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. And so I would say I found you probably in like,

Brooke (09:58.174)
May of 2024, but we didn’t start, I didn’t even reach out to you until December. Like I would just kept on having excuses in my head. Oh, I gotta keep doing this. I gotta do this. I gotta do this. And I wanted to complete the IOP before I started with you. And then I was like, when I started with you, I was like, I don’t really have much of a problem anymore. It’s just the mental thing. I don’t think I have to change physically at all.

But yeah, that’s how, kind of how my story came to finding you.

Victoria Kleinsman (10:27.374)
Sorry Brooke, Valter’s coming and said she’s Is she choking? Don’t do that to me. Are you okay? She’s okay. She’s not choking. Okay, thank you for coming. That’s okay. I can edit this out. Sorry Brooke. Because I’m going like this to him and it’s like she’s choking and I’m like, yeah, okay. I will look.

Brooke (10:45.497)
Okay.

Victoria Kleinsman (10:57.038)
Sorry, please continue, I’ll edit that bit out. Please continue with where you were going.

Brooke (10:57.585)
Yeah

Brooke (11:02.279)
you’re good. I’m glad that she’s okay.

I don’t really know if I…

Victoria Kleinsman (11:08.896)
You said, I last heard before he came in waving his arms at me that you wanted to finish the IOP before we started work together.

Brooke (11:18.051)
yeah. I wanted to finish the IOP before we started working together. But, and I did. I finished that in December and we started working together in January. And that’s kind of where, I guess where our journey starts together. I was pretty much convinced that like when we started,

Victoria Kleinsman (11:33.183)
yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (11:37.453)
Yeah.

Brooke (11:37.989)
that I didn’t have a physical problem. It was just some mental stuff in my head and I realized, I was not even close to my set point weight at that point. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. And I was still completely controlled by my eating disorder.

Victoria Kleinsman (11:54.06)
What changed? So when you were sharing about your story up until this point, there was a big part of you that just didn’t want to recover. That was just appeasing your mum in a way to get her off your back.

Brooke (12:05.991)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (12:07.512)
but it sounds like, and I knew from our consultation call, when we met, you wanted to recover, like you were doing it for you. My dog’s now pushing me back on my rolling chair. That’s hilarious. I’ll leave that part in. So what can you remember? Like what changed from kind of resisting things to being like, no, I really want this for me, so therefore I’m gonna do it.

Brooke (12:17.272)
I’m

Brooke (12:34.759)
think that was the biggest thing that the, I don’t know, yeah, I think that was the biggest thing that the IOP I was in did for me when I started the IOP. I absolutely did not want to recover. And they were like, they were pretty much telling me like, that’s okay, we’re just gonna keep having you the steps. And eventually as I got more nourished in my brain, I did want to, I saw that there was,

Brooke (13:05.233)
Hope, I also think.

Brooke (13:10.427)
I did this, I had this kind of…

Brooke (13:16.525)
It almost a bargain in my mind and I got that during IOP which was I realized how

I was the youngest person in the IOP and I didn’t have much hope but I had a little bit and I realized how no one around me had any hope and I kind of realized that I could be that encouragement and I could do this and encourage them. So at the beginning it really, even when I started working with you, I think it was still somewhat recovering for other people. My bargain was that I told myself like…

Brooke (13:55.474)
you know, no one’s recovered like this before, no one’s had these specific problems and recovered before, and I was like, okay Brooke, well you’re gonna do that.

you can do that and then be a recovery coach if you want to. But you’re gonna do this for other people. And it’s like, I’ve heard you said this before, if you can’t do it for the me, like do it for the we. And that was pretty much the biggest thing that got me through. Because I was like, I’m gonna do this because I’m gonna be the recovery coach that shows people that you can recover when you have food allergies and when you have this and when you have this and whatever. And I think that that was just kind of the biggest thing. I also realized that I had

some gifts in

relating to people. I always thought that like I was just talentless and I had nothing to offer and I realized like one of my talents is being a good friend and is being a good listener and I think even just realizing I had something to give was like, well I can figure out how to use this to help other people or do something with my life as long as I get recovered. So yeah, that was…

Victoria Kleinsman (15:03.704)
Yes.

beautiful it’s actually very similar to my story because I found it easier in recovery to kind of think forward and do it for do it for the wee especially around body image like when I was afraid to wear shorts or a skirt in the summer with cellulite legs I was like I’m gonna do this for the woman who is too afraid to wear

skirts, dresses, I’m going to do it for her. And at the same time, I was doing it for me because I wasn’t like doing it for me individually, but I was doing it for the pain of all the women all around the world that are too afraid to do the thing. So I would do for them and that spurred me on. And then you kind of are doing it for you as you’re doing it for the wee, but it just gives you an outlet to focus on to help motivate, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Brooke (15:51.343)
Yeah, yeah that’s exactly what it was.

Victoria Kleinsman (15:54.36)
That’s beautiful. let’s go into you mentioned food allergies. I think that’s also very common with people who are in recovery or afraid to start recovery. Can you share your experience and journey with that and how you navigated it?

Brooke (16:10.085)
Yeah, so I have been gluten and dairy free for…

Brooke (16:17.245)
10 years or something, I just have kind of like just bad stomach reactions with them. And in my eating disorder, having food allergies is like the perfect excuse for an eating disorder. Eating disorders love that because I could just be like,

I can’t eat that, sorry, it has gluten in it or it might have dairy in it. You know, I don’t know, I’m not gonna eat that. In recovery, was extremely important for me to be like, I… Cause I would say like, oh, I don’t wanna be a burden, don’t get the alternatives for me, like I just, I’ll eat something without butter, like don’t do that. And in recovery, it was super important for me to be like, I need to have the gluten-free bread, I need to have the dairy-free butter and I need to get…

I love baking, so it’s okay for me to learn to bake my own things. It doesn’t always have to be something that I’m making for someone else. It can be something that I enjoy. And I think that’s really important for anyone who’s going through recovery to not use their allergies as an excuse to not eat a lot of things, but to find the alternatives and use them if you’re able to.

Victoria Kleinsman (17:25.582)
you

Victoria Kleinsman (17:31.48)
Yes, that’s so powerful and you did it and action is everything. It’s not just talking about it, it’s following through with your actions. And I remember you were baking a lot in recovery and I remember you were so afraid of eating them all and I was like, and if you eat them all, that’s also okay. So looking at your recovery journey then when we first started, what did you find surprisingly easy or simple, if anything, and what did you find really challenging?

Brooke (17:44.88)
Yeah.

Brooke (18:04.465)
I think when I fully surrendered…

Brooke (18:12.519)
to my mental hunger. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy, but it was simple. And you said that, when you’re hungry, eat. And it was pretty simple to just do that.

Victoria Kleinsman (18:15.555)
Yeah.

Yes.

Brooke (18:31.397)
Yeah, I think that was probably the main thing.

I’ve actually found it relatively easy to rest. My body had been craving rest for so long and when I finally was just like, okay, cut out all exercise. I didn’t even do yoga for a couple months because I was like, this is getting too, I’m just still being restrictive about it or controlling about it. Once I was like, I’m not doing this, it was relatively easy to continue.

Victoria Kleinsman (19:09.166)
Yeah, so it felt like a relief when you were like, made the decision not to. Your body was like, oh, thank fuck for that. And you could embrace that because you decided, think I do say this often, but it’s worth reminding our listeners here and now when you decide to do something, it doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it gets done with support, with the right support. So decision is everything. So you decided to recover, you decided to rest.

Brooke (19:11.067)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke (19:15.819)
Yeah, yo.

Victoria Kleinsman (19:37.87)
Let’s talk about the weight gain because for 99 % of us that’s like the hardest roadblock in recovery. So how did you feel so that listeners can relate when you first started to gain weight and then we can talk about how you started to navigate all of that.

Brooke (19:56.36)
was really embarrassed when I started to gain weight. I knew it was going to happen, but it was just unlike anything I had prepared for. It was super scary. I was super uncomfortable. I…

Brooke (20:17.127)
gained weight to 16 sizes higher than I’ve ever been, like them my highest. And that was super uncomfortable sensory wise because I just, I’d never had my thighs rubbed together. Like I was like, I’ve never felt my like sides have rolls if I moved a different way and something like that. So that was super hard. I think.

Victoria Kleinsman (20:27.544)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke (20:46.887)
Having support from you really helped in that part, but also, one, for the first part of my recovery, I did kind of just wear the baggy clothes. And I know that’s not good. I don’t think that’s definitely great to do forever, but at least for that part, so I wasn’t focusing and just gonna head straight back. It got me over a really good hump.

Victoria Kleinsman (21:01.507)
Yeah.

Brooke (21:15.785)
and I had to buy new clothes. I have no clothes that I used to wear. So that was really hard for me to be able to spend money on myself, but I went to thrift stores, I got the cheapest things, and yeah, I think what else?

Brooke (21:37.072)
I followed a lot of people on social media that had my body type but were in larger bodies than I was at that point and were just thriving, living their lives and doing things and having different style and different things like that. That really, really helped.

Victoria Kleinsman (21:46.638)
you

Brooke (22:03.695)
I really wanted to just be able to do it and be confident in myself, I really, really benefited from having someone else to look up to and be like, well, they’re living their life and they’re okay with it.

Victoria Kleinsman (22:18.946)
that really helped me as well. I say in this work, we need to be looking at women our size or bigger with a similar body type on, mean, Instagram was a great place for me on social media every day for at least 10 to 15 minutes because it gives you.

Brooke (22:30.161)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (22:35.19)
permission you don’t need, but we kind of do need it in the recovery process, permission to actually be okay with being that size and being okay with being happy and taking up space and almost like being allowed to take up space and be happy by someone else modeling it. And then do you mind speaking briefly to, have a religious background. I remember part of this body image,

Brooke (22:53.339)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (23:02.742)
challenges that you had because you were curvy with big breasts and whatever. That was like an extra challenge on top of the weight game because of like showing yourself was seen as bad and wrong. And I remember the first time you wore a top that actually accentuated and showed off your body type. You then, the first day, you then didn’t you get beeps and things and I was like, that’s happened for a reason. Like the worst thing that could happen happened.

Brooke (23:25.821)
Yeah,

Brooke (23:33.086)
I’m definitely naturally more curvy and I have like a very large chest so it was hard I know like in growing up how I did there was a big emphasis on being modest and not causing the men around me to stumble and so it was framed as my responsibility not the man’s responsibility to make sure that they didn’t

know, lust with their eyes or whatever it was and, or do something wrong to me because I had to make sure that I was dressed in a modest way. So I think that that was the main reason I really, really, really did not like my curves and I’m not like, it’s not something that I

love now but it’s just something that I just that’s how it is how I am but that’s something I loved about my eating disorder was my chest got really small and I loved that and so having being having a larger chest was hard and I I do remember like I went out in a tank top and it like was tight and it showed my chest

Victoria Kleinsman (24:40.398)
Mm.

Brooke (24:54.309)
and I went on a walk and I got like there were a couple cars that beeped at me and I was just like my gosh this is why I don’t go out and don’t like show off my curves because people are just objectifying me and all that stuff and you were like this is for a reason and that was so true because I I can’t control what people are gonna think of me

Victoria Kleinsman (24:59.598)
Bye!

Victoria Kleinsman (25:20.462)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke (25:20.637)
unfortunately, well not unfortunately, but just it’s a fact that with the body I have if I wear clothes that are tighter people are going to think I’m trying to get attention. That is not my intention but I don’t want to, I’m not going to do myself to be wearing a like large clothing for the rest of my life. That’s not right either. And I think another thing with the religion that was…

and trying to figure out how to put it into words, but…

I had this…

Brooke (26:01.615)
strong desire put in me to be married and get a husband. And then when I would get a husband, then you know, I was told like my body would no longer be mine, my body would be my husband’s as well. You know, they are one and the husband and wife are one. And maybe some people didn’t take it the way I took it, but I took it as like I’m…

no longer gonna have a say with what I do with my body. I can’t say no to my husband and all of that stuff and so I was just…

I was terrified. It was this contradictory, like scared, because I was scared of being attractive and that someone would find, would want to marry me and then I would just be stuck in this marriage where I didn’t have control. I was also scared that if I maybe gained too much weight then I would be unattractive and then no one would marry me and I’d be alone forever. But I, that was a lot to…

A lot of the religious stuff that I interpreted growing up was really, hard to do in tandem, like to unlearn in tandem with my recovery. But they did go together because they were like kind of intertwined with each other.

Victoria Kleinsman (27:28.606)
for sure. And also the deserving part. I remember we had quite a few conversations about just deserving pleasure in general from food, from life. Can you talk a bit about that and share how your relationship with pleasure and just allowing just because you want it, how it’s changed?

Brooke (27:49.381)
Yeah, so I

Brooke (27:55.778)
as kind of going back to the religion. believed that humans are made when are born inherently bad and that

we don’t deserve anything. Jesus is the one that makes us worthy of deserving things because of the whole salvation message. But it was really hard for me to even see that I was enough.

or worthy because I was just like so back and forth like, I enough? Am I not enough? if God says this, if this says this, if this says this, and I kind of just had to take a step back and be like, okay.

Brooke (28:50.353)
this religion, I don’t think it’s supposed to be making me feel like I am a horrible person all the time. I don’t think this is how I’m supposed to feel. And I can decide that I am enough. like what, I think something that you prompted me to think about was like what feels intuitively right. And I was like, it doesn’t feel intuitively right that we are all.

you know, deserving of some punishment and we are all terrible people. It feels intuitively right for me to say, I think everyone that is born is a worthy human being. I have a lot of empathy for everyone on, like for all people. have, I see people, I see their stories, like I, I don’t think that it’s right to just, whatever, just think that people are bad.

And so I was like, well if I think that all of these people are fine just as they are, then why am I not? What makes me different? And I mean, there isn’t anything. If I’m putting that as my belief, then there’s nothing different for me.

Victoria Kleinsman (30:01.23)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke (30:09.305)
A quote that really helped me through this season was that you like reminded me a lot of was what would love do and my love for other people would say they deserve to recover from their eating disorder. They deserve to eat. They deserve to eat.

Victoria Kleinsman (30:16.984)
Thank

Brooke (30:29.699)
all the way to mental hunger, even if they’re a little bit overstuffed physically, because that’s what’s going to get them recovered. And if I would say that to someone else, I’m going to say that to myself.

Victoria Kleinsman (30:41.666)
And it was just practice, because I am assuming when you first said those wise words to yourself, it still felt wrong. It still felt like it doesn’t make sense for you, but it makes sense for everyone else. So how did you navigate that feeling of, OK, I’m going to do the intuitively right thing, even though it still feels so wrong in my body, I’m just going to do it anyway. What helped you to just keep doing that consistently, and then I know things then change when you do that with consistency?

Brooke (31:16.565)
One, I guess one aspect of my journey is that I, of like me not wanting recovery in the first place was I really didn’t want people to see me trying. It was really hard. And then also failing. I was just so scared of people seeing me trying and failing. And I think that that’s a big part of the vulnerability of recovery. You have to be willing to let people see you doing that. So.

I guess back to your question, I…

Brooke (31:54.322)
I was kind of determined that I was going to do it and I was going to get it right and I was going to show up even if I didn’t feel like it because I didn’t want people to see me failing and I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to get like make it and recover.

I really think that’s kind of where my, I realized I have a lot more determination than I even thought I did. I thought I was just a lazy person and I realized like, no, I actually have a lot in me that is a lot of power in me and yeah, I was pretty determined to just do it.

Brooke (32:41.521)
I don’t know, that part was hard for me and definitely is something that I occasionally go back to and be like, but why? And so that is something that I will still kind of.

Brooke (32:57.763)
I’m still occasionally will work on because I know that that it’s been a hard part to stick like the worthiness part.

Victoria Kleinsman (33:05.834)
for sure. And it sounds like you used what could be your downfall of being scared of failure. You use that to support you in your recovery. And I always say, like, whatever characteristics we have, we can flip them or pivot them, whatever we need to do with them, for them to make sense to us to help our recovery. So

your prime example, the fear of failure, you use that to support you in not failing recovery and by keeping going even when it was hard. So that’s really worth pointing out. So to our listeners, if you think you have a characteristic that’s stopping you from recovering, I invite you to look at that and see if you can look at it from a different angle or pivot it to support you in recovery. So.

Brooke (33:37.365)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (33:53.538)
I’m going to ask you how your relationship with food and your body is now, then I’m going to go into some more questions like from, from there. So, how is your relationship with food currently now since you’ve been on this journey?

Brooke (34:10.285)
so I consider myself fully recovered since July. my relationship with food is really good. I eat when I’m hungry, I stop when I’m full, or I stop when…

I feel mentally satisfied. Sometimes I just want to get another snack after I’ve had a meal because for some reason I’m still hungry. It’s not perfect. Like sometimes I will have days where I’ll overeat or quote overeat. Like I’ll feel too stuffed and I’ll be like, I shouldn’t have that. Like I don’t feel like I should have had that much. And then the next day I’ll just eat normally because my body will figure it out. Or some days I’ll like get to the end of the night and I’m like ravenous and I’ll be like, I didn’t eat enough today.

I gotta have a big snack before bed otherwise I’m gonna wake up and be really really hungry. So it feels very free right now. I would say up until…

really like the last month. It felt like extremely, extremely free. Then like two months ago, I went and got allergy testing for like food allergies because I’ve been dealing with a lot of like a lot of health issues for a lot of years and that’s kind of another thing we can go into. My eating disorder somehow…

Victoria Kleinsman (35:26.67)
Thank

Brooke (35:41.051)
almost muted them. Like I just, I was able to push past all my health issues because my eating disorder was stronger. The determination there was stronger.

So this year and then July, I just started feeling like all of the stuff come back, the brain fog, the fatigue, all of this stuff. And like the weird allergic reaction. So I got an allergy test and it turns out I’m allergic to like 12 foods, like severe allergies to like a bunch of random, random foods. And so just last week I was like, or two weeks ago, was like, okay, talked to my doctor.

And now my diet’s changing. I can’t eat these foods. We’re doing it for six months and then we’re going to add some things back in. So I still feel…

Brooke (36:33.487)
Eating disorder wise, I still feel free around food, but it is a little bit different because…

I can’t just eat everything now.

Victoria Kleinsman (36:43.47)
be older.

Brooke (36:47.057)
But if I were in any different place in my recovery than where I am now, it would spiral me back quickly. And now it’s like, I’m doing this because I want to feel healthy. Like I want to live a vibrant, healthy life where I’m able to go hiking and do all this stuff. And right now don’t have the energy for that. So if doing this with my food right now will help that in the future, then I’m willing to do that.

So yeah, I still feel free. It’s just a little bit different.

Victoria Kleinsman (37:18.07)
Yeah, and I really appreciate you sharing that because they’re two worlds apart. They’re restricting food because of allergies, but with a restrictive mindset, whether it’s for your health or not, they in comparison to a free relationship with food and then choosing to, I guess restrict is not an aligned word, choosing to avoid certain foods because you want these health outcomes. So you’re just getting curious. You’re just testing to see if it is these foods.

Brooke (37:47.793)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (37:48.064)
And you’re able to do that from a place of freedom because you’ve recovered. And like you said, if you had done it sooner in your recovery, I guarantee it would have spiralled you back to restrictive thoughts and behaviours around other stuff as well. Yeah.

Brooke (38:00.465)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke (38:04.251)
Yeah, yeah, 100, definitely. And now it’s like.

With that, I’m not just like, I’m cutting out this food and then I’m not gonna replace it. It’s like, okay, so I can’t have peanuts. That’s one of the things. Well, we’re buying cashews in the house now. Like, I’m making my own cashew butter, because I’m not just like leaving it out. I’m going to still have this stuff and still have all the food. It’s just a little bit different.

Victoria Kleinsman (38:24.941)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (38:32.91)
Yeah, it’s just choosing alternatives. And cashew water is so expensive, so you’re better off making your own. In comparison to peanut water, it’s insane. I love cashew water way better. Anyway.

Brooke (38:35.645)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it is really expensive.

I know. Yeah, me too. It tastes so much better in my opinion, but it is very expensive.

Victoria Kleinsman (38:50.54)
Yeah. And what about your relationship with your body? That’s usually, in my opinion, and in all that of my clients, the last thing to change or the food things kind of comes first, the body relationship change comes later. How has it been for you and how is it now?

Brooke (39:11.195)
I would say that I am still on a journey with that, with my body. Like I do think, like I said, I am fully recovered, but my body is still something that’s just, I’m learning to accept. It’s definitely a lot better than what it was. I think the main thing is,

Brooke (39:33.67)
I didn’t believe, I didn’t think I’d ever get to a set point weight. I thought that I would just continue gaining and gaining and gaining into eternity. I’ve been, I don’t weigh myself, but I’ve been in the same clothes since June. And I believe that’s my set point. And so it…

even having just that consistency has been helpful because now I’m finding clothes that I like and then that makes me more confident in my body and then I yeah just I think that finding clothes that I like has been really helpful and also

I did this when I was working with you, I still do it. Sometimes I’ll put my hand on my belly and be like, it’s okay, we’re fine. I’ll notice myself maybe see you roll and be like, my belly’s folding over. And he’ll be like, no, we’re fine, it’s okay. It’s okay to have a belly, this is just how your body is.

So I would say that that is one of the things that I am still working on. Food is good for me, but there is a little bit. I would say I’m like 70 % there with body image. I just want to get, I’m neutral about my body maybe like 50 % of the time. And then the other 50, I’m just like, but it’s not like a spiraling into despair. It’s just like a, oh. So.

Victoria Kleinsman (41:01.71)
Yeah, and this is why I love these interviews because they’re real and they’re honest and they’re not like, hey, I’m in perfect recovery and everything’s perfect and I love my body and my food, my food is free and then the end because that’s not real and it’s not relatable. So just a question for you around that. When you have those moments of like, would you say you’re in a state of like, I would prefer it to be different, which quite emotionally neutral.

Brooke (41:08.817)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (41:30.304)
or would you say those experiences bring some emotional turmoil and can affect your day still?

Brooke (41:41.566)
would say it depends on the day and depends on my life circumstances at the time. With all the health problems coming up, I’ve been a bit more stressed. So sometimes I’ve noticed that my body has taken more of a… It’s just made me more frustrated just because I’m frustrated about my maybe internal body. Then it makes me more frustrated at the external.

Victoria Kleinsman (41:59.917)
Mm.

Brooke (42:11.697)
but

Brooke (42:17.755)
I don’t know, it’s like a good bit of the time I’m just like, hmm, and then I kind of move on with my day and it doesn’t affect me.

Victoria Kleinsman (42:24.95)
Yeah. And that’s definitely the place to be in neutrality, like you said. And I believe we can go and it sounds like you kind of veer in between neutrality and then embracing neutrality and embracing. So I think we go from accepting neutrality to embracing to loving. So embracing the fact that, you know what, I would prefer not to be this curvy, but I am. So I’m just going to embrace my curves. And some days you might be like,

Brooke (42:52.689)
year.

Victoria Kleinsman (42:54.582)
Yeah, I’m not embracing them today. But I’m just going to be like, you know, wish it would be different, have a preference for it to be different. But I’m just going to get on with my day anyway. Yeah, which is.

Brooke (42:56.36)
I’m

Brooke (43:03.865)
Yeah, I think the biggest difference in that is like, yes, I’m not where I want to be, but the difference from where I am, where I was is I’m not thinking, now I should restrict or, this is what I should, it goes like, I wish I didn’t look like this. And then it’s like, okay, we’re done. Or it’s like.

Victoria Kleinsman (43:18.615)
Mm.

Brooke (43:28.689)
But what happens if we try to change your body? You go back to the eating disorder. We are not doing that. And so we go on with our day. We feel empowered because we, like I feel empowered because I’ve recovered from my eating disorder and we keep going.

Victoria Kleinsman (43:40.014)
Yeah, that’s incredible. And this is a perfect time to actually to bring up. So I remember when we first met and then also during recovery, you were so afraid that you would never get rid of all the mental turmoil. Like you would be recovered physically, but still very much struggling mentally. So can you speak to that? Because again, that’s so common. And sadly, the treatment centers only focus on physical recovery and nutritional habilitation.

rehabilitation, not actually mental freedom.

Brooke (44:11.631)
Yeah. I think…

Brooke (44:21.019)
I got told a lot in treatment that like…

You know, you can only get to a certain place of recovery and then you’re always going to have that thought in the back of your mind. I don’t believe that that’s true whatsoever.

Brooke (44:41.455)
I want to be fully transparent in this so occasionally I will have a thought like, should you be eating that much? But it doesn’t go any further than that. But because it’s only occasionally, that’s my proof that you can live fully without an eating disorder. I have gotten to where I’ve gotten, so why stay here? I know that I can get further than where I am.

The mental thing, yeah, was so worried that I would recover physically and not recover mentally. And I had gotten to that place a couple times where I had recovered physically, wherever the weight thing that they put me on. But the…

The weight that they put me at for like recovering was significantly lower than what my actual set point weight is. it just like crazy different than what I actually am. And.

Brooke (45:53.436)
There is this messy, kind of like a messy middle of recovery where you are maybe starting to get weight restored and starting to be like close to your set point and you might still feel a little bit trapped.

Brooke (46:12.465)
I don’t know, just, sometimes I don’t feel like it was necessarily anything I did, although I know I did a lot of things. But even being at the right weight for myself took a significant amount of the mental toll of thinking about constantly thinking about food or my body off of me. And then I think the rest of…

Victoria Kleinsman (46:35.49)
Yeah.

Brooke (46:42.427)
That happened when I was focused on other things in my life as well, like my business. I started that this year. That was a big focus and that was really, really helpful to just have something else that I was focusing on.

Victoria Kleinsman (47:03.032)
Yeah.

Brooke (47:03.163)
I don’t know if that was an exact answer, but I… Yeah, the mental… I think if you do the work and are actually doing all of the actions, the mental does come. It just… It is hard, but it does come.

Victoria Kleinsman (47:18.892)
Yeah, so what I’m hearing you say is you have to fully surrender to your mental hunger and just take actions that are appropriately aligned with complete mental freedom and the stability of your set point weight helps you to kind of be like, okay, the end is in sight. This seems to be stabling out now.

I’m not going to be that unicorn who gains weight forever, which everyone thinks they will be. And all of those things combined, like you’re fully surrendered to your mental hunger. And so food just becomes food. It stops being this pedestal thing that’s bad or wrong and you shouldn’t have it and you want it. And then the stability at the set point weight you’ve arrived at. I think both of those things combined.

Brooke (47:43.9)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (48:00.492)
just and focusing on other stuff, like life stuff, not just recovery. A combination of those three things just helps you to be like, I’m kind of not really thinking about food anymore and my body, I might prefer it to be thinner, but I’m also kind of, yeah, this is my body and I have clothes that fit me now.

Brooke (48:17.583)
Yeah. And I think…

Brooke (48:23.687)
I was thinking about this podcast a couple days before this and it’s

It’s kind of hard for me to get back in that mindset a little bit. Like I kind of forget a little bit, like, but…

Victoria Kleinsman (48:33.016)
Hmm.

Brooke (48:39.261)
And one thing that I heard people in recovery say was like once you eat the food like consistently it takes it off the pedestal and I think that that is was also true for like my mental freedom side. When I was eating the food, I was eating a lot of food because I had a really extreme, I had very severe mental hunger. When I was eating all of the foods it just wasn’t…

It was partially because my body was also getting to its set point, but it just wasn’t as interesting to me either and that gave me the freedom because I was thinking like, should I eat this cookie? Should I not eat the cookie? I knew that I had already eaten four cookies that day and it was fine. could just keep, I could eat another one and then go on with my day and have four the next day or whatever. I, it just didn’t have the same pull on me when you’re not thinking about it.

Victoria Kleinsman (49:36.27)
Yeah, so would you say full allowance for mental and physical hunger is absolutely key for full recovery?

Brooke (49:44.062)
100%. I think that that is one of the things that traditional recovery methods don’t, they miss a lot, is the full allowance part. They still want you to be, keep you to this structure and I had to go outside of that structure to gain that freedom.

Victoria Kleinsman (50:05.794)
Yeah. What would you share with someone who is in recovery and they’ve hit a plateau because they’re so afraid of the weight gain that is continuously happening and they can’t see an end in sight? So I know you experienced that as well because you’ve said, I think it’s worth bringing it up because everyone’s different, but you gained six, like you went up six sizes and your eating disorder hated that.

So what would you say, I guess, to the past version of you who was in the middle of that or someone in your position who is so afraid of this weight gain, but they also want recovery and all the things that those things combined entail internally, what would you say to someone who is struggling with that?

Brooke (50:57.157)
I would say this eating disorder was not your fault.

but you do have to take responsibility for your recovery.

Brooke (51:13.872)
It’s

easier to maybe sit in the middle or kind of go backwards but it’s easier in the short term. The long term hard is going to be dealing with an eating disorder for the rest of your life and being 70 and 80 and 90 and still having an eating disorder but the short term hard of pushing through this little stint of recovery is going to give you a long term

easier life because you are not dealing with this eating disorder for the rest of your life. And then yeah, kind of like I said in the beginning, my biggest part for getting through the middle and like the beginning of a lot of the weight gain was

being like, yeah, I feel like I’m gonna be the biggest person that ever recovered ever, but it’s like, okay, if you are, then you can go share a story and make other people feel less alone. And so that one was.

That one really helped me and I know a lot of people have career goals and different things like that and I just, can’t describe to you how much easier it is to live life when you are not consumed with an eating disorder. I’m not saying life is always easy, it is hard but.

Brooke (52:53.181)
if you are not constantly, like genuinely 98 % of my day was consumed by the thoughts of all of the eating disorder stuff. It’s just so much easier to go for your goals and make friendships and relationships if you’re not just constantly worried about that. So I would really say do your best to figure out your why, even if it’s just a temporary why. But.

focus on that a lot.

Victoria Kleinsman (53:24.622)
I love that. Okay, I’ve got a few intuitions just asked me to ask you a few questions where you can only say yes or no to the answer. I don’t know what I’m going to ask you. I know the first one. So the first one, would you say the weight gain is worth it for what you’ve got in recovery?

Brooke (53:42.459)
Yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (53:44.162)
Would you say you believe that anyone can recover?

Brooke (53:48.144)
Yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (53:54.638)
Do you think that…

you can gain weight and be the happiest you’ve ever been in life.

Brooke (54:06.821)
Yeah, yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:09.55)
I’m trying to think of one that might be the answer to no. Do you have one that you can ask yourself? Because I’m now drawing short. Like a yes or no answer that might be powerful for someone to hear.

Brooke (54:25.49)
is it possible to be the unicorn? And I would say no.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:30.846)
No, I agree on that one. Then one more.

Brooke (54:32.957)
Mmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:38.05)
Hmm. I’ve got one for you personally.

Brooke (54:41.841)
Okay.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:43.48)
Do you know that you are enough as you are?

Brooke (54:52.061)
Yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:55.704)
And then last question, Brooke, how has coaching changed your life, that decision you made to choose yourself to get better? How has it changed your life?

Brooke (55:11.207)
Coaching is.

Brooke (55:16.957)
I feel like in almost every aspect. I’m so much more confident than I ever, ever was. And it’s not just like, oh, in my body or in what I’m eating. Specifically your coaching. You…

Brooke (55:39.383)
would remind me of the truth when I would forget it. Like, you are enough. I believe in you. And stuff like that. And just having someone that believed in me was so incredibly powerful for me.

Brooke (56:00.879)
I think if I hadn’t done coaching, I think I’d still be in my eating disorder. So like night and day difference with my life. I’ve traveled a lot this year and it would have been so much more stressful to travel and…

be worried about the food and all of that. And now I travel and I pack snacks because I know that I don’t want my blood sugar to get too low. But then I just, I go on with whatever everyone else is doing. And I wouldn’t be able to do that if I hadn’t had you encouraging me to do that for the first trip I went on when I was in recovery. And yeah, it’s just, it’s really changed my life just in every area, I would say.

One big thing is like I…

didn’t.

Luckily a couple years ago I had worked a lot and so I was able to save up a bunch of money I didn’t know what it was for. So I did have the money that I was able to invest in this but it was really hard. was pretty much most of my savings and I was like, my gosh, is this actually gonna work? But if that’s part of it is like putting in…

Brooke (57:27.773)
Once you invest that money, you are committed to doing this. You want to do this because you’ve already spent this money. And I think that the money is completely worth it. I was so worried at the beginning. I was like, it’s not gonna be worth it. I’m gonna have to waste all this money. But it’s not, it’s completely worth it. So yeah, everything, yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (57:46.732)
Thank you for sharing that, Brooke, because that is a concern of many because it’s a shitload of money. Well, it can be for some. Everyone’s money story is different and financial, you know, situation is different. But from me investing in coaches before, when I’ve been like, shit, my God, this needs to work.

Brooke (57:54.267)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (58:03.63)
You do show up in a different energy because it’s almost like you haven’t got another choice. So that combined with this like a nice little quote, what is it? It’s something like part of the transformation is in the transaction because it’s not just here’s the money. It’s like, I’m saying yes to myself. And from that energy, you then start recovery.

Brooke (58:08.294)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (58:26.062)
And yeah, it’s not, doesn’t make it any easier. It just helps with that determination and motivation to just do this thing. And then your story that you’ve so beautifully shared, I hope, I know it will inspire so many, especially those who think this, this won’t work for me. I’m different. I’ve tried and failed too many times. Like, no, I, I care, but I don’t care how long you’ve had an eating disorder for. I don’t care what background and conditioning and trauma you’ve had. I know you can recover with the right path.

the right belief and the right support, you can. So thank you for sharing your story and like I said before we hit record, it’s so good to see you again, just like glowing and thriving. It’s amazing and thank you for trusting me and you know with the money and me supporting you, it’s been an honor and a pleasure.

Brooke (59:09.391)
Yeah

Brooke (59:17.447)
Thank you. This feels like I was so scared to do, like I was so scared to do this podcast because

I think I hear Koa screaming in the background. But I was so nervous about it and this like because I think that the eating disorder really thrives in shame and as much as I you know I have talked to people about it like professionals about it I haven’t really shared my story.

Victoria Kleinsman (59:30.734)
Oh, you can hear her already. Oh, she’s, I’m going to shut off this and he’s kind of, he is kind of waiting outside because she’s screaming for me. But don’t rush. Like, give time to…

Brooke (59:58.501)
with people that are outside my immediate family and my close circle. So I was super nervous about this, like just to share this is gonna be online and I think this is a really good, kind of almost like a final step in my recovery to be like, you have no power over me eating disorder, you do not get to keep me quiet and ashamed. Like I…

am taking that power back and raising awareness for this because I don’t want someone else to go through what I did.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:00:33.44)
Amen to that. Well, thank you, Brooke, so much for sharing. It feels good to share, doesn’t it? Yeah, I remember how it feels. So thank you. And listeners, if you want to connect with Brooke, then you can come through me and I can pass any questions on that you might have for her. Thank you again so much, Brooke. Lots of love to you and to our listeners as well. See you next time. Bye.

Brooke (01:00:41.444)
Yeah.

Brooke (01:00:51.131)
Yeah.

Brooke (01:00:56.126)
Bye.