Podcast Episode 372: Real Housewives, Real Pressure: Jackie Goldschneider Gets Real About Eating Disorders and Perfection Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Jackie Goldschneider (00:00)

During meals, I would order the salad, and then I would go to the bathroom and I would eat the tuna, and then I’d go back to the table. As long as I had something in my stomach, I didn’t care. I was becoming very numb to any emotion around it. I accepted that this was just the way that I was going to live.

JoAnn Crohn (00:18)

Welcome to the No-Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by the brilliant Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:25)

Hello, hello everybody. How are you? I thought you were going to go with the better retucker. ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (00:29)

⁓

because you’re feeling better. We’re both feeling better. There was like mystery illness going through my house. We have no idea what me and my son had. No idea because it wasn’t something that had a lot of pain with it. It was just complete exhaustion. Exhaustion that got better with day quail. So it has to be sinus related. That is where I’m going with this. Like it has to be. But I’m better, you’re better, everybody’s better. And we’re ready to have just a fantastic interview today. Yes. Because guys, we have one of the Real Housewives.

And we’re talking about a subject that I think you will definitely be able to relate to. It is this perfection, this chasing of perfection and how to know really when you’re spiraling chasing it because we’re talking to Jackie Goldschneider. She’s the star of the Bravo hit TV show, The Real Housewives of New Jersey. And before joining the show in 2018, Jackie was an attorney and freelance journalist.

Her writing has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Huff Post, and Scary Mommy, among others. The weight of beautiful is her debut book-length work. Jackie graduated magna cum laude from Boston University and received her Juris Doctorate from Boredom University School of Law before practicing law in New York City. And she now lives in New Jersey with her husband and their children, which fun fact, two sets of twins. my gosh! I’m so excited.

to talk with Jackie and a little bit of a trigger warning for this podcast. We do talk about eating disorders. So please keep that in mind as you listen, but it’s gonna be a fantastic discussion. So let’s get on with the show.

You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids, and we’re going to have fun doing it. We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode, we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast.

Welcome Jackie to the podcast. are so happy to have you here.

Jackie Goldschneider (02:48)

excited to be here.

JoAnn Crohn (02:49)

Jackie Goldschneider (02:53)

It’s all downhill from here.

Brie Tucker (02:55)

It’s embarrassing. ⁓

Jackie Goldschneider (02:57)

Ha ha!

JoAnn Crohn (02:59)

Well, your book, The Weight of Beautiful, we have been devouring it here at No Guilt Mom. Bri and I, recently took, it was a company retreat that our clients came on to Tantoon, Mexico. And Bri was right here in the airplane seat beside me, just going through and reading during that four and a half hour plane flight. I have never seen Bri so involved in a book. She’ll admit this herself.

Brie Tucker (03:22)

Jackie, I was very interested in the story because growing up in the same timeframe that 90s perfection and everybody has to be so skinny, like moving into that area where everybody had so much put on how we look and that we had to keep getting thinner and thinner. I was really interested in your story and it took me back. It brought me back to like all of those insecurities that we had growing up and like still have.

still have to this day. And I really loved also how so many of us as women have those parts of us that we’re trying to reach perfection and we keep it quiet how we get there.

JoAnn Crohn (04:04)

Reading your book, Jackie, like it was a very similar upbringing for me. So like you start out and you have this house full of love, but there is also this obsession with kind of food and diet culture. What did that look like when you were growing up?

Jackie Goldschneider (04:19)

The food obsession part was the name of your podcast. was about food. So my mother worked a lot. She was not home very often. So when she was home, she just wanted to shower us with so much love and her way of doing that was often either buying things or feeding us. And so she would cook and she would just make these massive, massive portions of food and just really

not understand that if we stopped eating, it had nothing to do with love, right? Right. So she would encourage us to just eat everything because for her, was like, well, if I can fill you up with this, I feel less like I’m leaving you empty.

Brie Tucker (05:00)

Also wasn’t there that mindset to you back then of like if you don’t eat everything I gave you then you didn’t like it and if you didn’t like it then you don’t like me.

Jackie Goldschneider (05:09)

Yes, absolutely. There was that. There was the guilt about not being home, about not cooking for us during the week. But also she also had this mentality. was from, her parents were Holocaust survivors. So there was never enough food when she was growing up. So her mentality around food was completely different than a lot of people have in modern day. She often felt like if you don’t eat it now, I don’t know if we’re going to run out, which was ridiculous.

JoAnn Crohn (05:35)

That’s like the food scarcity thing that like a lot of people have that. Yeah.

Jackie Goldschneider (05:39)

So a lot of factors went into her equating providing me with food with her providing me with security.

JoAnn Crohn (05:48)

That is so interesting. Like for like my childhood, it was my mom and my grandma were both not happy with their bodies whatsoever. And so I really saw the whole like dieting spiral where you dieted for a bit and then you got to what you wanted and then gave everything up that you were doing and it was like back and forth, back and forth. And they were attending Weight Watchers meetings.

Brie Tucker (06:11)

That’s a big part of it.

JoAnn Crohn (06:13)

I started attending Weight Watchers meetings when I was 20 and then you started it as a teenager.

Jackie Goldschneider (06:20)

I did. Yeah, I think that Weight Watchers and Disclaimer, I know they just filed for bankruptcy now they’re offering advice. It’s not the same Weight Watchers that it was back then, but I strongly feel like Weight Watchers in the 80s and 90s probably set off many in eating disorder. I would back into Gastegna who interviewed a hundred women who were on Weight Watchers in the 80s and 90s, about 90 of them developed eating disorders.

Jackie Goldschneider (06:49)

Just my guess, but.

Brie Tucker (06:50)

you also gonna like glaze over the whole dexatrim push of that?

Jackie Goldschneider (06:54)

Wow, god. was on everything.

JoAnn Crohn (06:58)

Yeah. Weight Watchers, was such a sense of food control. You track everything you ate. You assigned like I was in the points era. So you assigned everything points. And if you went over and under, that was how I determined if I was successful that day or not successful that day, which really does correlate to a lot of eating disorder habits or disordered eating habits.

Jackie Goldschneider (07:18)

Right, well, what Wee Lectures did for me was it taught me to equate food with numbers and mathematical equations instead of with satisfying hunger or joy or eating balance. So eventually it caught me at such a vulnerable low point in my life. And then I lost a ton of weight because I’m really good at math. And so I lost a ton of weight. And so in my head, it was like this triggered

association between treating food as math, as numbers, and being happy. And so I lost this ability to eat for anything other than weight loss. And that stuck with me. I just could never get rid of it

JoAnn Crohn (08:04)

But when you do it when you’re a teenager, I mean, those are pretty formidable years, things like that really implant themselves in your psyche as like, I agree with that too. I feel like that’s where I got a lot of my food behaviors as well. And you talk about in your book how you started identifying then as the thin one. So like, how did that then shape you and what you did?

Jackie Goldschneider (08:24)

my gosh, because I was always heavy. I was always heavy in high school. was very overweight. And when I finally, I’m talking when I developed anorexia, which was, so I was a yo-yo dieter from the time I was 17 and stepped into my first Weight Watchers meeting. I yo-yo dieted until I was 26. And at 26, I became anorexic. And it was when I became anorexic that I started getting very thin.

You know, I got to a point of thinness where people were scared. You know, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about where I was like a head on like a floating body. was, it was when I was nearing that point, when I was like, just very thin and I’m also tall and I had extensions and you know, so I had this long blonde hair. was tall. The first time someone asked me if I was a model, I

Don’t think I moved for about a half an hour after that. I just let like joy pour through my bones. It felt so good. Someone told me they had two friends named Jackie and I was skinny Jackie. And I just felt so good about myself. And I remember that eventually it became my entire identity because I never felt special at a really, really hard time in high school. And so being thin,

And being the thinnest person in the room always meant that when I walked in, I was noticed. being the thinnest person in the room meant that that could be my identity. Thin could be who I was, more thin than anybody could be who I was. And I liked it. It felt like I had achieved something.

Brie Tucker (10:06)

Right. You can tell just by the way you’re talking about this, how that was like, okay, I am the best. I am the best at this.

Jackie Goldschneider (10:16)

Yes, because I didn’t feel like I was the best at anything. Yeah. And I was the best at discipline.

JoAnn Crohn (10:21)

that you were getting praise for. When did you realize that it was a problem and it had developed into anorexia?

Jackie Goldschneider (10:28)

Well, you know, I knew that it was like problematic early on, but it was not something that I was willing to give up at all. like, you know, I brought a 900 page encyclopedia of caloric values on my honeymoon to Italy and it was half my suitcase. I knew that that was abnormal, but I didn’t care because in my head I was like, well, everybody does stuff, you know, half the world’s on FenFen, you know, at least I’m not doing that. So.

I knew it was an issue, but when I went to Mexico and I ate the tuna out of the bag instead of eating my meals, I sat in the bathroom and I knew when I was eating in the bathroom, knew that there was a problem. And then I came home and weighed myself and my weight was so low that I said in my head, if I don’t stop this, I’m going to die. And I didn’t stop for another 15 years, but at that point I knew, and I also knew that it was

a mental illness at that point. And I never realized that before, because I never looked up anything. didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know what help was out there because I thought that if I got help, I’d go back to being fat and miserable. And I didn’t know which was better, starving and being happy with the way I look or eating and being just, you know, so lonely and miserable. Yeah. So at which neither is true.

JoAnn Crohn (11:52)

Yeah.

Jackie Goldschneider (11:55)

course, right? But that those were the only choices I thought that I had. So I never wanted to look into, you know, anything about help or anything.

JoAnn Crohn (12:05)

Yeah, I want to jump a little bit back to your wedding day and to that tuna fish story. And we’re going to do that right after this.

So Jackie, know that wedding day perfection is a huge thing for so many women. mean, I gave myself two years after I got engaged before I got married because I wanted to lose 20 pounds. I did through like this diet called HMR that my husband was on at the time where it’s like these like pre-packaged meals and shakes and whatever. And then I gave it up two months prior to my wedding. My seabstress was like, it’s a little tight. It’s getting a little bit like that body pressure to be thin on your wedding day.

is so intense and you write about your wedding day and yet being absolutely freezing from starvation. So what were you telling yourself in those moments to keep going with it?

Jackie Goldschneider (12:57)

I didn’t have to lose any weight for my wedding day because by the time I got to my shower, which was like three months before my wedding, I was absolutely emaciated. There was no more weight left to lose. It was all just maintenance. And it wasn’t really even about wedding day. It was life. I needed to stay thin.

for so many reasons in my head, I thought that maybe my husband will stop loving me or maybe everyone at the wedding will be talking about, you know, I just didn’t want everyone saying, ⁓ thank God you got healthy again, because that word healthy was always super triggering for me. It’s not anymore. But back then, healthy to me meant fat. So I just didn’t want anybody. So I said, let me just get past this and let me get past that. So the wedding was not an issue.

in terms of like wanting to lose weight, but it did destroy my entire wedding experience. mean, all I thought about was what I ate and what I could eat and what I was allowed to eat. And I didn’t eat at my rehearsal dinner. I didn’t eat on my wedding day. I think I had a few bites of fish because I wanted to have a drink. I was very, very scared of the cake. I didn’t want to eat in front of people. I didn’t want to eat the cake because I was on such a restricted calorie diet that one bite of cake

I had to overestimate just in case. And it would take up so much of my food. And I didn’t know what was in the icing. Like the whole thing made me so nervous. Right.

Brie Tucker (14:22)

reading your book, the thoughts that you went through in your head all the time, trying to figure out what ingredients were there, how much they were, where that math fell. I was exhausted just reading it. I can’t imagine trying to stay on top of that 24 seven. Yeah.

Jackie Goldschneider (14:39)

It was really exhausting.

JoAnn Crohn (14:41)

So Jackie, you briefly mentioned that eating tuna fish on your honeymoon, but I think people need to know the exact extent of this story and what you did and how you prepared to eat tuna fish on your honeymoon and like how you actually ate that. Cause you were, you were at an all like an all inclusive resort, right? For your honeymoon.

Jackie Goldschneider (15:00)

No,

it wasn’t my honeymoon. My honeymoon was in Italy and that I ate nothing except sauce and salad. It was a trip to Mexico that my husband and I took a few months after our wedding. was all okay. And I would always call a restaurant before I went there. I never just cold went to a restaurant ever. I would just lie and tell them I had all these allergies so that my food would be steamed. I didn’t want it cooked in any oil. And I wanted to make sure they would make me vegetables without any oil.

So otherwise I would just bring my own food. So the resort in Mexico was all inclusive. They wouldn’t change anything on the menu. So I was horrified and I didn’t know what to do. And I was freaking out. We already paid for the trip. There was nothing more beautiful to me than when I discovered a new food that actually tasted somewhat decent and was low calorie and was packaged.

That was like my holy grail. they had these, think they still make them, but they were like these 70 calorie little cans of pre-mixed. So it wasn’t just dry tune. was pre-mixed with like a mayo and a couple pieces of like metal tasting celery, right? And I brought, think 36 of those with me.

JoAnn Crohn (16:12)

That’s a lot to carry on a suitcase.

Jackie Goldschneider (16:15)

I mean, they were light and they were small and I put them all in like a, I would package everything beautifully so that no one could see it. they were sealed, you know, there was no chance of them breaking open. And I, I mean, yes, it is a lot to bring, but for me it was fine. And I brought them with me and I would just put a few in my purse and during meals I would order the salad and then I would go to the bathroom and I would eat the tuna.

and they came with like a little spoon on them and then I’d go back to the table. As long as I had something in my stomach, I didn’t care. You know, about a year into the anorexia, was becoming very numb to any emotion around it. I accepted that this was just the way that I was going to live.

Brie Tucker (17:01)

Mm-hmm.

JoAnn Crohn (17:02)

Hmm.

Jackie Goldschneider (17:03)

It was not until I started questioning how long can I live like this that I could ever get rid of it. You know, but for a long time I was like, well, this is just it. This is what you got to do. And the reason people don’t like it is because they can’t do it. Right. So you’d make all these excuses for yourself, but the tuna and the soupies, you know, I was, I was kind of numb by that point and I was sad about it. remember. And I, I knew that it was problematic, but there was nothing in me that felt strong enough to change.

Brie Tucker (17:33)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (17:33)

Yeah.

What about when you became pregnant with your kids.

Jackie Goldschneider (17:38)

I was pregnant. I went to a prenatal nutritionist because I did not want to mess with the health of my children. But at the same time, mental illness, I was not strong enough to stop. So I said, can you give me a food chart, please, for how much exactly I need to eat of every single nutrient in order to have healthy twins? And, you know, she gave me some spiel about, you have to eat for yourself, too. ⁓

really brushed her off and I walked out with that food chart and I made sure that every single day I hit just the exact bottom of that food chart, the very minimum of what I had to do to keep my kids healthy. And I not one thing for enjoyment. I ate not one thing for my own health. And I don’t know what my habits contributed to my kids being born premature, underweight. You know, I was very sick and I had a lot of problems feeding them.

even when they were born because I had no connection between hunger and eating. So for me, was like everything was done by a mathematical equation. So if they didn’t eat enough, I was frantic.

JoAnn Crohn (18:50)

Yeah, I can just like draw so many parallels to like the way you thought and like my own thinking in food and especially like restriction of food. But with me, I didn’t have, and this is so hard to say because I think a lot of women hearing this may say this too. And they may be like, but I don’t have that self-control, which is also kind of a messed up way of thinking as well. Just berating ourselves so much for anything we have to do with food and making food this not

a thing we need to live, but a thing we need to control and a thing we need to restrict. And it just takes so much brain power every day to do that. Right after this break, we want to talk about how things started to change, and especially when you became part of the cast of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. So we’ll get to that right after this.

Brie Tucker (19:40)

So Jackie, you have talked about how you had been keeping this image up of perfection. I’ve got it all together. I’ve got the perfect life. I’ve got the perfect husband. I’ve got the perfect family. And you had been doing in your mind well with everything that was going on. I’m going to tell you, you were doing well as best you possibly could with the mental health issues that you had going on around food. So.

What made you go when they came to you with the idea of you joining the Real Housewives of New Jersey? I know that you had to like do some convincing with your husband, but what went through your head of like, I can do this, I can do this. And, cause you also knew that you were hiding your eating disorder and you were like, I can go on TV and still manage to make this work.

Jackie Goldschneider (20:27)

A of things. Number one is that I was 15 years into anorexia already. Right. I knew how to hide it. I allowed myself one to two meals a week where I could eat unknown foods. So I could save all of that for when I was on camera. The number one thing in the first question I asked was,

Jackie Goldschneider (20:55)

Do you leave cameras at my home? And they said, And so the show only films you when you’re filming a scene. If you had left cameras at my home, of course, I could not have done it because 24 hours a day, I can’t hide my eating disorder. But for a two hour scene every day, I could hide this eating disorder. A lot of scenes don’t involve eating at all. I knew that that wouldn’t be a problem. But when you think about the reasons why I developed an eating disorder in the first place, because I didn’t feel special.

And because I just wanted to be seen, I wanted people to love me. I mean, all of that was being handed to me on a silver platter. came to me and said, essentially like, you wanna be famous and one of the select 50 people in the country who gets to call themselves a real housewife? I mean, there was no way someone like me who was just searching for validation was gonna say no to that.

Brie Tucker (21:47)

Yeah. Can you share with us, like you talk about the time that you went away on the trip and gosh, I’m trying to remember where you guys had gone. It was the second trip and you were rooming with your best friend and you weren’t quite sure how you fit in the cast. was. Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that. And the moment that you realized I haven’t been hiding things as well as I thought things are kind of coming to a head here. ⁓

Jackie Goldschneider (22:01)

We shouldn’t make that I think.

yeah, in Jamaica, think that’s the trip that you were talking about. We several trips that year. ⁓

Brie Tucker (22:18)

I’m all like, wait, which one was that? Yeah.

Jackie Goldschneider (22:21)

I think the producers started catching on to my issues. And so there was a scene in our room where we had to talk and my friend sat down at a table that was just filled with complimentary food. And I just didn’t want to sit there because I knew she’d be eating and I didn’t want to eat because I already had the amount of calories that I allowed myself to have before dinner and I didn’t count on eating again.

It made me just very nervous. And then she encouraged me to eat. And I remember saying, we’re having dinner in two hours. And it sounded so ridiculous to her. The only way that I felt safe was with all these rules that I made for myself. And as long as I stayed in the rules, I felt like I could breathe. And I felt like I didn’t need to constantly think about it. Like I just followed the rules. You know,

It was breaking my rules to have to eat something at that point. And so I was just so anxious inside. They made me film a lunch scene where Melissa, who I was with just, and she can eat. I mean, she has just the metabolism that I dream about. And she just ordered all this food for the table. And I just knew that I couldn’t eat any of it.

The whole trip just made me so nervous and it was one of the hardest trips that I’ve ever taken. It was just so hard because there was food everywhere and I just, I didn’t know how to eat any of it.

Brie Tucker (23:50)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (23:50)

So after that trip, what did you do next realizing that it made you so anxious?

Jackie Goldschneider (23:56)

Nothing. mean, filming is three months, four months. So like nothing. I just had to make it through. And then I could go back to like breathing again, because at home, my issues, nobody called me out on them. My husband noticed them, but he had his experience with.

Brie Tucker (24:16)

You learned a long time ago. Yeah. I bring it up.

Jackie Goldschneider (24:19)

I don’t blame him for not trying again. I  mean, I was an adult. ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (24:23)

For that whole story, make sure to go get Jackie’s book, The Way to Beautiful. A little teaser there.

Jackie Goldschneider (24:29)

So, I mean, there was nothing that I changed. That same season, I ended up getting called out for my behavior around food. They said that I didn’t eat and it became a whole discussion and I had prepared for that in advance, just in case that day did come. You know, I was so warped in my head around food that part of me felt like this is mine and it’s not anyone’s right to know anything about it. And the other part of me felt like what a disservice.

I’m doing to anybody who had recovered, because in that moment I claimed that I had recovered. And I felt so bad. I don’t know. I felt really bad about it. And when I did choose to recover, I felt like I had to do it so publicly to make up for everything I had done wrong and the mixed messages that I had given to everyone.

JoAnn Crohn (25:18)

Yeah, so tell me more about how you felt bad. Was it feeling bad because of those mixed messages that you presented this one reality of yourself and it wasn’t that?

Jackie Goldschneider (25:27)

You know, I felt bad that people thought that it was attainable, this level of thin in your 40s. I mean, I was a size, I dipped between a, if you look at the season, my fourth season on the show, when I chose to recover, I started the season so, so thin, probably the thinnest that I was after having children. I was stressed out. And when I was stressed out, my default was eating less and less, exercising more. I was like,

breakably thin. was that pool party at Teresa’s house where I’m wearing like a blue skirt. And I was definitely like a size double zero. And I, I felt this guilt, letting people think that that’s a natural body type in your forties, because it is not. It was at that point that I was already thinking about how much longer can I do this? I mean, actually at that point at that party, when I did decide to recover, I needed to let everybody know because

Brie Tucker (26:11)

Right.

Jackie Goldschneider (26:26)

There were times over the five years preceding that where I had wanted to recover and I would wake up just the same way people do with weight loss. And I would say tomorrow I’m going to do it. And then, you know, I would go to my refrigerator and I was just so scared to eat anything. And I just didn’t know what to do. And I could never do it. And then if I feel like, well, nobody knows anyway, so like no one’s holding me to it. So when I did decide to recover and I knew that it would, I needed that to save my life.

I had to tell everybody I knew and that included the entire audience of like Bravo’s most popular show so that the entire world would hold me accountable. Cause I knew one thing, if I told everybody I have an eating disorder and I’m going to recover, there was no way in hell that I was allowing women who experience the same traumatic experiences that I had. There was no way I was going to let them think it was too hard. No way.

Brie Tucker (27:21)

That’s amazing.

JoAnn Crohn (27:23)

It’s amazing to you, Jackie, because you did this all in the public spotlight. And I totally understand why you told the public that you were going to recover to have that accountability with it. But also what I think people need to know is that when you mentioned that there was a scene where they encountered you, that confronted you about your eating habits, I used to work in reality television before I did all this. was in Los Angeles at a television production company.

That scene was definitely premeditated and scripted out. And to have that where everybody else knew and then you know that they knew and I couldn’t imagine the pressure that you were under during that time.

Jackie Goldschneider (28:02)

I also knew what show I was on, you know? And I love The Real Housewives, but I knew that this is part of it. So people have asked me, you know, at the time I was, you know, like best friends with Margaret and she’s the one who brought it out. And they said, were you mad at her for not confronting you privately as a friend and seeing if you needed help? And really kind of no, because this was the show that we were on and this was our job. And we understood and I understood that this was her job.

And if we took everything off camera and confronted each other privately, there wouldn’t be a show and we wouldn’t be doing our job. So I did understand that, but nobody ever said a word to me, which was crazy because I was so blatantly sick, especially in the days in my thirties before having kids. was so thin and so sick and everybody who ever went out with me could see it and would know it. And it’s a really hard thing.

to confront someone about, you know, very sensitive topic, but even doctors, nobody said a word to me.

JoAnn Crohn (29:07)

That’s crazy.

Brie Tucker (29:08)

So when you finally hit the point where like you said that you were like, okay, I need to get better I need to be held accountable. Was there a part of you at all that was surprised? That people were like, yeah, we know you have a needing disorder because of the fact that nobody ever confronted you about it before

Jackie Goldschneider (29:25)

no, I knew that everybody knew. I knew that everybody

Brie Tucker (29:28)

Everybody was doing the turning blind eye. Yeah.

Jackie Goldschneider (29:31)

I mean, when I came out with it, I got calls from people from my past who I had never spoken to and they said, I’ve always wanted to apologize for not saying anything, but I’m so happy now. I was so worried about you, but I didn’t know what to say. I got so many of those phone calls. know, my best friends from college, they told me that like, there were so many times I wanted to say something and I just didn’t know what to say. You know?

Everyone was very relieved, but no, I mean, it was not. It was like the biggest open secret in the world.

Brie Tucker (30:05)

Well, with that being said, now that you have the ability that this platform in your life, the place where you are now, what would you say to somebody that has a friend, a coworker, a family member that they really feel like, ⁓ they’re struggling. There’s something going on here in terms of a negative eating disorder type situation. What would you encourage them to say to that person when they’re like, I don’t know what to say.

Jackie Goldschneider (30:30)

So I would encourage them to say something because what keeps an eating disorder alive is the secrecy, right? And you feel like you’re the only person who knows about this and who understand everyone would think you’re crazy. So I think letting the person know, not in a long drawn out speech, but just, hey, sometimes I worry about you with food. If there’s ever anything that you want to talk about or you want my help finding, you know, help, I’m here for you. And just knowing that alone is enough.

If the person has a loved one that you can reach out to, that can maybe be a little more intrusive. Like if my husband had came to me later in life and said, hey, want my help nipping this in the bud? I think I would have been a little more receptive to it. Okay. Yeah. So I think, um, and also if you know the resources that can help somebody and you offer that to somebody, makes it easier. if someone had came to me, cause part of the problem was I never knew.

to get help. And I’m a smart girl, right? I never knew where to even start looking. I felt like this was all something that existed in my head and like, I was the only person that anyone would ever have known who had anorexia. And I didn’t even like the word. But if someone had came to me and said, Hey, the National Eating Disorder Association has a website and they have all these resources and they have therapists who are trained in eating disorders. And here’s

two that are in your area. And here’s the screening tool that you can use to see if you have a problem. It would have made it a lot easier to get started on that journey. So to anyone who has a friend who might have an eating disorder, let them know that you’re there, that you can help them find resources, that there are therapists who are experienced in this, and that anytime they want to talk about anything, you understand what they’re going through and you are there for them with no judgment. And maybe reach out to somebody who’s a little closer and can be a little more intrusive.

JoAnn Crohn (32:25)

And we’ll put that link to in the show notes. Jackie, we talked earlier about how you identified as thin Jackie. Now that you’re on the other side of it, how do you define yourself now?

Jackie Goldschneider (32:27)

Any.

That was really hard for me. It was very hard going up in sizes because for me to give up size zero felt to me like I was giving away my identity. And the truth is I had to find new ways to identify. And now it feels like, how did I ever identify with something so shallow? Like how was I so proud of just being thin? I would so much rather be known as a writer, as a mother.

as a wife, as a woman who fights against anti-Semitism, I would rather be known for all these other things in my life that I can’t believe that I chose skin and bones as the way that I wanted the world to see me. So, I mean, like it did take me a little while to get there and it was hard gaining weight, I’m not gonna lie, but giving up that identity allowed me to identify with things that are just so much more valuable.

JoAnn Crohn (33:34)

Yeah, that is a really empowering statement. And now looking towards the future, Jackie, what is something coming up in your life that you are looking forward to?

Jackie Goldschneider (33:42)

I am writing my second book, is so exciting. And so I really look forward to that. My show is on pause, so we don’t know what is happening with that. But like you said, I have two sets of twins. My older set is two boys who are 17. And so we’re embarking on the entire college process, which is so exciting. And so I’m really looking forward to that. I mean, there’s just so much life.

to look forward to. And now I look forward to traveling. You we just came back from Spain. We spent seven days there. I didn’t work out once. I didn’t even check if the hotel had a gym. I ate all kinds of new foods. mean, was just, it’s just so life is just so much better. Yes. When all of your thoughts are not taken up with dieting, right? He did throw me.

JoAnn Crohn (34:29)

Amen.

Jackie Goldschneider (34:36)

well with the diet drugs and like I don’t fault anyone for being on them but for me I came back into a world where I thought I was going to be enjoying food with everyone I’ve ever known and turns out like half of them are on diet drugs and don’t want to eat with me. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (34:51)

I get that.

Jackie Goldschneider (34:55)

Also, it made it harder to gain weight when everyone around me is losing weight. So I did have that curve ball. Life is so much more enjoyable when you are not worrying about all of that. my health did restore. A lot of things that were going south came back to life. So I wish I had done it earlier, but thank God I did it when I did.

JoAnn Crohn (35:22)

Well now, and you’re sharing your message to you to helpfully reach those women who are right in the throes of it and to show like there is life on the other side. So Jackie, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us. This has been so enjoyable. And when you do your next book, we should do this again. ⁓

Brie Tucker (35:39)

Thank you so much.

Jackie Goldschneider (35:39)

Thank you guys.

JoAnn Crohn (35:43)

So that was our first Real Housewife. As? I am such a fan of the show. I struggled to maintain focus in our conversation with Jackie because she mentioned Melissa. I’m like, it’s Melissa Gorga. She’s talking about Melissa Gorga. And then she mentioned Teresa. I’m like, my gosh, it’s Teresa. I’m like, JoAnn, focus. We are talking about perfectionism and overcoming perfectionism.

Brie Tucker (35:45)

Yeah

It’s hard when it’s like that like I get it that’s definitely been with me with a couple of guests But you know, not as big into the reality shows So like with me it would be like if they were like a tick-tock star that did voices for dogs I’d be like, my god Like I would have hammy I would have hammy of hammy and Olivia on

But no, I loved Jackie’s story. mean, she is slightly older, but not much. I’m still in that same realm of like when she’s talking through a timeline of the nineties and with the Weight Watchers, that definitely made me think of you and your stories with your mom doing Weight Watchers and then you going into Weight Watchers. And I just love how honest she was about all of it when she came to the point of recovery, because I feel like

And everybody has their right to privacy, whether or not you’re in a reality or whether or you’re in television or movies or film or whatever or not. Everybody has a right to privacy, but the fact that she came out and said it and worked through it in such a public light. it was really, really huge.

JoAnn Crohn (37:11)

I feel it’s huge.

I mean, it’s interesting seeing her perspective because she said she knew her job. She knows that this is why she is on the show and this is how it is. And being able to accept that is unbelievable. I don’t know if I could have done that. I don’t know if I could have been like, you confronted me about my eating disorder on live, on TV with all these other people around and all these cameras. And I mean, if real housewives is anything.

Like I remember shooting reality shows, like there’s lights set up all around. It’s definitely a camera production. is nothing intimate. They have gorgeous scenes they set on that show. I’m like, there is lighting. You know? So it’s interesting her being able to go through with it and like actually maintain that friendship. But as she says, she knew the job. She knew it coming in. She is using it as a force for good and helping other women. That’s the same.

Brie Tucker (38:10)

Well, of course you do. Like this is our thing. This is what… Sometimes it’s interesting. I know like when I’m talking to people about my life and everything that I have going on. Well, okay. For instance, I’m starting with a new therapist recently and I’ve been talking to her about things and she’s just like at the end of our sessions, JoAnn, I swear to God, half the time her face is like, oh my God. Okay, that’s a lot. And I’m like, I’m very open about things because I’m not going to get better if I’m not 100 % honest.

JoAnn Crohn (38:13)

We do.

Brie Tucker (38:38)

And I feel like the struggles that we go through in our lives, you have said, and I feel like we have those struggles for a reason. They’re to share with others that you’re not alone. You’re not the only one who has this struggle because, and I say that in a way of when we feel like we’re alone and it’s all just us, we feel like there’s no way anybody could understand us and there’s no way anybody could help.

JoAnn Crohn (39:00)

Yeah, exactly. It’s the secrecy that fuels it, as Jackie said. Yeah. And when we’re secret about it, it actually makes it a little bit worse because you don’t know, you don’t have that common humanity that tells you that you’re not odd. other people are suffering with this as well. And you have community around you to help you out.

Brie Tucker (39:05)

Right.

Yep. And we’re here to share those stories that like you can overcome it. You can get there. And it would be great if all of us were able to get there the first time we thought about it and the first time we tried, but sometimes it takes multiple chances, multiple swings at it before you get to a point where you’re like, okay, I’m good to start moving forward with this. And it’s there. We have the link to Jackie’s book. I highly recommend it. It was a very, very good read. felt like I hear.

JoAnn Crohn (39:45)

Yeah, with this single P right there.

Brie Tucker (39:51)

I felt like I was there going through everything with her. was a really, really fantastic story. And we have resources at the link below for the national eating disorder.

JoAnn Crohn (40:02)

Put it below definitely. And if you know a mama who could really benefit from this episode, send this along to her, let her hear Jackie’s story and talk about it with people you don’t know too. Or give us a review right there on Apple podcasts or Spotify. When you take the time to do that, it like shows this to so many more people so we can get the word out there that yes, even though you are high achieving and trying to get all this stuff done, there is a point in life where it does become too much and how do you survive through that?

How do you move on from that? So with that, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later. Thanks.

Brie Tucker (40:39)

Thanks for stopping by.