67. Kelsey Buchalter - Can Nutrition Help you Overcome Addiction? Exploring the impact of diet, lifestyle change, and purpose in recovery

From battling severe anorexia and bulimia to becoming a nutrition advisor and health coach, Kelsey Buchalter is a true inspiration. Listen to her story on our latest podcast episode! --

In this interview, I speak with Kelsey Buchalter, a health coach, TEDx speaker, and someone who has successfully navigated severe anorexia, bulimia, and anxiety. We discuss various topics including Kelsey's journey from fighting serious health issues to becoming a mental, physical, and spiritual health advocate. Kelsey shares her unique insights into using physical activity (dance), a specific diet (carnivore ), movement, sleep, and community as key pillars to recovery. Towards the end, we emphasize the need for personal responsibility in recovery and how Kelsey used self-education to alter her perspective towards health.

https://www.instagram.com/kelseybuchalter/ https://open.spotify.com/show/0kXrqL9gzQofnlpQWK5R1D
https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-human-theatre/id1625694010 , https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelsey-buchalter-4b7103259

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ABOUT JEREMY LIPKOWTZ

JEREMY IS A MEDITATION TEACHER, LIFE COACH, AND DIGITAL HABITS EXPERT WHO WORKS WITH ENTREPRENEURS, EXECUTIVES, AND LEADERS.

Jeremy overcame addiction, shame, self-judgement, and depression in his early twenties with the help of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness not only helped him let go of destructive behaviors, it also allowed him to connect with deeper meaning and purpose in his life.

For the past 10 years Jeremy has been teaching mindfulness and emotional intelligence practices at universities, recovery centers, and companies throughout Asia and the US. He holds a Bachelors and Master’s degree in Genetics and Genomics, and spent several years at Duke University working towards a PhD in Genetics & Systems Biology before he turned full-time to teaching mindfulness.

Jeremy is also an ICF certified Executive Coach. As a former scientist and academic, Jeremy has a great passion for bringing his EI based coaching skills into the corporate and professional world. He realizes how powerful & transformative these practices can be for skeptics and senior-level managers. He is known for his calm and grounded demeanor, his expertise in habits and high-performance, and his compassionate approach to transformation.

Coaching Certifications

* CPCC, Co-Active Training Institute
* ICF Member
* ACC International Coaching Federation

Jeremy is a Certified Teacher with the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence program initially developed at Google. He also spent time living and training as a fully-ordained Buddhist monk in Myanmar. He now combines his science-based expertise with a hunger for personal development to help others discipline their minds and achieve genuine inner- peace and fulfillment.  

Transcript

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Unhooked. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz, and I'm joined today by Kelsey. Kelsey, welcome

to the 

show.



An honor to be here. 

 So this is a bit of an oddball episode for the Unhooked podcast. It's the podcast, it's mostly about porn addiction. Most of the 90% of the listeners are men, although we do have quite a few female listeners. But when I found out about your story and what you went through and what you did to heal yourself from your addictions and things that were going on in your life, I knew that we had to have you on the podcast and I knew that it would be helpful.  Just as a little teaser for people listening to this, some of the things we're gonna get into are things like body dysmorphia, eating disorders, addiction in general, and how to recover from addiction. And what I'm really inspired by your story is the deep recovery, the holistic approach to recovery. Not just, okay, can I stop doing this thing, but how can I really take my life back? so I'd love to just dive into your story because it's such a powerful one. I'm wondering if you could tell people, a little bit about your history with eating disorders and anorexia and bulimia and where you

found yourself.  

Sure. Thank you. And thank you again. I think the work that you're doing is very important. So yeah, I think, to cut a very long story short, I, from a young kid was always a very anxious and insecure kid. And in that regard,  I was the perfect brooding ground for later on in life for something like an eating disorder to manifest itself.

School was a very . Difficult time for me, not necessarily on the outside. On the outside. Everything was great. I was getting amazing  marks in school. I was friends with all the popular kids. I got invited to all the things. But on the inside was a very different story. A very sort of scary and, difficult sort of narrative is what I felt compared to I suppose, what it looked like on the outside.

But after school  I found myself in the crux of this massive metamorphosis. I think most of the time my anxiety and eating disorders were relatively contained when I was in school because there was like a set structure in place. And I think for anyone who has struggled with any addiction or any,  mental health struggles, I think the word structure is something that can. 

Resonate with a lot of people. But my eating disorders were somewhat relatively contained during school, but the minute I left school and it became apparent to me that an entire universe awaited for me, I actually  crumbled and crumbled really hard for quite a few years. Yeah, I would say the manifestations of my severe anorexia began not as anorexia actually, but more in the lines of bulimia  and binging and purging.

And then it trickled down into severe anorexia, specifically after I left school.  And  sure after many years of struggles and in and out of inpatient treatment centers and hospitals it was a combination of two things that I speak a lot about, and it was a combination of, a purpose lens and then also a sort of biological lens.

But after being 20 plus years in the standard of care, I started therapy from a  from a very young girl. And as I said, I had been in and out of hospitals for quite a long time.  I went to every specialist physician there was. I tried all the medications and yet I just could never feel okay or get any sort of sense of relief.

And when you're struggling and when you're so low, like all you want is some sort of serenity. So  I did quite a few things after I left school. Most of the things, just having to go back into a clinic, unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete any of the degrees I began in university because I would just find myself in another clinic or a hospital, unfortunately. 

So in the midst of my anorexia. I had given, which this was about 2018, I was given the go ahead by my team of physicians that I could start exercising again. Because when you're at such a low weight, it's very it's dangerous for you to  be exercising. So I was given the go ahead and I used to love, moving my body and exercising.

So I thought that  finding an adult dance class would be very conducive to my healing, because also during school and as a kid, music had always played a really big part in my life and I was always, I loved drama and performing and singing and dancing,  yeah, I got contacts of these two people in South Africa  and I asked them if they knew of someone who could teach me , some adult dance classes, and they gave me the number and they subsequently said to me, we're actually opening up a new musical theater academy in 2019.

Would you like to audition?  And I had been out of it for quite a few years. I matriculated, so I finished school in 2014 and for those like four years I was really sick between 2014 and 2018. So I had been out of it mentally and physically for quite a few years, but I found myself saying, yeah, sure, I'll audition.

'cause somehow I had some mature thought in my head that  told me, Kelsey, what do you have to lose?  . So I said to them, yeah, I'll audition. And they said to me, this was a Tuesday. And they said to me, okay, cool. Auditions are this Friday. Send us your email address and we will send you all the details.  For those few days that I had to prepare for this audition, I had woken up with this newfound sense of purpose, something that I had never felt before. And it was 

just for those few days that I had woke up with this with meaning was enough for me to just feel that there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel.

There has to be, like there has to be reason, there's meaning. 

And yeah, I went to the audition. I did not expect to get in. There were like crazy talented people all around me, like girls and guys doing splits and amazing voices and all the things. But I was just so grateful that for those few hours and for those few days of preparation that I had,  I 

I was distracted. My monkey mind was distracted. I was completely pulled out of the trenches from where I had been. So just for that, I was like so grateful and I didn't even care If I got rejected I wouldn't have been sad because again, I was just only too grateful for those few days that I had distraction.

And I think a lot of people who have struggled before can resonate with this in that when you're so low, like you can only ever live moment by moment. And for me, literally meal by meal, it's a very small myopic world 



To be taken 

out of that was just such a relief for me. So yeah, that's just a little seed that I wanna plant there.

On the purpose piece, I actually landed up getting accepted and 

I began studying there and I graduated at the beginning of 2022.  An every day for me. For those few years of studying was like a day of significance in my recovery journey. And I'll share this with you because it's so powerful,  but in the midst of my anorexia, I had gone to a life coach and he just worded it so well.

He said to me, Kelsey, if you are unable to nourish your authenticity,  how do you expect to nourish yourself on a purely physiological level?  And that hit me hard because he, he obviously articulated that crux of the importance of purpose and how much that plays a role in anyone's journey in life and anyone's current state of health. 

So  yeah, that was a big part of my recovery journey is, beginning to do something that I was clearly connected to something that was greater than me, and I was clearly connected to my authenticity. And that really played a huge role for me. And in terms of like  recovery, for people, first,  firstly, I do have to say that obviously everyone's recovery story is going to be bio individual and different and unique.

So I can't necessarily, there's no one size fits all for life or recovery. But a big thing that I believe is that the opposite of addiction  is purpose and meaning  in that when you do have something to find meaning in, and when you are living on purpose with your purpose, it completely distracts you from that monkey mind.

Whereas if you don't, then it's a lot easier to constantly be stuck in that myopic small world. So that's just one part of my recovery journey 

and story. 



Just to paint kind of a picture and to go a little deeper,  to give a sense for the listeners out there, I know your addiction was very strong. And eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphia, comes in all shapes and sizes and colors and manifestations. And  it's something that I've talked about myself that, I've struggled with disordered eating, with body dysmorphia. And so I really first just want to like highlight that, that it's  so beautiful that you're sharing about this and, healing the world really with your story. That a big part, it sounds like you had tried so many things. I think that's what's really interesting about your story is you had gone to so much therapy, so many clinics for years and years, almost decades. And then  it was these two things that was very unique in, in helping you find a light, out of that dark tunnel. And so the first one was really finding some purpose, finding some meaning in your life, it sounds like. And then now the second one. So yeah talk to us about the second one the second part of your recovery. 

  So the other side of my story was obviously, viewing.  Health through a biological lens.

And I say health because  I am reluctant to use the word mental health. 'cause I do think it comes,  with a lot of stigma  and unfortunately and also I'm also of the opinion that like mental health and physical health, they're all like one in the same thing. But yeah, there's as you mentioned in my bio, like one of my biggest inspirations is the body's innate ability to heal itself when put in the right environment and we can all visualize when we get cut and there's a scab that forms and then eventually that scab heals and the wound sort of disappears,  with that basic premise,  it's the same with our mental health. And unfortunately with mental health because it's not necessarily something that we can see, it's not like it's a broken bone on an X-ray. It, there is a lot of.  Unfortunately. So there's a lot of mysticism attached to it. And so a lot of the time with this mysticism, it almost just feels like, why did this just happen to me?

But why I love the power of the biological lens is because it it gives validity and context to what you are going through, and that's there is at every given time, always a biological underpinning to what you are feeling. What we're feeling, what we feel, that energy, it's all chemistry. 

So  this is why I'm very passionate about this because again, like I grew up  my whole former life, like the first 20 plus years of my life thinking that there's just like something wrong with me and there's just this like mystic thing that's just happening inside of my brain. But no, when I dived deeper and when I began to educate myself on how the human body works, things began to change. So also in the midst of 2018, not only did I have that big audition, not only did I go to that life coach  but I also found a nutritionist. And she  was the first nutritionist that I'd been to. 'cause throughout all my time in hospital and clinics, I had to go to a lot of dieticians, but they all just never  . They all made things a lot worse for me.  This 

particular nutritionist, she said to me, Kelsey, for the next 10 days, you are just going to eat red meat, eggs and olive oil,  and that's it.  And for some reason, like that just clicked and resonated so deeply within me.

I, I remember this after that first appointment, I went back to my boyfriend at the time,  um, house,  and I was like. Wear your eggs. 'cause I knew that he had boiled eggs. I was like, I want the eggs and I want the olive oil and I want it now. And like just after that first meal, like the first bite I remember and I had like salt on it,  my brain like lit up again for the first time in years  and since then, so essentially what I was put onto 

was the carnivore diet and  I've never looked back. And we can dive into 

the science about like, why something like that would be beneficial. Firstly, I'm getting rid of highly processed, refined foods and getting rid of all highly processed, refined vegetable oils and getting rid of 

A lot of sugar, which does this up, down, up, down to your blood glucose. And there is a direct relationship between your blood glucose and your mood. Food does affect your mood. So just through a biological lens, I began to heal my body from a cellular and a mitochondrial level. Also being on a carnival diet, I was obviously in a state of ketogenesis.

Not that I wasn't necessarily in a state of ketogenesis before or being so malnourished but it was a healthy kind of ketogenesis. So we know that is very anti-inflammatory, and we know that the brain loves ketones, the brain loves fat. And then also, again, our bodies are made up of protein and fat.

So me feeding my body what it's made up of and the raw materials that it understands and knows how to digest, it was just this beautiful recipe for all of my cells to begin to function again. And I often refer to Dr. Daniel Amon because he has this amazing analogy that really summarizes exactly what I've just described in my own personal context is that  this, in this analogy, I call it the hardware software analogy.

So does he, 'cause it's his, I'm not taking any credits, but if you'd liken our human bodies to the hardware and the software of a computer where our bodies are like the hardware of a computer, and our minds are like the software of a computer,  how can you expect the software  to be running optimally if the hardware's a little bit beaten and battered? 

And that really summarizes the biological underpinnings of this. And it was almost like a reverse engineering of my mental health. And I, as I said, I'd gone, I don't even wanna know how many doctors and how much the bills cost at the end of the day. But as I said, like 20 plus years, I went to so many different specialists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, I had MRIs,

I literally tried absolutely everything, as you said.  Not one specialist, physician  ever asked me, what are you eating?  And of course, nutrition is only just one of the pieces and only one of the tenets of health. But it's literally the thing that I believe ha is the biggest modifier in all of this.

Because we are literally made up of what we consume. Food is literally information for our bodies. And if we are giving it information that it understands.  Of course it's gonna, function optimally,  and if we give it information that it doesn't understand and it makes everything very inflamed and just the cascade of chaos and stress, then of course you're not necessarily gonna feel too amazing.

Yeah, that's another big lens of  my recovery journey. 

 I want to go back to that moment when you had this nutritionist kind of suggesting red meat, eggs and olive oil. And I want to dive into a little bit of the kind of emotional side for you, like the mental emotional side of that

experience. 

  What that was like for you as an experience. On, on the emotional level. And the reason I wanna do this is, again, addiction is addiction.

So whether you're dealing with eating disorder kind of addiction or porn addiction or alcohol addiction, I think there's a lot of similar emotional struggles that go on. And so I'm curious, first of all, in that moment when you were working with that nutritionist,  were you at the stage where you you could really see that you needed help and your body was struggling or, was there this dysmorphia where you were in denial about things like what was going

on mentally and emotionally? 

Yeah, firstly, that's a   really, good question and I appreciate you asking it. I personally  was never in denial. I knew exactly what was happening. I could see that I was severely malnourished.

I could see how underweight I was to a point. I could see how critical and severe it was.   I had always glorified anorexia, unfortunately. 'cause I thought in my mind that the thinner I got, the easier life would be. It would solve all of my problems.

Life would be good. But of course. Like how thin is thin enough, it's never gonna be enough. Same, similar concept, with the green lighting in the Great Gatsby. You're never gonna be wealthy enough, you're never gonna be fit enough, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that's something that a lot of us do have to deal with and eventually just  bring ourselves back to all we literally have right now is the present.

But that's, again, not necessarily answering the question. But yeah, emotionally,  I think 

 it sounds like you weren't in denial. You knew

that, hey, this is unhealthy for me. But it sounds like there was still this belief in your mind like, yeah, but yeah, I know this is unhealthy, but if I get thinner, that's still a beneficial thing.

So it's still sounds like there was some kind of attachment to this feeling of

Yeah,

but thinness is good and that will help me

in a lot of ways in life,  

100%. 

 you were kind of  severely thin

Yeah, I've seen  some photos and  it's shocking. 

yeah.

No it's,  intense. 

No, I think, to be honest, it's something that I, it's not necessarily a voice that's completely disappeared within me, within myself, but, and I think that's, 

 and yeah,  addiction and eating disorders specifically are very complex things, and it's it's really the epitome of the complexity and intricacy of the human brain,  , but I think that's even it just speaks to. 

The importance again, of building the other sides of you, of building up that purpose lens within yourself. Because the more that you can remind yourself of what life is worth living for, the less time you can spend being pulled back by the grips of whatever their addiction is.  That's why it really, when I heard it for the first 

time, that the opposite of addiction is meaning and purpose.

I forgot who said it. I dunno who I can credit. It did not come from me. It really resonated with me because  

I, I really like, 

 if  that's why I was so grateful for waking up with a sense of something to do,  for preparing for that big audition that I had, and just for those few hours on that day I was so grateful for that because my monkey mind was completely distracted.

I think that just speaks to the importance of continuing in your own journey  to build that sense of purpose and meaning and find and do whatever you can to continue to just let that pull you forward as opposed to the only other option is being pulled back by the addiction. Unfortunately, that's just like

 Yeah. 

 the raw 

essence of I think what we battle with, with addiction.

 It sounds like you also just almost slipped into some purpose or some like meaning for your life, rather than saying, okay, addiction. The opposite of addiction is meaning and purpose.

Therefore, I have to find my purpose.  



Let me do the work to find it. You just this thing almost dropped in your lap and it gave you that sense of, oh my gosh, I'm so excited

about this thing.

That's what I wanna

be focused on.

Yeah.  I know that's also a bit irritating to hear because I've also been on the other end of a podcast listening to people's journeys and stories, and I'm like that's very lucky. Like, Well done to you. But  I do have some what I often tell, like my clients and other people who are struggling is that if you are struggling to find that sense of purpose and meaning in your life,  begin by going back to when you were a kid. 

And even like in the, in your school years, a little bit older, like in your free time, what did you love doing? Was it collecting stamps? Was it listening to a certain band? Was it going to a certain place? Was it a certain sport or activity?  Was it researching a certain part in history or something? Just those little things that like really sparked your interest was playing marbles, go back to those things 

because, and that can start to build the little,  because it is, it's a process also.

This does not happen overnight. , really, it doesn't. And another thing that I don't think many people speak out enough about is the fact that Bruce, I'm still learning and I'm still evolving. I still struggle.  , we all do. It's not, I don't have every answer. My life is not perfect,  but oh my gosh, from where I was, , I count my lucky stars that I'm even alive.

so it just, in terms of practical advice for people I truly believe the more that you can . Commit, and the more that you can allow and honor your  little things that fuel your fire,  what fuels your fire? Just begin to allow yourself some time. It can be two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, hopefully longer, but build it up slowly.

I know life is fricking chaotic right now as well, but  if you can prioritize just  doing something that really excites you I would say really commit to that because that will begin a really beautiful process.  And at the end of it, I foresee a beautiful process of building  internal confidence  and belief in yourself.

And it's also just you reconnecting to yourself a lot of the time, and I know this is not necessarily only with addiction, but in the world at large, there's so much external noise all the time, and we become so disconnected to ourselves.  And that's the beginning of when things  . Can get, can go awry when we get more and more disconnected to our bodies and ourselves.

And we're just we're one in the same thing. Our mind is the same thing as our gut is the same thing as our legs, so yeah,

 I'm curious also  just the timing. Like Did you start this dance? Did you find this purpose meaning first and then the nutrition stuff came, or the nutrition stuff  came first and then you started dancing?

What was the order of events there? 

 it 

 was  first the,  I think it was actually first the audition  and then like very around the same time I had gone for that appointment with the nutritionist. So they were very similar 

time. 

they're pretty back to back.  Yeah.

Yeah. Very back to  back. But I remember going to that audition not knowing about Carnival. So I think the audition was actually first 

and then I'd gone to, yeah, the nutritionist.  

And let's talk  about the carnivore now, because  I personally remember the first time I heard about the carnivore diet, and  I remember thinking, oh, another kind of like bat shit, crazy diet plan that, like people with no education and they're all just, they're believing into this fairytale that this new fad diet is gonna make you healthy.

And I thought everyone was nuts. And then I started really listening to the podcast and started,  researching.  And then understanding it on a metabolic level. A physiological level.  And it was such a 180 for me to go from this severe judgment around this eating philosophy to  not only acceptance, something, one of the reasons we connect is 'cause I'm currently doing it for January. I might be doing it longer. But I really, I've done it a number of times and really feel fantastic on it and believe in it as a diet. And so I'm just curious, there's gonna be tons of people listening to this podcast who  this might be the very first time that they've heard of it and they might be just as skeptical as me.  And I'm curious for you, it sounded like in that room with the nutritionist, it just clicked and you were just like, yes, this is the thing for me.  Was there any kind of like judgment or skepticism from your side about

this 

diet? I. 

  Personally, no.  I. 

was actually very familiar with professor Tim LO's Banting Diet in South Africa, which is essentially a ketogenic diet. And that had always really made sense to me because again, when you zoom out and you think of like a species appropriate diet, and you think of health through an ancestral lens, because again, we're the same physiologies as our hunter-gatherer, predecessors.

So of course what . They were eating, and what we evolved on as a human species would make sense that it would bring people back to health because the further away that we deter from our natural species, appropriate diet, the sicker people become, and I know this is a tangent, but if you look at a vet they know, like the first question they ask when you bring your sick pet  into them is what has your animal been eating? 

So  yeah, but just I personally didn't have skepticism. Everyone else around me had skepticism. I was like, everyone was like, this is just another eating disorder. It was really difficult. And like my carnivore journey was not easy at all. And one of the things you had asked me earlier also, like emotionally, like how was it dealing?

Because yeah, carni, like red meats, fatty meat is, in, in a calorie sense is  . High in calories. Like how was that? It was very difficult a lot of the time. If you want, I can speak about like that side of things, but for those listening who are struggling with addiction, which I think is a large part of your audience, of course,  I just wanna  just put a bookmark on the research of ketogenesis and something like a carnival diet in the therapeutic intervention or, and management of addiction,  specifically food addiction, and I think all addiction.

I know that they've, I think there's even been,  I could be mistaken, but I'm sure they've even done like studies with like gamblers and ketogenesis, but  those highly refined, processed foods, high sugar, high carbohydrate, high fat foods, they're designed to be palatable and they literally, especially the sugar, like it lights up the same part of your brain as cocaine. 

So there's a lot of like self shame and self preparation specifically in binge eating disorder and food addiction. But I wanna bring the humanity into this because it's not you. It's that food is designed to be  like highly palatable and addictive. It is addictive.  

Something like a carnivore and a ketogenic diet, by putting your body into a ketogenic state,  you bring down a lot of inflammation within the body.

You bring down a lot of neuroinflammation,  and there's a lot of research in this space for anyone who wants to go and do that research.  There's a lot of people doing a lot of work with ketogenic diets and breaking addiction.

It's been really helpful. So that's just a side note that I really wanted to 

let your audience know, because.  It's 

the, yeah, 

the results and the anecdotes are huge. Huge.

Yeah.   It's something that I think  it's important to bring in this topic of  the parallels between all addictions and it's, whether you're struggling with sugar addiction or food addiction or gambling addiction, it's, this kind of addiction to the sense of craving to the dopamine hit to that cheap reward.  And it's the same,  like one of the ways to break free from addiction is breaking free at the root source. And that's one of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast is not just stopping this one behavior but breaking free from all the addictions you might have, which is this incessant need for things to be

always pleasant, always feel good, that reward system and starting to  strengthen some of those neural pathways.  I think one of the things that I'm really  fascinated by with your story, you mentioned going to all these different  clinics and nutritionists and doctors and things over, decade  and  even though you were struggling with an eating disorder, that none of them actually took the time just to ask, what are you eating?  And you can understand that from a lens of you're not eating anything. It's not what you're eating or what you're not eating. It's we just need to fix your behavior and your mindset. But what was so interesting to me is that by changing  what you're eating, it somehow unlocked this part of your recovery that, like  when you started eating carnivore and you started fixing what was going on in your body, it actually healed a lot of

what was going on with your addiction. And there's a lot of parallels between that and the work that we do in kind of porn addiction recoveries, that it's not about,  I. The porn, it's like, what's going on in the rest of your life? Are you happy?  Are your relationships good? Are you getting exercise? Are you eating well? And that so many people miss that aspect of I think you've called it like the pillars of health, like really understanding that if you want to recover, you have to  have a healthy life. And so I'm wondering if you could just talk a bit about that. What was that like for you recovering  in this kind of non-traditional

way?  

Yeah, no,  a hundred percent. So  yeah, you said it like it can never be just one thing because underpinning  . Our current state of being alive in this present moment are many factors,  external and internal factors, but going to the sort of environment so that just the things that we can control.

And that really, we all have these pillars of health that apply to us. And those are things like the sleep  the purpose, the community, your light, et cetera, et cetera. And of course for me, my entry point into this was of course the nutrition side. And I just wanted to like, share and reiterate that like the minute that I began to feed my body, like  the most bioavailable,  highly dense, highly nutritionally dense foods,  I was actually able to apply the 20 plus years of therapy that I had experienced for the first time because my cells had the energy to do so. So the nutrition piece was just one part of the puzzle. And there was of course, the movement piece. Now, in my severe anorexic state, I obviously wasn't able to move. But, in, in my recovery and in my journey of just coming to terms with what movement feels good for my body and what doesn't feel good for my body, and what are my intentions behind doing this movement right now and  when you're stuck in a arrived and you're feeling so low and down, the def the opposite of being stuck is to get yourself unstuck. And in order to get yourself unstuck and changed from that position, you need to move, right? Now I don't, I'm sure many people know just  all of the benefits that exercise and movement does not only from a cardiovascular  benefits or an aerobic benefit, or a muscle and strength benefits, not only for these physical benefits, but for  your mental health as well.

It's huge.  Moving your body helps. BDNF brain derive neurotrophic factor. It helps an array of feel good hormones. So even if it's just like a 30 minute walk,  just moving your body, listening to some music,  whatever, in a way that feels good for you. Is it Pilates? Is it yoga? We're born to move.

If you look back at our Hunter, gather ancestors and mimic how they lived and evolved. Like we moved. We moved, and this is, I'm very sensitive with how I speak about movements specifically coming from my background, I in Norway, am meaning that it has to be a punitive form of movement. I really am speaking genuinely to movement.

That feels good because it need it should feel good. I think a red flag for when it may be 

becoming too much as if you're sore, and it's causing way more mental and physical stress than anything else.  And if you are in that space, really press pause and be disciplined. Be addicted to being disciplined to do the right thing for you.

Because I think we all have this, just like our bodies have this innate wisdom. Of course, we also have innate wisdom. It's one and the same thing. We've just become disconnected to that inner voice that genuinely knows. So I highly recommend  always  like the premise of all of this is that. 

Being self-aware is like the biggest investment that you could ever give yourself, and that can come through a process of many different things. But yeah, the movement, of course, is super important. And like for me, the most important thing about movement is not the physical effect. It's , literally the brain effects. 

So  yeah, 

we're born to move and that's the movement piece for me. The literally the biggest foundation of health is sleep.  , like sleep is foundational to the point where 

they've literally, like sleep depriving studies, which they did used to do back in the day. They're now illegal.  Shift work, it's now been announced as a known carcinogen. 

We need to sleep. The, a number of hours is very well, however, . If you're getting eight hours of sleep and you're waking up feeling exhausted and fatigued, then I, because like for sleep, it's actually  as in most things, quality over quantity. We have different phases of sleep that we need to get through rem deep, et cetera.

So if you're not hitting,  the full architecture and potential of your sleep,  it's almost like sleep is like pointless. So there are things that we can do to create good sleep hygiene  and those are things like actually your night of sleep begins the morning of. So one thing that I have learned through Angie Huberman, which I'm sure a lot of people on this podcast may know.

If not, I highly recommend you listen to him. He's a really great resource. Get morning sunlight, like upon waking, as close to waking up as possible. Get whatever natural sunlight  there is,   into your naked eye because light is such . A direct signal to our bodies and our circadian rhythms. And it just, yeah, it resets our circadian rhythms.

It lets us know, okay, it's daytime. The body begins to wake up and the cascade of hormonal effects happen as a result that are required to waking us up. So  I am all forgetting as much natural light into the eyes as possible. And then, a big thing for me is limiting my blue light exposure at night because we need enough melatonin.

I'm sure you all have heard of melatonin. We need enough melatonin in order to fall asleep and sleep deeply and hit all of our phases of sleep, REM deep, et cetera. Now blue lights literally.  Like plummets are levels of melatonin, unfortunately. So that does mean no scrolling on your phone  when it's dark outside, no watching TV right before bed.

That's a really big thing that I am, quite disciplined because I just know the importance of sleep and I know how I feel after a good night of,  so I limit my exposure of blue lights, when the sun is setting. And it makes sense because if you think back to our hunter gatherer ancestors when the sun was setting, all that we were ever really exposed to would've been like a fire.

And that's red light that's actually quite calming. And that does not affect our melatonin levels. So  yeah, limiting blue lights is a big thing for sleep hygiene. And then,  being in a really cool  dark room is another important thing. Dark, especially because as I said, any light exposure will plummet your levels of melatonin and cool, because in order for us to fall asleep and fall asleep deeply, our core body temperatures do need to decrease.

I think it's about two or three degrees in temperature.  . So that's why they often say a cool dark room. 

 And that's the sleep thing. And then I have, I think, covered quite a bit on the purpose  piece. And then community and 

Is another big one. Community and friends. It's really, we weren't born to be alone in this world either. We're social beings and  there's nothing quite like that solidarity when you connect with someone and connect with someone deeply. And yeah, again, we evolved as a, not alone, but in communities. 

 I'm curious, so you've talked about these different pillars of health that are important for you in your recovery. Nutrition, movement, sleep, community, and it's one thing to know a lot of these, okay, I have to do all these in and staying disciplined to it.  And then there's also being flexible with, okay, I can't nail every single one of these a hundred percent of the time.

That can turn into its own addiction 

hundred percent. 

Yeah.  

So I'm curious,  how do you find that balance between discipline and

flexibility?  

I.

Yeah,   firstly, 

I lay out all of this information and all of this information has accumulated over years. There is no ways that anyone can do all of this all at once, but I believe that knowledge is power and it's very empowering to know of all of the things that we can do as individuals  to curate a life in better health for ourself.

Because again, our birthright is living in optimal health. None of us were born to suffer. So  I really do  say this, just more of educating as opposed to, you need to do all of this and all at once, it's not possible and it's gonna be way too overwhelming. So I think whatever is, and I think this is also like where it's really helpful to work with a coach like myself or you or anyone else where you can find your way  of, reaching your full potential through all of these tenants in health.  And I just list them for you to just begin to take conscious. And I think what I would advise you listening is like, what resonates with you right now in this moment? And just choose one thing, like really small, actionable steps. Rome was not built in a day.

And I think another big point that I just wanna add before, before I move on, is like life and especially recovery. It's not linear.  , some days you're gonna be climbing up ladders. Some days you're gonna be slithering down snakes like a game of snakes and ladders. But we're all eventually going to reach that a hundred. 

So  I think we do and I need to practice hard with being a little bit more gentle with myself and giving myself grace. So  I personally hate the word balance  because it's how do you define balance? Because it's always moving. Like health is always a moving target. But I think, I always go back to my intention of why I'm doing things.

that again speaks to the importance of being self-aware and being conscious and knowing why you're doing things. Because of course, we're always behaving  from a standpoint of a stimulus. We're always behaving as a result of something. Nothing is ever insignificant. So in terms of all these like  regimens and rules and routines, firstly, a lot of them actually give me freedom.

So there is that, 

. And I think  that's an important aspect of recovery, and I think especially in addiction,  is that it's like the alternative of not having these I don't act to my full potential. I spiral out of control. I'm back in the addictive side of things and I'm just in a really dark place.

So whatever's gonna get me not to be in that, 

and for now, and it's also, they're always going to evolve. But for now, this is my rhythm. This is what works for me and this is what keeps me functioning at my highest potential for now. 

 Talking about the carnivore diet, for example, some people will hear about it and they say, oh, just meat you're only eating meat.

And isn't that restrictive? And it's such an interesting concept because in some sense it is restrictive.

It's yeah, I can't eat chocolate, I can't eat croissants, I can't eat, pasta and stuff like this. And in that sense it's restrictive. But then it's this, it's what are you comparing it to? And it's you could also say that living with poor health is restrictive. Living with inflammation is restrictive.

Living with diabetes is restrictive, like.  Just this kind of is it worth it? Because everything is restrictive in some sense, and it's like choosing,  okay, maybe I can't eat the chocolate and the candy and the cookies that I want to eat, and it is restrictive in that

sense, but I'm finding freedom within this restriction that let's go of

the other restrictions 

in my life.

a hundred percent. Like  I think that's why it clicked for me Carnival because  it gave me so much freedom and liberation and I do not feel in the slightest restricted. I, maybe I'm just abnormal, but I don't think I am . I, it has been the most liberating thing for me. The only way that I can describe it is also like in Steve Jobs in Barack Obama, they've often spoken about like even top CEOs, like this concept of decision fatigue in that like for example, they used a lot of the time these big CEOs just wear the same thing every day so they don't have to think about what they're gonna be wearing.

For me, that's like what Carnival has done for me. It's given me hours on my day to focus on my passions and the things that I want to be focusing on. And I look forward to every meal. It's so delicious. So for me, it's been the most liberating thing. And it leads me to a point that I know that we did wanna speak about, and this is something that was also a game changer from my understanding of my addiction, for the lack of a better phrase, but knowing the difference between a moderator and an abstainer,  especially in the realm of eating disorders.

But of 

course in addiction you get moderators, like for example, my dad, he's really easily able to moderate a slab of chocolate, whereas me.  I am not able, like if there's a sla, a slab of chocolate, I will eat the whole thing.  And that's just how my brain is wired. Like  I know jeans load the gun and environment pulls the trigger, but there's also I can't necessarily change my height and my natural hair color.

Of course I can dye my hair, but like  my brain is just wide in a way where being in an abstainer is just, it makes life so much easier for me. And when I, like it's 

same thing like with an alcoholic. It's not like you're gonna tell an a recovering alcoholic, you can moderately consume alcohol.  So  yeah, that's just, I don't know if any of that resonates with anyone in your audience, but that was a huge game changer for me. 

 I think just this topic of abstainers versus moderators will really resonate with a lot of people because a lot of the people listening to this, talking about porn addiction,  it's very hard to  moderate yourself with something like that because again, the parallels between  porn and sugar

are so close, there is a sugar industry. There is a junk food industry that is making these things hyper palatable and they're hyper stimulants. And it's the exact same thing with the porn industry. There is a porn industry that is financially backed. There's a lot of money behind it, and it's making it hyper palatable. And if you try to moderate, you're going up against billions and billions of dollars of  research and testing and, hijacking your body's physiology. And it's just much easier for most of

us to abstain completely.

 

Yeah. And it doesn't make us broken.

It doesn't make us broken. It makes us like brave enough to try and navigate life through our context and how our brains work. And I'm telling you, I think the majority of people are probably more on the abstainer side than moderator side of things. I do think that just being a human, like we feel everything 

On a spectrum. And I think there's a spectrum for most things. Some people just may not be brave enough to be 

even aware   of their own addictions. 

And I don't think again, I think this is why I'm so outspoken about this, because for years I just thought that I was broken  and I felt disempowered.

But knowing these things has really empowered me and validated me. And  it was a huge game changer for me.

  If there's someone listening to this who is struggling with body

dysmorphia or an eating disorder 



And they've tried, a lot of things, or maybe they're just struggling with it emotionally and spiritually,  do you have any words of wisdom or compassion that you'd wanna share for people listening to this?

 Sure, and again, this, we're also a bio individual and of course everyone's root cause is going to be different. But I just wanna reiterate that you do not have to suffer in silence and  like your optimal,  like your birthright is living in optimal health  from that premise.  Of course, at the end of the day, you have to want it, no one else can do it for you.

That was another big thing that came about in my recovery is eventually I reached a point where I realized,  holy FI have outsourced my whole life to all of these specialist physicians, to my parents, to my teachers, to my peers at school.  I never once took radical responsibility for myself.   and  you do have to want it at the end of the day.

And I think a really big way of getting to want it is 

beginning to tap into what fuels your fire?  What fuels your fire, what makes you, where is 

this meaning in your life? 'cause I'm telling you, we all have our beautiful own unique talents worth sharing. Like we were  brought onto this planet for a reason  and we all have the most amazing potential to give. 

And it's all about finding your potential and shining that and exuding it. And it's not easy, of course. It's not easy, but  it's like you are just as much a human  with just as much right. To do what? To do what you want to do. As Kim Kardashian, as Kendall Jenner, as me, as Jeremy, as anyone,  the that's just like  the first few things that I would tell someone on a spiritual level.

 Yeah. I love the, you bringing in the responsibility piece and how you had outsourced kind of the responsibility to other people. And I think In  In addiction. This is so true for many of us. We're waiting

for someone else to make the change, waiting for something outside of ourself to rescue us or just victim playing the victim and pointing the finger and blaming this is because of this person in my childhood.

And, at some point you just have to take

ownership and you have to take responsibility, and you have to say, if I want this to

change,  I'm the one that has to do the work.

I think

that's 

such a powerful starting point.

And  I mean, I'm not invalidating like that. People have caused you trauma a hundred percent and have maybe very much directly contributed 

to that, but, and this is a bittersweet truth. At the end of the day, the only person that you can change is yourself  and. 

Yeah.

There's this,   quote from Mark Manson. I think it's Mark Manson, but he probably Just copied it from someone else. But it's basically the idea that it's not your

fault, but it is your responsibility. And it's the trauma that you experienced as a child, the situation that you're in at work, like whatever it is, like it's very likely not your fault.

And it's definitely not a hundred percent your fault that there, there are other players.  But it is always your responsibility, like no matter whose fault it was. If you want something to change, like you have to take responsibility for that and say, okay, I'm gonna  make a change. 'cause

just as you say, you

can only change yourself. 

Another, sorry,  I just, I've just thought of this now, that was also really helped me, especially within the body dysmorphia realm. 'cause I also I know what it feels like to be stuck in your body. You just do not wanna be in this body,  but.  A really great exercise that I learned in recovery was  what would you tell a little girl or boy coming to you with your same problems?

And this can apply not only like with body dysmorphia, but 

like any crisis or situation that you're going through. Visualize a situation where a little child is coming to you with these same problems.  What would you tell that child? What would you advise? How would you help that child?  And that kind of helps you firstly, detach

yourself from the situation and hopefully  regain some greater perspective on the situation.

Yeah,  definitely  this has been a fascinating conversation. Is there anything else on your mind that you'd wanna

share with the listeners of the

show?

  One thing that with the biological lens of my recovery I obviously firsthand was anecdotally just experiencing these incredible benefits from just 

changing my diet alone.  And in the middle of lockdown, I found podcasts and I actually took initiative and began to educate myself on how the human body works.

And I began to listen to all of these doctors and scientists  basically laying out what I was experiencing alongside doing this carnivore diet. And.  .It firstly validated my entire experience, but it also empowered me, and that's one of the biggest reasons why I then went on to studying my nutrition advisory certification, and now I'm doing a metabolic health practitioner certification as well to be able to be qualified to help people, because this was also a real big game changer and huge mo value factor for me to start my own podcast. 

But  I almost like by constantly listening to conversations with doctors and profession healthcare professionals,  like triggers are a big thing for people in recovery. We all have our own triggers, and of course, in the beginning of recovery, you're like really sensitive and vulnerable, but healthy.

The word healthy used to be a very triggering word for the anorexic mind because it meant one thing and one thing only. It meant that 

I was just gonna get fatter in the anorexic mind, of course, 

but 

   by  constantly educating myself and surrounding my ears   with these  . Amazing conversations by healthcare professionals who are all speaking about getting, helping people to get healthy. 

I eventually tricked my monkey mind and tricked the internal narrative to think that, oh,  being healthy is actually cool. Like being sick is not 



Cool, 

And that was a huge game changer to also bring me to a point where I wanted that recovery. So I just wanted to share that as well, because there are amazing resources like unhooked, for example, out there  free. 

And I think at the end of the day, it's just becoming your own CEO of your health.

Yeah,  I think if it's such a good point, if you associate getting healthy or recovering with this negative view, like if your view of getting healthy is primarily negative, then of course you're gonna not want to actually do the work to recover. And so part of it is like making sure that you are  the end goal that you have, the thing that you are working towards is

actually something that you look forward to.

So in like in the porn recovery world, it's okay, what are the benefits of this? If I can really  not be addicted to porn and not be addicted to sex, what is that gonna open up for me? What is my life gonna be like? Because it might be this view like, oh, if I stop watching porn, my life's gonna be boring. I won't get my needs met. Whatever kind of thing is going through your mind. And so  to make sure that you're actually  Have that bright future, something to

motivate you and excite you about

recovery. 

A hundred percent. 100%. 

Yeah.  Last question for you. Where can people find out about you? Where can they get to know more

about what you're doing in the world? 

Yeah, so I'm in the process of  building a website. So unfortunately I don't have a website yet, but Instagram would probably be the first place. So that's at Kelsey Buchalter and I'm sure a link will be put in the show notes. And then you can find my podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and it's called The Human Theater. 

 Awesome. Kelsey, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you for joining and sharing some about your story of recovery. I know it'll be quite inspiring for some of the people listening to this.  So that's it for today, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Unhooked. We'll catch you on the next episode. ​