Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Is Your Diet or MLM a CULT? Exploring the Intersection of Diet Culture & Cults with NXIVM cult survivor, Sarah Edmondson

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

In today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, we get to sit down with ex-NXIVM cult member, Sarah Edmondson. Sarah is the star of the hit HBO series, The Vow, the author of Scarred, and the co-host of the podcast, A Little Bit Culty. In this episode, she details the extreme low calorie diets and exercise regimens that members of Keith Raniere’s NXIVM cult were instructed to follow. We discuss the role of diet restriction in cults and control, how wellness MLM’s use similar tactics as cults, and I will be leaving you with a list of red flags that your diet or wellness routine might actually be operating like a cult.Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out.Check in with today’s amazing guest, Sarah Edmondson.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahedmondson/?hl=enA Little Bit Culty https://alittlebitculty.com/Scarred https://a.co/d/cZf2KF1Preorder Sarah & Nippy’s Upcoming Book: https://checkout.square.site/merchant/MLR16M1R576DP/checkout/25UI2OVABMV3RD4YF55WQ755Disclaimer: This episode does discuss disordered eating, calories and abuse. The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. 🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheoryDon’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.com My book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

There was one particular woman who I knew had done something bad and was sort of being shunned or ostracized. I found out later it had to do with her weight and he didn't like it. And I found out from her that her calorie intake, like what she was supposed to do, was like less than 600 a day. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. I don't know, it has been a bit of a week around here. I don't know, I think we're kind of like in the thick of holiday season and my birthday's

in a few days. And so I don't know, life is just crazy. But I am so excited knowing today's episode is going to be such a fascinating and engaging one because today we're going to explore the dangerous and insidious intersection of two special interests of mine, diet culture and cults. Perfect to get you in the holiday season. No, but seriously, there's never a bad time to talk about cults or to take down diet culture, in my opinion. And helping me tackle this very big topic is ex-Nexium cult member Sarah Edmondson. You may recognize Sarah from the hit HBO docuseries The

Vow, which followed Sarah and her friend Mark Vicente as they exposed the so-called self-help organization led by convicted criminal Keith Ranieri for what it actually is, a massive sex trafficking operation and dangerous cult. Sarah's story is one of incredible survival, resilience, bravery, and intelligence. Her memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped NXIVM, the cult that bound my life, chronicles her harrowing experiences and offers us insight into how cults function, how they prey on vulnerable individuals, and how people can ultimately get out. I highly recommend reading her book and also listening to her podcast, A Little Bit Culty, and also definitely watching The Vow if you want to learn more about NXIVM in

more detail. But today we're going to be zoning in on how diets and extreme weight loss are often used in various cults to control their faithful followers. And on the flip side, I will be sharing a bunch of red flags that your diet might actually be operating as a cult. So yes, friends, if you've ever felt that your diet is pulling you into a cult-like grip, today's episode is definitely for you. Quick disclaimer here, this content is never a replacement for personalized healthcare advice. We will also briefly be talking about eating disorders, manipulation, and abuse, so please feel free to skip this episode if that's not supportive to your journey. Also, on a brighter note, I would love if you would please leave

Bite Back a review for this episode and really the podcast at large. It really, really, really does help me out as a new podcast. Sarah, I am so excited to finally chat with you. Same. Yeah, like I listened to your whole audio book and The Vow is one of my all-time favorite true crime docuseries.

So I just feel like I know you already so well. So thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. This is gonna be fun. Yes. So, okay, just to give people a little bit of a background and like catch people up to speed. What drew you into joining NXIVM to begin with? Because obviously, at the time, you didn't know this was a cult. And you've definitely didn't know who's like a sex trafficking operation. But I just just understand like what what what got you?

Yeah, you know, this answer has actually changed in the last seven years. There was the sort of obvious things that I was aware of at the time. I was wanting to improve my relationship that I was in. I was looking for more community and more meaning and purpose in my life. And that was kind of obvious when I got out, when I started to educate myself on how cults hook you and how cults work. Over the years, I think there were some other things that I've come to recognize in terms of what hooked me on a secondary level, even once I'd taken the program and what kept me in, in terms of the leadership recognizing,

I enjoyed feeling special. I enjoyed the strike path, which was basically this apparently, supposedly measurable way to look at your growth and you sort of climb this ladder of success, success being up until that point sort of amorphous and not measurable. And also there was a little bit of stubborn individuation going on. People around me going, I don't know if this is a good idea. I'm like, of course it's a good idea. You think I would get involved in something weird? And I see why it's weird, which is where Sash is, but just, I don't know if this is a good idea. I'm like, of course, it's a good idea. You think I don't, you think I would get involved in something weird. And I see

why it's weird, which is where Sasha is, but like, just because you don't understand. So I was, there was a lot of things that I was a little bit naive to as well and ignored because I was individuating. So like, there's layers to it. There's, there's the outer things, success, career, relationship, and then the sort of inner things that's going on at the same time. Okay. So I feel like I can relate to this so much because I feel like I'm hearing a lot of themes around like perfectionism and people pleasing and like being that kind of type A personality.

And I'm sure so many other of our viewers who are listening right now can probably really relate to that as well, considering that we know that these themes and these personality types often show up in folks who struggle with disordered eating and eating disorders. So I feel like just hearing what your experience was, this is exactly something that I could have easily gotten roped into, you know, 20 years ago when I was just trying to find myself and I was in the throes of an eating disorder. So in your book, you say things like, oh, you know, there's a lot of shame around how did I kind of get fooled by this? I have a lot of empathy for that because I feel like myself and countless other people could have easily been a target to NXIVM. And that's why these things are

just so, so dangerous. Absolutely. Yeah. And you mentioned people pleasing. That has been on my list before and something I maybe wasn't as aware of at the beginning and have definitely had to come to terms with more recently, that there were times when I felt like things were off and I did see red flags, but I didn't understand what I was looking at. So the people pleasing aspect of me not wanting to rock the boat and be like, no, this is weird. Like if it was me now, I'd be like, no, I'm not doing this. Y'all are weird. Right. Like this is crossing my boundary and you can shove it. So yeah, it was a definitely, I think that's why actually NXIVM or executive success program is, which is what it was called when I took it was really good at hooking people in their early twenties, because that's a very

normal, natural, vulnerable spot where you're figuring out who you are, where you're individuating from your family or your, whoever is the primary caregiver and you want to you want tools you want tools for life you want answers and nexium made a lot of promises and i've since learned in my cult recovery is that all cults dangle a hook and it has to be something that is meaningful to the person but some people might look at and go well i'll never fall for that meanwhile they're telling me about something that they're involved with that's super culty or problematic or toxic. We've all been there.

Like, well, you fell for that thing. And I can see it. Whether it's a particular religion, yoga studio, political party. I see it. Yeah, 100%. And that's what your whole podcast is all about, which is why it's so fascinating. These kind of cult themes show up in, you know, a multitude of different ways. But it wasn't just NXIVM that you were a member of. So as you kind of go through in detail in the book, after about 12 years

in the community, you got invited to a women's only secret kind of subgroup called DOS. And DOS, for folks who haven't read the book, haven't seen the show, DOS stands for Dominus Obsequius Sororium, which roughly translates to master over the slave women. So can you talk a little bit more about what that was and just how it was sold to you yeah so but to explain that i kind of need to give a bit of a premise about how nexium as an umbrella company worked and executive success was really the the gateway drug as it were it was it was the that was the program that i was teaching in canada i brought it there i was all that was my that was my personal baby um and not i mean it created it but that was my, that was my personal baby. Um, and not, I mean,

it created it, but that was the thing I was excited about. Meanwhile, there were many other programs that were introduced over the years. One was Janess just for women. One was SOP just for men. And then they were eventually opened up so the opposite sex could take each training, probably for money for the, on leadership's part but it was it was said so that we could understand the opposite perspective better right which in some ways was great in other ways was very not great we don't have to get into that and then there was other programs there was a fitness type program there was a children's program like almost like a like a preschool there was a media analysis program there was an acting program there were

so many things so i was very used to these offshoots and when i got invited to dos it was also just under 12 years and i was i didn't really realize it at the time but i was not thrilled with a lot of things and i wasn't even willing to express that to myself because I was so dependent on the company. My investment was very deep. My sunk cost fallacy was quite high, which I didn't really understand even for myself at the time. So I was just willing to do whatever it took to make it work. So I think that when Lauren, who was the woman who invited me to join DOS, did so, it was because the leadership was aware that

I was not as gung-ho as I had been in the past. I'd had a child who was much more of a priority than I think they would have liked. And this was presented to me as the next step in my growth and the opportunity to really commit to myself and to be accountable in a whole new level. But really the thing that sold me and the thing that was meaningful to me at the time is that my mentor in this new program was going to be Lauren. And she was somebody who I not only loved and trusted beyond measure, she married Nippy and I, she was the godmother of my child. But in the context of NXIVM, she was also my superior and somebody that I would do anything to spend time with and learn from because she was so smart.

And she is. I still think this about her. She's very smart, very wise. It's like, what if your favorite, like what if Benet Brown, I don't know, somebody that you would really admire was like, I'm going to work with you every day. Taylor Swift. Yeah. Hey, for sure. Taylor Swift is like, I'm going to mentor you every day and you're going to be the best singer. I mean, I don't sing, but like, yeah, that would mean a lot to me

if that, if that was the case. And I think people can relate to that. I try to give like examples of what people could relate to. So they're not just like, that's crazy. That would, I would never do that. So yeah, that's, that was the, that was the hook. And in the book So they're not just like, that's crazy. I would never do that. So yeah, that was the hook. And in the book, it kind of sounded like this was pitched to you as some kind of female empowerment initiative. And the idea of having this secret sisterhood was really just a really clever way of convincing women that they were safe because it's just all women. But in a lot of ways, this was like an MLM, right? Like you were a slave to another NXIVM member, Lauren,

and you had your own set of slaves. Can you talk a little bit about some of the coercion tactics that were used to essentially like force women into submission and just groom them for what in a lot of ways was eventually just like sex trafficking to Keith. Yeah. So as soon as I had made my commitment to her, which were they, that was the first step. And ironically, years ago, when Keith Ranieri, the head of NXIVM, who's now in jail, taught me how to do sales, it was that we had to always bring people along what they called a lift, like a staircase. So back to Nexium for a second, if I were to say, try to enroll you, Abby,

if I just like cold called you like, hey, slid into your DMs, I want to pitch you on a personal development program. It's five days, cost two grand. Are you in? You'd be like, what? You're crazy. There's steps. You have to build rapport for us. I've got to find out who you are. I've got to find out what you want. I need you to tell me what you want and what's stopping you from getting what you want. And then I have to say, would it be worth two grand to spend time with yourself and work on that thing and get what you want? Then the answer would probably be yes, if I did it right. Of course. Right? Steps along the way. 100%. Yeah. We all want that success. And when you want it bad enough, $2,000, you're like,

okay, sign me up. Yeah. Of course it's worth it, but it'd be priceless to have my success or have joy or not be anxious or whatever the thing was. Totally. So it was the same thing with DOS. It happened in stages and it happened in lifts. And it was very coercive because the first thing that I agreed to was I only agreed to under some duress, which was I'd already given collateral. I had to give collateral just to hear about this. So this is coercion because I was now being pressured to do something I didn't really want to do because I'd already invested is another way to look at it. I already put some money down, but in this case it was collateral. It was a false confession because I didn't really have anything embarrassing enough about myself to make something up so that I could, that would be

leveraged against me to make sure I never spoke about it. So here I am breaking my DOS promise loud as I can. Because as soon as I had that, then I had taken this vow of obedience. And by the way, for anyone listening and going, wait, she took a vow of obedience. This, in my mind, this was like, if anyone's ever been in a sorority or fraternity or listened, you know, seen a movie about that. I never was, but I, this is how I, I likened it to is it's like, you're kind of playing a game. Like when people are, what's it called? Hazing. And then in that period, they know that the person a year above them isn't really going to hurt them, but they're like demanding things of them and making them do all these silly things. That's what I thought it was. Not like a real master slave. Also, we didn't live in the same city. Like what are you possibly going to get me to do? Right. But one of the first things was now you need to bring in people. You need to have slaves. And I didn't want to do that. But I had taken a vow of obedience.

And any pushback I gave meant I wasn't being obedient and I'd get in trouble tacitly at first. And then later towards the end, I didn't participate in this, but there was actual physical punishment. There were women who were spanked with a pad, like a sex toy paddle. I can't believe I'm saying this on your podcast, but it's what happened. Like that's, that's where, that's where it elevated to. At that point, I was trying to figure out how to escape. So I didn't have to get spanked, luckily for me. Wow. That happened. And talk to me, you know, in the book, you describe having to perform these quote unquote, like readiness drills, which basically like tethered you to your phone to perform these tasks for your master, Lauren, whenever she wanted you to prove that you were committed and you were subordinate, like what were some of the most torturous readiness drills that you experienced or that you

saw others in DOS have to experience? I need to make it clear that I was not in DOS for that long by the time, by the time I was into the time I left, it was like just a couple of months. And I didn't necessarily receive that much torturous assignments, but other people did. A number of women had the assignment to go and to reach out to Keith and seduce him so that it would, I mean, found out later that it would appear that they were initiating, not that he was initiating, but he, he gave the masters the assignment to tell the slaves that he's in the city. So by the way, this is how he does everything. This, this is how he like all the death around him, all the crimes, even if he didn't do it directly, he had his hand in

everything. That was what he was doing. He was just like a little puppeteer. Anyway. I'd say, I mean, for me, it was just challenging. I had a three, almost three-year-old at the time who I was still having trouble getting to sleep through the night. And then I had to keep my phone on. So two, three, four in the morning, I'd get a text and not only did I have to respond, I'd have to make sure other people responded and I have to wait up until everyone was responded and accounted for. And some of the people in my little pod, they called it DOS pod were in Mexico. So we have to wait. And that meant like calling someone's husband and getting them to check on that. Where's your wife and getting them to check in. So it was not just like a text and I could go back to sleep. So that was pretty torturous to be, I mean, I was being sleep deprived and I think that was a hundred percent the goal. But I think just generally it was dangerous.

Right. And now I want to kind of switch gears and talk specifically about kind of diet rules that kind of got worked into the program, both explicitly and also implicitly, because I know there are countless examples in cults incorporating these extreme and restrictive diet and body expectations, you know, into their tenants. So, for example, we look at like Gwen Shamlin's suggestion that like weight loss is a spiritual assignment in the remnant fellowship. And then like in the Love Has Won cult, for example, they were drinking alcohol basically instead of eating. And the breatharians who are claiming that you don't need food or drink, you can just like live on light and air. So obviously in NXIVM, it wasn't as extreme with these diet rules. But can you talk about the general dieting practices that were encouraged within NXIVM and also more specifically within DOS that you had seen as well? Sure. So I think if you've seen the documentary, you'll see that most of the women who are upper

rank or up, you know, close to Keith were very thin. And I think that was on purpose for him to keep people quite hungry and specifically actually protein, on protein because they were apparently most people were vegetarian i was there for 12 years i did try for a little bit didn't work for me many every time i went back to albany there was a different stage of people experimenting things with things for example they went through like a raw vegan stage Everyone was juicing and eating like collard green wraps and like sprouts. It was, it was very difficult. I cannot say that I didn't get caught up in that. I think I've always had a sort of low grade fitness obsession or like just staying thin obsession, but I've never counted calories and all of them were counting calories and all of

them were running. And then when like Fitbit, like measuring and counting and weighing, like weighing a food, I saw people bring out scales and weigh bowls of like salad, or there was a lot of people that went through like a stage where they're only eating like squash with a little bit of salt on it. There was one particular woman who I knew was, had done something bad, um, and was sort of being shunned or ostracized until she like figured her shit out. And I found out later it was had to do with her weight and, um, her weight was, she had gained weight and he didn't like it. And that was like her breach. There was a lot of talk about like, you know, if you, if you went above what you were supposed to, you were breaching.

And I found out from her that her calorie intake, what she was supposed to do was less than 600 a day. And at one point less than 400, and she was making these little soups out of zucchini and tomato, like a vegetable soup with nothing else in it, no carb, no protein, just vegetables. Yeah, really super unhealthy and in retrospect looking back like the women were thin but not healthy and it was sort of like an ongoing thing that like yes while I was all in in many ways and I loved the program and stuff I was like I'm never doing that like I would I would show up at a training with a bowl of

quinoa and avocado I couldn't bring meat into the center. So I'd have to like eat that on my own, on my own lunch and put it in the fridge. Right. So I'd have to eat it separately, leave it in the car. But people would, people would see my like quinoa and avocado and they're like, wow, that's so high in calories. And like, you guys don't understand. And I'm, I don't, I'm not an expert like you are, but I'm, I call myself like a self-proclaimed

nutritionist, but I like, I a self-proclaimed nutritionist. But I like, I eat healthy generally, I think, right? And they're eating like low calorie canned soup because they know the calories. It was just really bad. And it was all for control. And there's a lot of things that Keith did to control women just generally, but largely, yes, through food. And there's also a rule about garlic. No one was allowed to have garlic because apparently that

makes your down there tangy or something. So that was a rule that I could never understand. Yeah. Like if that was a rule, did that not set off any like alarm bells? Like why does our vagina need to smell or taste a certain way? I didn't know about the vagina thing until after I left. I just knew that people weren't into garlic. And then I found, I was like, why is every, they told me they had a garlic allergy. Like I remember bringing Nancy to this amazing raw vegan place in Vancouver that I loved. And she's like, everything here has garlic on it, Sarah, everything. Don't you know I have a garlic allergy? And I was like, why does everyone have a fucking garlic allergy?

And then I found out later it's because of the vagina scent from garlic. Interesting. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, as you've mentioned, like the role of food and diet restrictions within cults just serve so many of the different purposes. And, you know, I see it, you know, as a means of reinforcing kind of that exclusivity and isolation from the outside world. Also, like supporting these like purification or like enlightenment themes. And like, also just like you kind of mentioned, like reinforcing this fat phobic belief that weight or food control is some kind of evidence

of our morality or self controlcontrol or deviation or strength, obedience, things like that. And obviously food is just like the most rudimentary form of control. So like you said, you start with people on 400, 500, 600 calories, they're not thinking straight. Like stay with if you're, you weren't sleeping, you start with people of our basic needs,

we can't think critically. And, you know, it sounds like you kind of got off a little easy on some of these things because you didn't live in, you know, live in Albany. You were married. You had a kid. Your value was perhaps to the group more so in, like, selling the program to other women versus like having being a sex slave to keep. Thank God. Thank God. While you were kind of in the program before your awakening, and you're like seeing these women shrinking, did it ever kind of occur to you that like, what's going on? Like, why are why is everybody losing so much weight? Like, have you did you

question why everyone was like on such strict diets? Like who told you to do this? I mean, it seems like you were the only one being like, Oh yeah, guys, we can eat quinoa and avocado. Did, did any of those things kind of make you ask questions? Yeah, a hundred percent. There are lots of, I had so many red flags along the way that I didn't understand what I was looking at. I mean, I definitely noticed that women were very thin and it, look, it escalated to, it escalated over the 12 years. I mean, I definitely noticed that women were very thin and it escalated too. It escalated over the 12 years. I didn't see the scales until the last few years, for example. And I also didn't live in Albany. So I didn't really see the behind the scenes of how people were living until later years. I usually flew in the day before training, did a training

and then left. So I wasn't going back and hanging out at people's homes and seeing their day to day. If anything, we'd like go for a walk at lunch. But I, you know, yeah, I didn't, I didn't think, I thought, I mean, I thought a lot of people just didn't look happy. Right. And they, and the call on that was, well, that we're working through our stuff. You know, this is what it looks like to work. Right. There's a very, very specific kind of look in the eyes of somebody who is emotionally and physically starved. And you, you know, maybe you were kind of picking up on that. And it's quite evident, especially for folks like myself who have struggled with a need

disorder. We kind of see it. Right. Were you, you know, in the book, you talk about having to practice these daily acts of denial. So things like abstaining from caffeine and sugar and taking cold showers. And, you know, you said kind of like, these were very typical of your usual penances and nexium. So in DOS, it wasn't a big deal. Were you ever told that you couldn't eat something or could only, you know, eat at certain times or certain ways by Lauren as a, you know, in one of your kind of readiness drills or anything like that? Not that I can remember, but I think it's also because I didn't really need to

lose weight. You know, like I think that the people got those directives if they were too big for him. And what is too big for him? Like average size? I mean, yeah, I think that it was that he needed them to be definitely anorexic or, you know, bulimic. And I do, I actually, I totally forgot about this. There was one person, I'm going to leave her name out because she's since woken up, but she was about to get promoted to co to Proctor. And she had confided in me that she was throwing up, that she was bulimic. And, um, I knew that she was about to get promoted to Proctor and people didn't get promoted to Proctor when they couldn't kick their smoking issue. if they were obese.

Like there was a couple of people that were in Nexium for just as long as I was, never got promoted to Proctor because they were indulgent in their eating and they were too heavy. So I was like, wait, she's going to get promoted and she's bulimic? That can't be right. And I remember talking to her coach about it and I didn't know this till later, but her coach was also sleeping with Keith. So there were things they were willing to let go because they're all in it

together, you know? Yeah. They're all in it together. Yeah. So yeah, that kind of thing I saw and I, but I, when I brought it to people's attention, I think because I didn't have the whole picture, they were like, Oh, thank you for telling me. We'll make sure we address that. You know, like, you know, I was just so naive. Right. Oh my gosh. Well, you did, you did what you could. And obviously in those kinds of situations, it's in a lot of ways kind of out of your hands. Right. But, you know, I've, I've talked about this a lot on my podcast and that, you know, one of the reasons why I think diet and wellness culture is so inherently culty is simply in the kind of moralizing way that encourage us encourages us to just like talk about food, right. So we're always talking about food,

like good, bad, or toxic, or clean, or like, you know, we were bad for eating a donut, where this is a guilty pleasure, we're cheating on our diet, like all of these things are very moralizing the way that we think about food, and by extension, the way we think about ourselves. And I'm curious if your experience in NXIVM made you kind of more cognizant of the covert culty belief patterns in the way that like we as a society, especially women, are talking about food and our bodies. 100%. I actually feel like fortunately and unfortunately it's the lens I see everything through is what's, what's the indoctrination? Like, why do we even believe what we believe? Like, why do we, if you look at, you know,

I'm sure you know this way better than I do, but like throughout history, the standards have changed, right? What's, what's the norm, what's acceptable, what's considered sexy, attractive, completely changed. And it's currently changing. And especially with like the advent of the new butt and like, you know, that whole thing. Our bodies are just expected to kind of fluctuate with the trends and that's just not a body's work. Right. So that in terms of the indoctrination, but then also, you know, through the perspective of who gains from this, like, obviously we're not all in cults, but like just the, you know, advertising is culty. The industries that control it are culty. Who's getting money from all of us, even just believing that we're not okay and we need this new contour package or whatever is being sold to us.

Right. I mean, ultimately that's one of the main nuggets that I realized as soon as I got out of NXIVM is that they're brilliantly in the first five day gave me so many great tools that hooked me and made me feel like I'd found this path and secret of life. But also was this feeling like, okay, well, there's this, I have a, like a deficiency. There's something that's inherently wrong with me. And this is the tool set to fix it. So that's when I see the, you know, the diet and beauty industry, it's like, okay, well, you know, you are too big and ugly, but luckily, we have all the tools to make you better, and healthy and thin, and popular. And I see this

most like, obviously, with just like the grifty MLM wellness industry. I think that's like a perfect example. I mean, like it's diet culture in general is culty. But I think that one that stands out to me especially you know with parallels to to nexium and what you experience because there is this like this like almost you know mlm style a pyramid scheme to what you experience where you know you're bringing in people below you and you have your own slaves and um but yeah like when you see these mlm ads come up in your feed like what kind of a culty alarm bells are going off for it for you? Oh my goodness.

Just quick, a funny anecdote. There was this one girl in Vancouver, a young woman I should say, who did a little bit of NXIVM and then left because she found it weird or whatever and culty. And now she's a major seller of, I want to say it's Arbonne. And like she was coming across across her my feed is like living her best life and like doing all these things she's an influencer and like her ring light and her thing and my i've got a ring light here too but like you know what i mean like her whole life is around this image and you know i i i laugh because when we were in nexium we were told

that because people would say, is this an MLM? And Keith would say, no, because the MLMs are unethical, inherently unethical. Therefore, this is not an MLM. That actually makes no sense. But I was like, it's not just a structure of a company. We're bringing in people, recruiting people and teaching them how to grow their own company. That's not an MLM. No, that's what an MLM is. And I also, ironically, um, DOS really was that DOS, like you said before it's, it was an MLM and it was a blackmail MLM. It was specifically using blackmail to coerce people to stay. And I think he actually created DOS specifically because the MLM of NXIVM wasn't strong enough. People were leaving and he needed

people to be hooked for life. And I think when I see the MLMs and that particular woman's feed, just to bring it back, I see her as so dependent now. It's going to be so hard for her to leave that and ever admit, hey, she was duped. She's got to keep doubling down, doubling down, doubling down. No, this is the best decision I ever made. Look at me. I'm independently wealthy and I'm making residuals and I'm a business owner. No, you're not a business owner. You are not a business owner. And you see, I don't know how much you've been following the scandals around. Oh God, what's it called?

Beauty counter. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. Which recently just changed their business model. And I have a friend who is making like 15 to 20 grand a month, and now her income is just gone. So no, not a business owner.

Sorry. No, I know. For me, it's like if you look at the combination of all these kind of culty elements, the manipulation, the idea of kind of being embraced in a community and like a sisterhood, and we're like all these kind of boss babes together, being like chastised for questioning and ostracized once you're out and like you said before with with next team it's like the investment alone keeps you so desperate to to stay the course and make sure that you know you don't you don't think too critically about what actually could be going on because you have to 100% with all of your being that if you just try harder, and you just, you know,

stick it out that things are gonna, you know, things are gonna get better, you're gonna reach success, you're gonna make all this money, etc. Yeah, that's, by the way, in every single one of these groups, every single one of these groups, whether it's a cult, a religion, a MLM, Scientology, it's all that, that pattern is the same. The more invested you are, it's harder it is to leave. And then throw a little bit of pride in there. Imagine that people have been telling you for a long time, you're in a cult or that's a bad idea. And you got to turn around and eat a big, can you swear on this podcast yes you swear okay look at i call my husband i call it the sandwich like when you have to just eat

crow and be like oh my god i i had to do it yeah i had to do it publicly you know on the front page of the new york times and say i made a big mistake. That takes an enormous amount of bravery. Thank you. I appreciate that. Because, you know, because of course, like there's a, there's a shame and embarrassment that you were wrong and that you got duped and how could you be so stupid and how could you be so foolish? And, you know, and I hear these things from you. And like I said earlier, I just, I have a lot of empathy because I can understand how easily it happens because I watch it happen every day to young people being roped into various kind of diet culture cults. And even the most intelligent people, right? There's a lot of smart people that were in NXIVM. So this is not just like, oh, they're naive and dumb. No, no. These are smart individuals who, like any human,

are just trying to seek betterment, enlightenment, purity, better morality, better success, whatever their goal may be, just like all humans want. So I think it just plays to our human needs. And of course, everybody's susceptible to that but i want to talk about getting out because in your book um i really loved how you talked about the day that you shut down the NXIVM center that you ran in Vancouver. To celebrate, you ordered everyone pizza with meat on it. And you were specifically saying it had meat on it. And I just know that food often has so much meaning, right? Like it's symbolic. And clearly you clocked that memory. So I'm kind of curious, like, how did that simple act of eating pizza feel to you symbolically? students eat their meat outside the center because I was following rules. I was a good girl. And to me, it was me. I was breaking the rules and it felt really good. And it wasn't just an act of defiance. It was me reclaiming my autonomy. And look, I'm not a big pizza person anyway,

but pizza was big in NXIVM, but it was always just plain cheese pizza because, you know, or every now and then maybe a vegetarian, like a vegetable pizza, but usually just plain cheese pizza. So for me, that simple act of putting some pepperoni on it meant a lot. And I was also like, I was, I, I had asked members of the community to come help me pack this up and clean up. And I wanted to thank them and throw a little party. And we, we had a cafe and I was like giving them food from the cafe and like drinks and chocolate and stuff like that. It was a pretty healthy, healthy cafe, as you can imagine. Love it. But yeah, but the meat pizza was, it was just my little, you know what? You don't have a hold on me anymore. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Fuck you Vanguard. Yeah, exactly. Fuck you Vanguard. We've said

that many times in the last seven years, which would be shocking compared to how many times I said, thank you Vanguard, right before that. Oh, my goodness. What a turn. And I assume that there experience, you know, between the naked photo collateral and the branding and extreme weight loss and the acts of denial that you had to do all of that. So sex for some people, like how has this affected you or other members relationship to, to food and your body long-term? Yeah. I mean, I, there's a lot of survivors that I don't speak to, to be honest,

and not for lack of want. I think most people are happy to move on with their lives and are, from what I've heard anyway, happy that I'm doing the talking. They don't want to do the talking and Sarah can sound that alarm and be that person. And I think largely because, like you said earlier, I didn't get fucked with in the same way as many other people. And so, yes, being branded was terrible and awful, and I wish it didn't happen. That was the worst of it. I didn't have to have degrading sexual things with Keith.

I didn't have to alter my life in too many drastic ways. And in many ways, I got the good out of it, most of the good out of it, which of course there was because otherwise, why would you stay? But I do feel from the few people that I've been in touch with that if they don't do cult education and learn about how cults, and get some therapy specifically with a cult expert or somebody who can guide them about the narcissistic abuse and the levels of control and all the things that happened, then they tend to, um, repeat either, um, getting into an abusive relationship or cult hopping. But I I've seen a lot of people, especially the women, like leave NXIVM and then like join a yoga community with a very strict discipline and food rules and a guru worship. And I'm like, what are you doing?

Like you're doing the same thing. You have to not – like you got to educate yourself. So I think it depends. It's a slippery slope. I think it really depends on the person and how much trauma they went through and if they got therapy. And, you know, for those people, I'm hoping like it's one of the reasons why I'm writing the book is that I feel like when we got out, there was like 12 books that we had to read to educate ourselves and 80,000 documentaries to watch. And I'm trying to, I'm exaggerating, obviously, I'm trying to compile all that so I could say, hey, you just got out. Here's, you said, diet, certain religions,

kind of other movements. Yeah, just to kind of see those warning signs. So very, very helpful. This was so, so interesting. Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining us. You're welcome. And everyone's listening. I'm going to be of course, linking in the show notes to your book, scarred your podcast, but culty, definitely watch the vow. It's amazing listening. I'm going to be, of course, linking in the show notes to your book, Scarred, your podcast, a little bit culty. Definitely watch The Vow. It's amazing. And I'm looking forward to this new book.

Do we know when it's coming out? Yeah, we've said spring of 25. So it's got a little bit of a window. And it is actually available for pre-order on our website. It just says forthcoming book because we have not announced the title, which I think will be coming after the holidays, after Thanksgiving. That is amazing. All right. So we will, we will link to that as well. So thank you again, Sarah. Oh, I love that. Love that. Love that so much. Such a fascinating conversation. And also one that I'm

very much invested in because I often feel that so much of extreme wellness culture today deeply resembles the dynamics of a cult. And no different than the promises of better health and enlightenment, success, purity, and morality that lured Sarah and so many other women into NXIVM and DOS, it can often be really difficult to recognize the dangers of these diet movements until true damage has been done. As a dietitian, I see the culty playbook most readily in fringe diet movements like raw frugivore or raw veganism, water fasting, or carnivore. But even more seemingly benign protocols like keto can exploit these tactics

to your demise. So I wanted to share with you some red flags and really some questions to ask yourself to determine if the diet movement that you're subscribing to might actually be operating like a cult. So number one, are you expected to follow a set of rigid rules that require an enormous amount of mental or physical energy to maintain? Are you taught that any deviation from diet rules is a moral or spiritual failure or some kind of human weakness that must be conquered? Does your extreme diet regimen force you to limit socialization to folks with identical values, further isolating you from folks outside the movement? I mean, we often see culty diets teach their disciples that they are enlightened or chosen or morally superior to

outsiders, which ultimately just traps them in an echo chamber of problematic beliefs. Does the marketing and promotion of the diet play into our darkest innate fears? So for example, we see a lot of diet gurus play into fears around so-called toxins, certain foods, aging, illness, fatness, failure, lack of acceptance, etc. And this fear creates a system of dependency on the group and whatever wellness practices and promises they promote. Big red flag, in my opinion. And here's another one. Is there a strong rhetoric around so-called purification and food restriction as a means of enlightenment?

Is there an expectation of significant monetary or material commitment to the cause? Wellness MLMs, I am looking at you. In scenarios like these where people are expected to pour loads of time and money into products, classes, and memberships, there's this desperate desire to like stay the course even when your intuition tells you it's probably time to get out. And speaking of things not working out, are any negative effects of the program or diet suppressed and vehemently denied? Because yeah, this is culty AF. So what I

often see with a lot of these diets is that anytime there are criticisms or claims of any negative physical or emotional side effects, the individual often gets blamed for their quote-unquote lack of discipline. Or even worse, the negative effect is framed as a helpful part of the overall process. So for example, I have seen some shocking suggestions on like raw till four forums that losing your period, assumedly from like malnutrition, is all part of the quote-unquote detox phase of healing. I've also seen a lot of MLM members squash criticism with this can line about haters not wanting to support your success. So yeah, it's all part of the careful indoctrination. And finally, does the group claim to hold quote-unquote secret knowledge

that the scientific community doesn't want you to know? This one scares the shit out of me. Honestly, I see a lot of popular fringe diets thrive on this idea that scientists and healthcare experts or professionals are suppressing the truth, but that they hold some kind of like hidden knowledge about health and wellness. As a result, a lot of diets act as like this gateway drug to even more problematic conspiracy theories and anti-science behaviors that are not only dangerous for the individual, but ultimately for society at large. At the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with getting involved in a group of like-minded individuals that ultimately can help support your wellness goals. Whether that's like a running group or yoga practice or a weight

loss Facebook support page. But your diet should be the least interesting thing about you. And if you're finding that diet seeping into all other corners of your life, try to get an unbiased take from an outsider who can ultimately help you see whether or not you're being manipulated under the guise of quote-unquote living well. And that is all that I've got for you guys today. Thank you again to Sarah Edmondson for chatting with me and helping me bite back against diet culture. I'm of course going to be leaving links to her content in the show notes. And also a quick reminder, I would love, love, love if you would leave me a review and comment on this episode. It helps me so, so much. And also don't forget to follow on Apple, Spotify,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Signing off with Science and Sass, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.