The Rich Roll Podcast - How Jasmin Singer Lost 100 Pounds By Finding Peace With Herself

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

The facts of our experiences are different. But so many of the emotions we experience along our journeys are remarkably similar. Meet Jasmin Singer. As a kid, Jasmin was an outcast. Fat and persistently bullied, she was hopelessly drawn to foods that only fueled the depression and confused disposition incited by her chaotic upbringing. Encouraged by her gorgeous mother to trade in her Oreos for pre-packaged Weight Watchers brownies resulted in an endless rotation of Nutri-System appointments and Jenny Craig weigh-ins that ultimately did little to rectify her love of cheddar, resolve her body image issues or soothe the pain of childhood trauma. The grub always won. Because food offered Jasmin something she found nowhere else. She basked in the safe reassurance of mealtimes, in the calm friendship she shared with snacks. She lived for the sweet tingling of a vanilla shake as it slid down her throat, filling up her stomach and, more importantly, her heart. This is a long way of saying that Jasmin was, in fact, addicted to food – physically and emotionally. And no wonder. The foods she regularly ate growing up – Cheez-Its, Lunchables, Twinkies, Big Macs – were literally designed to activate the pleasure centers in her brain, making her want more and more and more. A growing awareness of the horrors of industrialized animal agriculture led to Jasmin's emerging sense of just how profoundly her culinary proclivities had betrayed her. So at 19, she became a vegetarian. Later, she went entirely vegan, stepping into a lifelong passion for animal rights advocacy. Nonetheless, the skinny vegan trope eluded her. Instead, she continued to gain weight due to her continuing love affair with greasy rich foods. Just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's healthy. In the firm grips of her hopeless addiction, Jamin became resigned to the deep sense of shame that accompanied her every minute of every day, further isolating her in a bottomless pit of desperation and loneliness that drove an isolating wedge between her and the world. From the extra pounds and unrelenting bullies that left her eating lunch alone in a bathroom stall at school to the low self-esteem that rendered her physically and emotionally vulnerable to abuse, her struggle with weight came to define every aspect of her life. And then one day, she decided to make a change… By committing to monthly juice fasts and a plant-based diet comprised of whole, unprocessed foods, Jasmin lost almost a hundred pounds, gained an understanding of her destructive relationship with food, and finally realized what it means to be truly full. Today, Jasmin is the co-founder and executive director of Our Hen House, a nonprofit multimedia hub working to change the world for animals. She also serves up co-host duties on the popular Our Hen House Podcast, produces an online magazine and video content and travels extensively to publicly speak on the subjects of veganism and social justice. As laid bare in her brave and intensely vivid coming-of-age memoir, Always Too Much And Never Enough*, it's a story you might be surprised to learn really isn't about weight loss.

I found that I was being betrayed by the food industry, and it was only as I started to pull that apart and what that meant, did I realize all of the ways I had also been betraying myself. That's Jasmine Singer, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Paradigm-breaking minds and personalities across all categories of health, wellness, fitness, diet, nutrition, entrepreneurship, creativity, artistry, authorship, spirituality. What else? Meditation, mindfulness. You get the picture. The idea is to help all of us, myself included, unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves.

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And that really helps us out a lot. So thank you so much. I've got my good friend Jasmine Singer on the show today. Very excited about this. Jasmine is a longtime vegan animal rights activist. She co-hosts a podcast called Our Hen House, which I really love. I've been a guest on that show in the past. And she's a new author. She's got a book that just came out called Always Too Much and Never Enough. It's her story. It's her memoir.

And it's really a great read. I really enjoyed it. And I enjoyed this conversation with her tremendously. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about what to expect in a second. But first. All right. So Jasmine Singer. I just absolutely love her.

I was able to sit down with her when I was in New York City a couple weeks ago. We did the podcast in like this tiny little conference room at the NYU library, which was kind of trippy, right? All these college students milling about a different kind of environment for me, I suppose. Anyway, she wrote this really great memoir. And it's a memoir about food addiction, eating disorders. It's about self-esteem, self-image. It's about shame. It's about civil rights. And we talk about all of these things, including what it's like to face and overcome childhood trauma and depression. And ultimately, you know, it's about signing up for this journey that we all take to find peace with ourselves, this journey to wholeness. I think that's all I want to say about this. I think I'll let Jasmine say the rest. So without further ado, please enjoy this

incredible conversation. I just love talking to her. She was really, really great. Amazing conversation with my good friend, Jasmine Singer. You ready to rock? And roll. Let's do it. It's kind of a trip being in a college library right now. Like I'm weirding out a little bit. Yeah. Do you feel really old?

I feel, well, it's a weird mashup of feeling really old and also being transported back to being like 18 or 19. Except what's crazy is like every student has like a giant like flat screen 4K resolution monitor that they're doing their homework on. I had like a Game Boy, I think. I was working on the original Macintosh like Apple computer. That was my first introduction to computers. Do you remember Pong? I do.

I barely remember it. Oh, you do? I had Atari. So yeah, this podcast is getting, it's just like taking off like a jet airplane right now. This is all we should talk about. I know, right? Well, we can talk about fashion and glasses.

That was, that's what we were talking about. I think by the end of this interview, you're going to be a very stylish lesbian. I know. Well, we are going to go shopping. Yeah.

You're going to tune me up. Right. I'm very excited about it. All right, cool. So, uh, I'm very excited to talk to you about your new book,

which is beautiful. Congratulations. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You should be very proud. Congratulations on getting it done and birthing it to the world. Thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You should be very proud. Congratulations on getting it done and birthing it to the world. It's a beautiful story and it's a very courageous story. You allowed yourself to be quite vulnerable. And although your story is quite different than mine, a lot of the themes are the same. I really related to it a lot and I appreciated the honesty and the integrity. Well, I really related to yours very much. And I think you're right. There's just

this common theme of finding personal authenticity. Yeah. It's a journey towards finding personal authenticity. But, you know, I think if I had to encapsulate your story, it's really a, it's a journey to becoming whole, right? It's a journey towards, you know, kind of healing yourself and you can kind of analyze it in on a, on a number of different levels, like on a very top surface level, it's your relationship to food and it's a weight loss story and all of that. But really it's about, you know, a struggle with identity and, and you know, your place in the world and trying to piece together these facets of your identity to become – to sort of connect with your authentic self, I suppose, right? Yeah, it's not something that –

How do you describe it? Yeah, I think that's it. In fact, I think you should do the rest of my book for me. Okay, good. I appreciate that. I think it's about finding and seeking personal authenticity. It's not as though I reach it by the end. I hope that I never feel as though I've reached it.

I think it's an ongoing journey. That's an important point. Yeah. Yeah. So let's explore this. Let's go to the beginning and set the stage for... Well, first, describe the book. It's weird because we're talking about the book but we're really talking about your life.

Tell me about your life, Jasmine. I would love to know how you handle that too because there's a very dramatic scene in it. It's the most dramatic scene in it. At my book launch in New York City last month somebody said to me I'm in the scene where that man did blah, blah, blah to you.

And he's like, very powerfully written. And I was like, thanks? That was my story. That's my life. But yeah, I found that I was being betrayed by the food industry. And I think a lot of people listening to this can probably identify with that and relate to it.

And it was only as I started to this can probably identify with that and relate to it. And it was only as I started to pull that apart and what that meant, did I realize all of the ways I had also been betraying myself through hiding really behind rows and rows of Oreos. As somebody who is perhaps a little uncomfortable on their own skin, is seeking to connect, maybe just unsure of how they fit in the world, and finding solace and comfort in food in this kind of increasing chaos that is your home life, right? Yeah, it was my best friend. Food was my therapist and my lover, my everything. And so there was no way I was going to give it up anytime soon, even though I didn't realize at the time that the big food industry was really reliant on my willful ignorance to just continue to consume it. And in fact, it was being produced in such a way that was the exact perfect ratio of fat to sweet to salty and smushy. Right, exactly. So I'm sure you read that book. What is it called? The Pleasure Trap? Well, Pleasure Trap, right, Doug Lyle's book, but also Salt, Sugar, Fat, which talks about how they specifically concoct

these foods to activate the pleasure centers in your brain and create this addictive response. And, you know, as somebody who is in recovery, and I speak frequently about addiction and related issues, I think, and one of the things I always talk about is how cavalier we are in the way that we throw around the word addiction. Like, I'm a chocoholic. Oh, like, I addicted to shopping, ha ha ha, and things like that. And I think it's sort of been watered down as this catch-all phrase of just like, I'm into this thing, I'm addicted to it. But there's a big difference between that and true addiction. And when I read your book, it was very clear like, this is an addictive relationship to food in a real way, specifically cheese, right? It's like, I feel like this is a book about your relationship with cheese in a major way, right?

That's funny. I have a new button on my bag here that says, I love vegan cheese. I guess some have it die hard. Well, there's all this stuff in science about how cheese has a sort of opiate effect on on the brain yeah yeah i definitely was one of those people who said repeatedly i would i could never get up cheese with this almost sultry you know kind of intensity like i would it's mine get off of it it's it's for me what is that i don't know it's just But I would say that getting – you know, ditching cheese was the hardest part of my journey, for sure. Much harder than meat. Meat wasn't that big of a deal.

But, you know, I went through withdrawals on the cheese. Like, that was a challenge. You were vegetarian before you were vegan? Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, take us back. Yeah.

Paint the picture of a young Jasmine. I was a pretty intense chubby kid growing up in suburban New Jersey, trying to stuff my fat self into my skinny mother's shadow. And this was the fluorescent 1980s. She was very intent on going from 122 pounds to 120. And she did so by going to Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem and bringing me with her. And I went because I knew that on the way home, we would be able to stop at Luigi's for some pizza. There's this mentality that I later adopted in my 20s when I wound up working for Weight Watchers, in fact. Where after your weigh-in,

it's like free time. You can eat whatever you want. You can binge however you want to, and it doesn't count. And it's funny because it never really addressed the systemic issue of why we develop these poor mentalities around eating and around food and around body image. And so when I was growing up, I was very, very bullied. And at home, we had lots of divorces and remarriages and things like that. And I had this very, very beautiful mother. And so my solace and my best friend really became what I ate. And there was not any kind of consciousness around it whatsoever. Right. And your mother never specifically sort of like shames you about food, right? She's always telling you you're beautiful, and she's trying to empower you, but her own issues around food and weight loss and trying to like, affect this perfect body must have spilled down into your

consciousness in a profound way. Yeah, you know, I don't have kids now. And I think a big part of why is because there's a small chance they would grow up and write a memoir. You know, you can't write a book about food and body image without throwing your mother under the bus a little bit. And my mom was just a pained version of her child self, just like we all are as adults. And no, she never exactly shamed me. But she also wasn't entirely comfortable with me shopping in plus-size stores. And she didn't really know what to do. You have that Lane Bryant scene in the book where she kind of has a little bit of a freak out.

Yeah, she let me go in eventually, but she didn't go in with me. Do you think it's better now, the bullying thing, like as a parent? Because when I was a kid, they didn't know what to do with me. They didn't know what to do with the kid who was bullied to such a huge extent

that really I shouldn't have been in that school. Is it different now? Well, I mean, you could probably speak to this more eloquently and intelligently than I can, but I feel like it's undeniable that there's more awareness and conversation around bullying. I mean, we're constantly, you know, being made aware of the situation. And as a parent who is participating in, you know, school events and all of that, I can tell you that it's a, you know, a constant topic of discussion. And so, there's a consciousness with the faculty of, you know, the educational

institutions that I've been associated with that tries to, you know, sort of combat it and instill the kids with a sense of what's right and wrong when it comes to that. But, you know, I mean, that's in the air, right? I think there's a certain, you know, level of political correctness around that that didn't exist when we were kids. Right. No, it didn't. They didn't know what to do with me, and I kind of didn't know what to do with myself. I just wanted to be out. Right.

Well, you sort of handled it. I mean, the bullying, it was pervasive in your life, and it seemed that your reaction really was just to kind of quietly withdraw and then emotionally numb yourself out with food. Totally. That's the defense mechanism, right? Yeah, and I also was involved in theater, so I was able to get out of myself a little bit in that way. that all of these pieces of being bullied as a kid and then as an adult and ultimately losing nearly 100 pounds and being treated very differently as a thinner adult were pieces

that then made up my future activism, which centers around animal rights. But it's all being staged as a kid. I just didn't know it then. Though I did have a feeling that my story would be shared one day somehow. Is weird did you have that I don't know that I had that I mean I think doesn't everyone feel like their life has some purpose that has yet to be fully expressed I don't know I definitely had a sense of that I didn't have a sense that I would be writing a memoir and like sharing my personal story I thought my story was boring well but that might why people, I don't think it's boring, but I think that the fact that you're everybody else and I'm everybody else is maybe what makes people connect with our stories. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and yours is very unique and interesting in that

you've had this kind of, you know, topsy-turvy relationship with food and, you know, weight gain and weight loss and your introduction to, you know, veganism and kind of, you know, topsy-turvy relationship with food and, you know, weight gain and weight loss and, and your introduction to, you know, veganism and kind of, you know, civil rights activism across a number of causes. But it doesn't come in the shape and form that you would expect, right? Like somebody who's struggling with weight, you would think, oh, they get into veganism because they want to lose weight. That was not your entry point. I mean, your entry point was a girl, right? Yeah, well, both types. Kind of, right? When I went vegetarian and also when I went vegan, yeah.

When I went vegetarian, I was a theater student, and I wore all black, and I smoked clove cigarettes, and I was 19. And I met my first vegetarian friend. I had never before thought of where food came from. And I thought, oh, well, I need an identity and a label. of where food came from. And I thought, oh, I need an identity and a label. And I thought vegetarian seemed to fit, but it was partly because of this baby butch girl, Emily,

and how she was so comfortable in her vegetarianism. I remember telling her after I went vegetarian that I joined her team. And of course I was still closeted to myself and she kind of winked at me. And I was like, no, no, no, not that team. And then when I went vegan at 24, the other team, the other team, and then Can you be a member of one without being a member of the other? I think it's possible. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's possible. But yes, it was also I was

very influenced by another woman when I went vegan as well. But you know, when people say, Oh, how did you go vegan? It's not exactly because of someone else. It's because of myself, which has so happened that that person came in my life at the right moment when my eyes were able to be, you know, yeah, it's timing. And it takes what it takes. Like I started going to, I got interested in yoga, because that's where the girls were, you know, and then you go on your own journey, and it becomes something else entirely. That's where the girls were, you know, and then you go on your own journey and it becomes something else entirely. That's where the girls are noted. Right.

Now, you know. Okay. So, so let's unpack it a little bit. Like throughout high school and college, you're sort of progressively gaining weight and you're kind of, you know, going deeper and deeper into this cave with your relationship with food. You discover vegetarianism and you discover your love of theater, but that like theater, even like you're not even escaping the bullying initially with theater, right? Like it's sort of cropping into that. Yeah, I had struggling with your identity, like, tell me what's going on and kind of what's going on, like emotionally and mentally and spiritually with you at that time.

I was in a very deep denial about who I was. And it's because I never allowed my true self to come out even to me. I was too busy really stuffing my feelings with whatever I could to hide from it. It usually took the form of junk food. I didn't even eat a vegetable until I was 30. I was a longtime vegan by then. But it was so much a part of my head, my mental space, that food was just a vehicle for losing weight. It never occurred to me that food had anything to do with nourishments or satisfaction. So it became an escape mechanism more than anything else. And I was so deeply

misunderstood. And it's partly because I didn't understand myself. And the person who really understood me the most was my grandma, who is the biggest force in my life, for sure. And just, you know, we all have that. Well, most of us do, I think, if we're lucky that we have a grandparent that we kind of stop and smile and we think of them and so in in high school uh i was i i was very very different and found that the only way i could get through the days was to just befriend a lot of adults and escape into this world of bett midler and patty laponeone and food. And I hated my body. I felt like my body and my psyche were two separate individuals. It's ironic because I later kind of merged them

through actually getting tattoos. It became a big part of how my body became more attached to who I felt I was in the world, which is something I go into a little bit in my book. Yeah, that's interesting. And at the same time, I would imagine quite a lonely place. Yeah, I had some pretty deep depression, for sure. And I remember being about 14, and finally I had seen a therapist,

and the therapist suggested I go on Prozac, but it was brand new to the market. My mother was really uncomfortable with that, so I didn't go on until I was in college. And then I definitely did my share of drugs for mood stabilizing. And I was misdiagnosed as bipolar at that point. So I was put on lots of medications that I shouldn't have been on and ultimately wound up just unable to function physically. And so I left college briefly. Because it was just too much. It was like I was a musical theater student and I couldn't even lift my leg to jeté.

Right. And meanwhile, being completely unaware that the real drug in your life and the true coping mechanism is food all along, right? It was food. true coping mechanism is food all along, right? It was food. And, you know, though I'm not an alcoholic, I did my share of drinking at that time as well. And nobody ever pointed out or put together, certainly not me, that maybe alcohol had something to do with my depression as well. And so, it was like the quiet moments in my little apartment in Center City, Philadelphia, where i would be by myself at night and just wonder how i could get out like how i could get out of this world how i could get out

of my body just literally grabbing fistfuls of flesh wanting to rip them off hating myself having no peace whatsoever and the only things that would assuage my angst would be whatever toxic substance I could find. And maybe my toxic substance took a different form than yours, but ultimately it was rooted in a very similar mentality, I think, of a mix of addiction and a extremely imbalanced relationship to what and whom I was consuming. imbalanced relationship to what and whom I was consuming. Pete Was there a conscious awareness of that going on at the time or not? Jennifer Not at all. I existed in this haze between

knowing that I was unhealthy and that I had no peace within my body and being in complete denial about that and just pretending that I could that I could just fit in because at the time I was a theater student so everyone was you know queer and different and so I thought I could just fit in there into this world of weirdos think fame like imagine fame that was basically my college experience but then I think you describe it as like a like a like a gayer version of fame or something like that, like a little bit more misfitty and weirdo. We totally misfitty and weirdo. Definitely. Well, it's interesting because, you know, I remember, you know, in the early years of of my recovery, I would go to I would go to meetings and people would say like, yeah, I'm really noticing how much I'm medicating myself with food. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like,

I had no, like, even throughout all my struggles with drugs and alcohol and getting clean and sober and all of that, and really developing an understanding of the relationship between a mind altering substance and like my behavior and kind of that captivity that exists with that, having no understanding that that could actually take place with food as well. Like, you know, it's not something that is part of our, you know, kind of cultural conversation. I mean, maybe now it is, but it wasn't in my experience. Well, also you have to eat.

Yeah, exactly. So I've had people say to me that they think that the idea of food addiction is like complete bogus banana nonsense because you have to eat. And so I can understand that, especially if you're dealing with an addiction to drugs or alcohol or something that could kill you so easily. And of course, if you look around in this country, I'm not comparing it. But if you look around, our country is being plagued by food addiction and the diseases that are thoroughly avoidable. The obesity epidemic is through the roof. And obviously, by switching to a healthy vegan diet, people could avoid so much of the diseases that are killing us. Of course. But it's not always just about veganism. For me, it was about a lot more than

that. Yeah, and we're going to get into all of that. But this idea that, oh, food addiction isn't real because how can you be addicted to food when it's necessary for survival, that really misses the point. I think the distinction is when your relationship with food starts to cause negative ramifications in your life, like when you're starting to use it for a purpose other than sustaining yourself or nourishing yourself or some base level of conscious, mindful enjoyment. But beyond that, when it starts to interfere with the good things in your life. Yeah, and it doesn't become a good thing in your life as it can be. I mean, food is one of the very basic things that we all share that we all love or should love. It's so satisfying to eat a good meal. It's like a sexy experience.

And you're depriving yourself of that, or at least I was for three decades. Actually, my brother who read this book, he texted me as he for three decades, you know, because my actually my brother who read this book, he was texted me as he was reading it, which was pretty funny. And he pointed to something that I don't remember, because I was three, which would make him seven. And he said that we were just eating. We were in the kitchen eating our breakfast. And my mom came in and was like, why are you eating so slowly?

We have to go out. And Jeremy and I looked at each other and we kind of like shrugged and just started eating really fast. And Jeremy points to that moment as the moment we just started mindlessly consuming. I was really surprised that my 40-year-old brother who lives in Kansas City now identified with so much of my story and my relationship with eating. That's super interesting. I mean, does he have issues around food as well? I think he might. I mean, I'm sure he doesn't want me to out him like that, but it seemed to me that he has.

And with men, it's so different. It's not as talked about, I guess. Right. Well, there's almost a weird pride that goes with it. Yeah. Dudes, too. Like, I can eat this much. Yeah. I like it. So there's a there's a association of masculinity that gets kind of woven into, you know, amounts

of food and types of food. Yeah. And my brother has had issues with other substances, for sure. So it manifests itself differently depending upon who you are and what your drug of choice is. Right. And he has had many drugs of choice. So maybe that's how it played out for him because that was more the way the world was pointing him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. So as we're talking about food and your relationship to food, this is also about self-esteem. It's about shame. It's about shame, it's about, you know, dark secrets, it's about, you know, an uncomfortable relationship with sexuality, like all of these things that you're struggling with. And meanwhile, you know, developing awareness, like, hey, this food thing is not working out. And like, I just don't like my body and trying to kind of rectify that and going the Weight Watcher route, like your mom and, and, you know, kind of yo-yoing in and out of diets

and some success and failure and rubber banding and all of that kind of stuff, kind of doing what I think most people do when they try to, like, lose weight. And then they unsuccessfully kind of rebound back to where they, you know, started. So let's talk a little bit about, like, the insanity of that cycle and how you broke free of that. Well, when I was a kid, the main meals, I don't even think we owned dishes. I really don't. And if we did, I never saw them. Because the main meals we ate were those little cardboard, tiny little squares, those little cardboard diet meals, Weight Watchers meals and other diet meals that you would just pop in the microwave.

And they would always be frozen in the middle, no matter how long you microwaved them and kind of burnt on the outside. Sometimes there was like little lasagna ones and they would, you couldn't even put a fork into it. That was what we grew up eating. And so your brother, your brother to my brother too. And so if your mom's doing your mom, who, by the way, you refer to as TM and mom. Yep. I think she probably is flattered by that. Really?

Okay. Yes. Yeah. No, my brother ate that way too, because that's just how we ate. And when my brother went off to college, he was at his freshman orientation and someone was talking about the food in the cafeteria and they said it's nothing like a home-cooked meal though and my brother got really confused because he was like oh phew thank god yeah and uh yeah so so the the thing is my mom read the book i had her read it about a month or two before it came out i was really worried about that and the only thing she had the biggest issue with was she was like, could you please tell people I'm a good cook now?

It's good. It's frightening to write about your, I mean, my mom was terrified. She didn't want me to write about her at all. You know, I have no interest in maligning my, my, you know, my mother. I love my mother. But you know, if you're going to write an honest book, you have to kind of break some stuff wide open. Right. My mom was really supportive of it. Ultimately, she said, this this is your story. And I know it's important that you get it out there.

And and she's evolved since then. And so I really appreciated that fact. Was it hard to, you know, get that honesty out onto paper? Did you struggle with how much to divulge and what not to? I did. Or were you just like, I'm going for it? So there were moments when I said to Marianne, my partner, when I said, should I say this? And she was like, just put it out there. You know, we could edit it later.

And so she just encouraged me to write it. And then of course, it's later now the book is out, you don't go back and edit it. So I don't I think I just kind of said it all, not really realizing on some kind of level that people were going to read it. I read this article. You can't because then you're self-editing, right? You have to write from a place of thinking no one's going to read it. How old were you when you wrote your memoir? 43. Okay.

I read an article in the New York Times recently about memoirists under 40 and how they inherently lack perspective, which is true. I mean, I lack more perspective now than I, you know, I'm sure 10 years ago it would have been a lot different. And 10 years from now, it'll be a lot different. But it talked about how so many memoirists under 40 just kind of say it all. And so, yeah, there's a lot of me in this, but hopefully it's not really about me.

It's about the person who reads it and the threads of my story that they could latch on to I think it's definitely that I think you succeeded in doing that in spades I hope so yeah thanks alright so

Weight Watchers you're going around the merry-go-round you're having these you get those days where you can eat whatever you want I don't get that cheat day thing anyway but that's a whole other subject

it's bad it's just a terrible way it keeps you it keeps you addicted oh of course it does if once a week like if i could if somebody said you can eat whatever you want once a week like there's a lot of diets out there that are popular that give you that cheat day i would just spend six days obsessing about that one day that i would get the thing i would never be able to free myself from that the chains of that obsession ding ding, ding. Yeah, that's it. I mean, that's what it was.

And that's because there's a bottom line. And, you know, to be fair, I have heard that Weight Watchers has changed in recent years. I know some some friends who are on it who really works for them. And so I'm not trying to like poo upon Weight Watchers. For me, the fact that there is a bottom line whenever you're dealing with a company that has a bottom line in my head, with a company that has a bottom line. In my head, that doesn't work because it's these big companies

that are invested in you sticking with whatever product they're selling that is, to me, rooted... They need you to stay on it. Yeah, it's rooted in a consumerist mentality that I'm not saying is always a bad thing, but for me, those are the things we need to question. I mean, if we didn't question them, we would all be eating meat.

If we didn't question them, we would all be straight. Not that there's anything wrong with being straight rich. Are you sure? There's some support groups for people like you. All right. We'll talk about that afterwards. No problem. But, you know, I had developed this idea that food was just a way to become a better version of yourself. And the word better to me meant thinner.

It didn't mean more at peace. It meant skinnier. But it didn't. I mean, when you became vegetarian, on some level, that's a stance. That's a political stance. That's an effort to not just join a team, but to perhaps be a better citizen, a more conscious citizen. It didn't necessarily relate to your weight at that time, right? Absolutely.

That was not a decision that was motivated by body image. Absolutely. was motivated by body image. Absolutely. And even though at the time I thought that my vegetarianism was just about throwing on a label because I was desperately seeking an identity, I realized in retrospect that it was actually the first time I was paying attention to that little tiny voice inside of me that had been kept turned so low. The volume was so low on that little voice, but I turned it up a little bit.

And it was a reflection of who I wanted to be in the world, even though I didn't totally see it that way for years. Right. There wasn't a conscious decision like, oh, I don't like how animals are being treated. I'm going to do this. Like maybe on an unconscious level that was going on, but it was more like it was really this quest for identity. I thought meat was icky. That was the word I used. I thought meat was icky. But I used to say, I'm a vegetarian, but not the mean kind. Little did I know what I would become. That you would become like this rabbit activist.

Yes, exactly. But yeah, I think that's very true. I was not ever motivated by skinniness. It was, you know, food, as you know, is the most personal political issue there is. And I think for a lot of people, including a lot of people who go vegan, the personal part of that is what takes center stage. And for me, it was the political part that not only as a vegan, that I even put together the possibility that self-care had anything to do with the longevity of my activism or my mentality about balance. That's so interesting.

Like, that's so the converse of most of the conversations that I have. Exactly. You know? Yeah, exactly. I was really imbalanced about the whole thing. And I later found out that I couldn't possibly advocate effectively for animals or anybody else unless I was also advocating for myself. And my book is not about how to lose weight.

It is, in addition to other things, it's about finding peace within your body. And for me, that had to do a lot with losing weight, but it wouldn't for everybody. It's been a hard thing to talk about, actually, since the book from fat to thin and from feeding her emotions to feeding her soul as she went from fat to thin. I didn't write that line. Of course, because Jasmine, we got to sell books here. Right. Move some units and people. That's what people want to hear about. They want to know how to lose weight.

And that's how you get them in the door. You know what I mean? And that's how you get them in the door. You know what I mean? And that's when you can plant the seed of the more important journey that starts to get fertilized and germinates along the way. But what's in the forefront of most people's minds is how am I going to lose 15 pounds, 10, whatever it is, right? That's where they're operating on a conscious level. Unconsciously, maybe the real issue is like I don't know that I'm really connected with myself. And, you know, I think you hit it on the head and send it, said it, you know, quite profoundly in your book when

you said something along the lines of, you know, true health comes from abundance, you know, not just on your plate, but in your life. So it's not about like, hey, you know, like, here's the percentage of carbs to fat. It's not about that. It's like you didn't get well until you were able to solve that equation for yourself. It's like becoming whole was the solution that then solved the other problem that you were trying to solve in different ways. And I've had that conversation with a number of people on this podcast. I remember Josh Lajani, who lost like 200 pounds on a plant-based diet, was like over 400 pounds and has kept it off. And he will say that the reason that he was able to do it,

it's easy to say, well, he adopted a plant-based diet and lost all the weight. But the truth is he changed his relationship to food and he started to perceive himself differently. He was on a journey towards wholeness and he sort of redefined himself and perceived himself as an athlete and started saying, I'm an athlete. I'm a runner. And he stopped worrying about what the scale said and just changed his lifestyle accordingly. And I think there's a similar kind of analogous thing that was going on with you. I didn't expect some of the things that happened, though, as I was losing the weight. I expected-

Well, that's the amazing- This is what I think really distinguishes your book from a lot of similar books out there, is your perspective. And I want to unpack the journey of the weight you know, the weight loss and kind of the fact that, that, you know, you're at your heaviest when you are that was vegetarian, vegan, vegan. So that's sort of, you know, the flip flop of what you often hear. So I want to talk about that a little bit. But really, the real core, I think of your book, and what distinguishes it is this, is this real palpable narrative around, you know around how you were treated differently once you lost the weight and kind of what that did to your awareness around these issues. It was shocking.

Yeah. So explain that. unique position of having jumped the fence from something that the world had previously marginalized and decided was less than into something that the world arbitrarily celebrated or at least accepted. And it took shape in very tiny little ways. And I started to notice them, you know, men holding doors for me, women stopping and complimenting my blazer, just asking someone, where'd you get that coffee and having like a whole bunch of people point to the you know starbucks nearby whereas before it was subtle but it was there and i you know it's something that it was actually the story that led to the book coming out because i wrote an article for mind body green about how the world started treating me very differently and it went the the article went viral it got like 100,000 Facebook shares within 24 hours or something like that.

I realized that it was the piece that nobody else was talking about. And to me, it pertained directly to my activism. Because how easy it is for us as a society to just cast certain beings aside as less than and just celebrate other ones. It ties in very directly to the bullying that I underwent as a kid. And it ties in very directly to the way animals are treated behind closed doors. And so the gist of the piece that you wrote for Mind, Body, Green was? It was how the world treated me very differently when I lost 100 pounds and how it kind of created a chip on my shoulder. You know, I have a scene in my book where I'm at the mailboxes in my building in New York City here.

And for the first time ever, my neighbor talked to me and it was to tell me how great I looked and to ask me how much weight I lost and to comment on the weather and to just kind of make small talk with me. And previously, he had always ignored me, you know, which I know is kind of a thing here in New York. But I started to realize that this wasn't a coincidence. I was being accepted. And it made me realize how unaccepted I had been before. Right. The fascinating thing about that to me is that on some level, this is what you always wanted. You were looking for connectivity.

I loved it. You wanted to get to this place. And now here you are, and people are actually acknowledging you and you can connect in that way that you always wanted to. And yet this sparks like an anger, like a, you know, a resentment that comes with, you know, a deeper awareness of what's, you know, kind of the more pernicious things that are going on in our culture. I'm not going to say I didn't like it, too. There is, I would be lying if I said that there is not something really satisfying about quote unquote thin privilege. I mean, especially when you've not had it before.

And I, you know, there's, there's a part of me that really likes it, but there's a part of me that will probably always be a little bit skeptical now about people's motivations. And, and you're right, there is obviously an irony that that's what I had wanted all along. And, you know, I could think of a million things that you wanted, you wanted, you wanted and then you have it and then it's like, what's the next thing? But yeah, for me, losing all of that weight and being treated very differently was life altering.

I didn't expect, I expected my worldview to change but I didn't expect the world's view of me to change. Really, why not? I would think that that was, I would think that that would be the primary thing that you would expect. Like if I can do this, then the world will treat me differently. I thought maybe I would just enjoy my life more. I didn't realize that the world would enjoy my

life more. So it was, you know, it's, it's a balance that I'm constantly thinking about. And I'm always aware of how our identity and our self-perception impacts what we put into the world. I'll tell you, when I wrote that article for MindBodyGreen, I got a lot of emails, mostly from people saying, this is exactly how I feel. Thank you for voicing this. And from a lot of fat people,

I use the word fat very much intentionally, but from also a few people who were angry at me, just really pissed off at me and saying like, well, maybe you were finally confident. And maybe that's why the world was treating you differently, because you were putting something out there that you hadn't before. And I just really, I felt that was really missing the big picture, because I don't need to tell you that the world celebrates thin then people just open your eyes, look around. So, it is definitely a hot button issue. And even now, I wonder how I'm perceiving others who are not the way society says we should be. There was a moment where I'm a top dancer, in addition to a, I don't want to say a runner around you, but...

No, you're a runner. You're a famed graduate and a thespian and many other things Yes, well, but I loved and many other things but I loved to tap dance and I started to tap dance again in my 30s, I hadn't since I was a musical theater kid and I

was at Siwen having a macro play and so I was talking to Marianne about my tap class. And I said, there was a new girl in the class. And she said, what's she like? And I said, she's fat. And then I was like, what did I just say? The first word that you used.

It didn't even, it was just the way, why was that what I was seeing about her? So suddenly everything turned around. And I am questioning that constantly in myself. Yeah. In the sense that you're just as much a, you know, sort of a victim of this culture as anyone else. Probably. I am human. I mean, I try and- Well, we judge. We do. You know, we do our best to not judge, but we're hardwired to do that. I think that my eyes were recently opened a lot. I was speaking at a high school in Tucson. I was so scared. It was the scariest talk I've given

on this book tour. But I was in Tucson to speak at a theater, which is much more the space that I'm comfortable in. And I was asked to speak at a high school kind of as a favor, and I did. And it was a Quaker school. And these kids very they were 14 and 15 they were very into social justice very into LGBTQ stuff and so I said how many of you have ever felt like you were being stereotyped or just sort of lumped into a broad category

and everyone raises their hand of course especially not only when you're talking to a room full of largely queer youth but just youth in general they're so misunderstood and I said of course we're all individuals with perspectives and points of view a room full of largely queer youth, but just youth in general. They're so misunderstood. And I said, of course, we're all individuals with perspectives and points of view. And I said, how many of you have a companion animal? Everyone raises their hand. And I asked if somebody wanted to tell a story about their animal. And happily for me, the person who shared was talking about

her pit bull, and I have a pit bull. So I was really excited. So she was talking about this story of how her pit bull was recently a victim to her neighbors throwing rocks at the dog and and the police were called it's very tragic story and the dog was blamed and i said okay so you're dealing with a very fun loving animal who just wants to be accepted she had explained this about her dog before that and the dog was misunderstood and being blamed who does that remind you of us everyone in the room and that was a nice entree for me to talk about farmed animals and how they're just the ultimate the ultimate victims

of being othered and i even read a story from my book about rudy the rooster who's a chicken who i'd met at coming home sanctuary in upstate New York, who had really been through hell and back. It didn't even have feet, had prosthetic feet that they gave him at, at the sanctuary and how he was now very into wooing his ladies and just being, just being a charmer. We're all individuals. That's a big part of the book. Right. Interesting. And how do you, you know, as somebody who is, you know, a member of the LGBT community, as, you know, a vegan, as somebody who, you know, has had, you know, these weight issues, as somebody who's been bullied, what is your perspective on this kind of current climate?

You know, we're in a college library right now and immersed, you know, surrounded by millennials. And there's kind of this new culture of, like, hyper-political correctness. And, you know, we're in this day and age of microaggressions and, you know, warning labels on books that we all read in high school. And, you know And everybody's a special snowflake. And I don't know how to process all... It's very different culturally than the way that I grew up. And I don't know... Part of me feels like an old man is like, get over it. You gotta live in the world. You gotta develop a little bit of a thick skin around some of these things, like we're creating a bunch of wussies out there, and also being sensitive to these issues, you know, and trying to understand and really empathize with what's going on with

youth culture. Like, how do you conceptualize all of that? I think that society shifts in a lot of different ways. And one of the ways is by examining and reexamining the language we use and the stories we tell and how we tell them and how they're reported on. So I agree with you that there is a significant amount of attention on words and labels and what should be quote unquote allowed and what shouldn't. I think some of that will fall through the cracks and the way that society will shift will be represented in what doesn't slip through the cracks. And I also believe that we are early adopters when it comes to animal rights as a social justice issue. And so even though all of these dialogues are happening in college campuses,

I'm not sure they're happening as much as they should be around non-human animals, but they're happening as much as they should be around non-human animals. But they're starting to. And just looking at the LGBTQ movement and the prominence that it's gotten just in the last, I was going to say 20 years, but heck, 10 years, 5 years. It's been moving in a pretty speedy way. Yet animal rights is moving even faster. I mean, all we need to do is reach a tipping point. We only need to reach 10% of society in order to get everyone else to follow suit. It's already happening in Israel. And so, I think that the amount of words we could attribute to all suffering

of all animals and recognize that this is really a different spoke on the same wheel and the mentality of othering folks like me like you or uh is is rooted in the i am better than you mentality that allows us to exploit and consume animal products in order to live truly authentically for a lot of people i think if they had their eyes open, truly, they would stop consuming animal products. And I think people are moving in that direction. I think it's picking up a lot of steam, and it's definitely being propelled towards that point.

It is interesting to see what's going on in Israel right now. Maybe, can you explain that a little bit to listeners who aren't aware? Well, the short version of it is that veganism has just taken over Israel. And it's due to the amazing work of animal rights organizations and also like Gary Yourofsky. Gary Yourofsky. He's like a rock star. I know. I know. It's amazing. And the military, there's like, I've read something about the military adopting vegan diets for soldiers and stuff. That's right.

Yeah, it's kind of baffling. I've been vegan for like 12 or 13 years now, and I've never seen anything like this. It's exciting to see that it's possible. And I think that we're going to see a lot of change. Your kids are going to see a lot of change. Your kids are going to see a lot of change in their lifetime. Yeah, I think it's the natural extension and evolution of the civil rights movement. And if you were to ask yourself, like 40, 50 years from now, when you look back on culture, like what were we doing that you would be appalled is still going

on? I think it's undeniable that, you know, our system of factory farming and how we harvest animals for food is just – it's outdated technology and it's unsustainable and it's unjustifiable. And as we're sort of progressing forward and developing new technologies around food, it becomes less and less defensible. My grandmother, who I mentioned earlier, who this book is dedicated to her, she went vegetarian at 86. And then she was pretty much vegan. There were like a few things that she had in her life that stayed in her life.

And she wrote an article for Our Hen House, which is the non-profit that I co-founded, called Never Too Late to Change the World. And it was just about the social justice aspect of it and how she came to realize that just as she had spoken up for women's issues in the day, this was, as you just said, the social justice issue of the moment.

She died at 89, but animal rights was a really important part of her life. And my mother told me that she put a little button on her when she was, you know, being buried, that that was like an animal rights button. So I like to imagine her, you know, that button will never fade away. Right. That's cute. That's so sweet. Well, I think that that, you know, vegan, eating a vegan diet can easily be conflated with weight loss, right? Like I got into it for health reasons and I did it in a way that allowed me to lose weight and become fit and all these sorts of things. But it's never been easier to be an unhealthy vegan, right? And it's important to kind of point that out.

I mean, like even in New York City here where I live in Los Angeles, it's like insane how many amazing restaurants you can go to and eat vegan. And it's like this crazy, tasty vegan junk food, everything from like, you know, battered zucchini sticks and like things that taste like chicken McNuggets and like, you know, cheeseburgers and all this kind of stuff. And you can easily try to trick yourself and think you're being healthy because you're eating it's vegan. But, you know, let's be honest here, like you can, you know, put on weight and be unhealthy on a vegan diet if you're not doing right, doing it right. And I think, you know, your experience is testimony to that. And then, you know, kind of, I want to talk a little bit about how you, you know, reverse that and got

back on track. Well, first of all, let's point out the silver lining in what you just said. There is a vegan version of every single kind of animal product out there. And that's fantastic. Right. Of course, that goes without saying. And I mean, do you remember the dark days of vegan cheese? Were you vegan yet? Yeah, I do.

I mean, I came in at a point where it was starting to get okay. So I didn't have to suffer, you know. It was bad, Rich. I mean, I came in at a point where it was starting to get okay. So I didn't have to suffer. You know, it was bad. I mean, it was bad for a cheese addict. Yeah. Well, for anyone who is excited about the possibility, and it looked like cheese, and it smelled like cheese. And, and it didn't. It was like, I should have just been eating cardboard. But now we've perfected that. And the point is that it's not about for for me anyway, it's not about not having these foods now. It was that I replaced a negative relationship with eating and overconsumption with the vegan version of that. I was allowed to have it. It was an altruistic thing to do.

It was for the animals to have that amazing Butterfinger shake in Brooklyn and that fantastic cupcake on the Upper West Side and that pizza on the Lower East Side. And I felt like, oh, well, I deserve this. But what I was missing was that what I really deserved was taking a step back, examining my consumption habits, my identity and how that played a role in what I was eating and how I was eating it and prioritizing self-care. Yeah, because you can't maximize your ability to be of service unless you're taking care of yourself, right? You can't be of greatest service to others or to the cause that you're passionate about unless you're exercising that self-care and self-respect. Such a simple concept. Respect yourself. I know.

I have to remind myself of it all the time. I mean, it doesn't play out with food anymore, but, you know, it's like the very basics of self-care. Drink your water. Like, have, you know, get outside every day. Exercise. Have a safe space of people around you. Have good sex.

I mean, it's just the very basic things that allow us to be optimal for ourselves and then in turn for our kids or for the animals or for whoever. So what was the turning point for you? I was 30 and I had been vegan for six years at that point. And I was told I was on my way to heart disease. Everything hurt all the time. I was in deep denial about that. I couldn't go up a flight of stairs without being out of breath. I would stop and check a pretend text message just to give myself a second to breathe.

I was achy. I had adult onset acne. I had lingering depression again. And I just didn't feel well. And I couldn't get up from the couch. If I was sitting on the couch, I knew standing up was going to be an effort. And I wasn't taking care of myself. So I went to the doctor.

And just to interject quickly, at your heaviest, like 220 or something like that? In the 220s. 220. And at the same time... And I'm 5'4". 220 or something like that in the 220s 220 and at the same time and i'm five foot four you're you have this uh like you know weird covetous relationship with food where you like would go into the bathroom stall and eat alone or just do it in isolation and that really like that's a very like to me like i'm like that's what an alcoholic does with drugs and alcohol

like you just you do it alone you do it private. You don't want to be seen doing it. It becomes a very kind of clandestine shame. Like that, that derives from shame. It started when I was a kid and the kids would make fun of me. So I would just eat alone in the bathroom stall and it definitely followed me through to college. And then my adulthood as well. Yeah. There was a lot of eating in private and not even savoring it just eating to be full but was i right it's it's not about enjoyment anymore no right not at all all right so the the turning point yeah so it was 30 and like i said i just i i didn't ever eat a vegetable i i even when i was growing up when we were eating those little weight watchers meals, the vegetables I would eat would be like buttered canned peas. That was, I mean, to be fair to my mom, that was all I would eat.

Poor TM. Yeah, poor TM. Yeah. And ketchup, you know, that's a vegetable. There's tomatoes in it. So we went to San Francisco and I was given an advanced copy of a documentary called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead for these people who run a magazine that I wrote for and write for. decided to go on a juice fast for 30 days as a way to heal himself of an autoimmune disorder and just kind of try and find health. And he documented the whole process. And so I watched it. I wasn't even going to, but I did. I watched it. And it was right after that I was told that my triglycerides were extremely high. my triglycerides were extremely high. And I decided to try it, to try and juice fast. I did it for 10 days. And I kept a vlog, a video log for those 10 days. And it was not only really the first time I had consumed a vegetable, but it was the very, very first time I had stopped consuming

food in a way that was conscious and in a way that allowed me to examine why I had this compulsion toward overeating in the first place. And in 10 days, I lost 11 pounds. I, uh, I actually, I was weighing myself through WeFit, you know, WeFit. Right. Yeah. And so there's a, there's a- You're making like a video game out of it yeah there's a way to weigh yourself and have it be recorded but not look at the number and then you could look back on it later so that's what i was doing at the time so i i knew i was losing weight i

didn't know what i weighed though and i uh while i was doing it i was reading a lot about eat to live and joel firman and just consuming a diet based in whole foods. And I know that the zealots would say, oh, there's such a big difference between Joel Fuhrman and T. Colin Campbell and insert the blank, but it's based in the same thing that your second book is based in, too, just consuming foods in a whole way. And it is unprocessed, deformed as possible. Regans love to parse the tiny details. But he likes potatoes.

Go to war over the minutia. This is not helping our cause, Jasmine. No, no. But how could you follow him? He doesn't allow you to have potatoes. Yeah, so I found that it made a lot of sense to consume whole foods. And for the first time, I was actually craving it.

The funny thing about eating healthy and whole foods is that the more of them you actually craving it the funny thing about eating healthy and whole foods is that the more of them you eat the more of them you crave and that you want and people don't believe that no never i don't believe it when i'm in a bad place with eating i'll be like that's crap that's not true right that's just some lie to justify your halo effect over whatever you're doing and make you feel good about your choice and you think you're better than me and screw off. Exactly. Exactly. And I mean, for me, that's the way it was.

And I'm telling you that I had a long history with dieting and a long history with poor body image and with just feeling like my day wouldn't be complete unless I had a cake. Years and years of it. And once I started juice fasting, I was craving eating healthy foods. And so, I finished my juice fast and I planned another one for the following month of three days. And for three years, I alternated 10 days one month, three days the next, 10, then three, 10, then three. And in between, I ate a mostly whole foods-based diet inspired by Eat to Live. And I lost a whole ton of weight. That's amazing. And it really all was catalyzed by your willingness to watch Joe Cross's documentary.

Yeah. That's how it started. Have you talked to Joe about it? Yeah, he's been on the Our Hen House podcast. And also I was once running through, this is a true story. I was running through Washington Square Park, which is right outside of where we're recording.

And there was this camera crew there. And I realized it was Joe, like shooting for something. And so I like went up to the- Joe's always shooting. Yeah, I went up to the show's always shooting. Yeah. I went up to the producers and I'm like, I told them I had lost nearly a hundred pounds on,

you know, on following the join the reboot program and eat to live. And, and they like push me to the front of the line and they like put, they make me sign something. I'm completely sweaty and disgusting and rich. I didn't have my eyeliner on, which is,

which is a big i know from your book your eyeliner is very important well it wound up being in the commercial the national commercial for the sequel to fat sick and nearly dead wow yeah so that was one of those sort of like this is my life moments that was really surreal but yeah he's aware of of my story and i just think that what's so great about him and what's so great about you is that you also speak about the hard parts and the and you kind of like show your hairy warts and allow people to braid those hairy warts. And you're very human, just like Joe. Well, it's hard, you know, and I think in Joe, when you see the sequel to Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, like Joe's pretty honest and vulnerable about his own, you know, weaknesses. He hasn't done it perfectly himself. Like, and he was willing to share that in the

follow-up movie, you know, which I thought was very interesting and seeing how Phil, who's really the protagonist of the first movie. I mean, the first movie works because of Phil, like the whole movie pivots around that incredible story of that truck driver. But then when you find out in the sequel movie that Phil has essentially relapsed and gone back to his old ways, it's heartbreaking. And then you realize the complexity and the difficulty of solving this equation and the challenges with the psychology of getting over that hump. And you were able to do it. You had had enough. You were ready to make that change and you fully committed, right. It was a lifestyle as opposed to a diet. It was no longer about the numbers and it isn't about the numbers anymore and and i i have to prioritize self-care i just and it doesn't make me a selfish person which is sort of how i had

looked at it you know and that was my activist mentality my which was the wrong mentality but i think a lot of people in the service industry have that mentality. A lot of parents have that mentality, like putting others first as opposed to ourselves and our stories. Right. And it, you know, it's not sustainable longterm. Right.

You know what I mean? If you want to stick around. And it's funny too, like the whole, the whole juicing thing and like doing juice fast and juice cleanses. Like if you talk to a doctor or a scientist, they're like, what exactly,

what do you detox? Like, I don't know, you know, it doesn't make any scientific sense, blah, blah, blah. Like all I know is that my experience of doing that has been profound and whatever is going on, you know, biologically, physiologically, like I don't need to have it explained to me. I don't need to have it justified because I know that it's benefited me. And whether it's because of some kind of slight intermittent fasting that's going on or whatever it's doing to your system, it's effective. Yeah. And I actually think that the big reason juicing works for me and the big reason running works for me is because I don't look at it as a physical thing at all. For me, when I'm juicing, I look at it as a way to reboot, to use Joe's word, reboot my mentality around it. Because things are creeping in, not just with food, but with just negative mentalities.

People in my life who I need to kind of get out of my life. Habits that I need to rid myself of. That's what juicing does for me. And when I go running, it's very much about my mental health. And the physical stuff for me is just a side benefit. Right. I think it's because it's this intentional thing. Like, okay, during this period of time, it's kind of a hyper-focused period of time where you're putting everything under the microscope in your life and analyzing what's working for you and what's not. I think just the juicing intensifies it because that's all you're doing and you have to be really conscious while you're doing it. And something

that you said earlier, which I thought was really interesting, was that you didn't really recognize your negative relationship to food until you kind of went off autopilot. It's not until you stop that you start to realize like, oh, why am I feeling pulled towards this when I feel this way? Those associations are not in your conscious awareness until you arrest the behavior, and then you can see them more objectively. Yeah, you can't see them when you're doing them. It's impossible.

And I think it's true that there are definitely naysayers out there with juicing and how it's trendy. And this is not a how-to book. This is my story. It really works for me. And I say in the book that I don't think you necessarily need to juice. I don't think it's necessarily for everyone. But it really works for me. And I talk about why and how.

If for nothing else, it's a dramatic thing to do, to shake things up. Like if you want to get out of your habit, you know, whatever it is, like out of your routine and do something different, it's an amazing way to like wipe the slate clean and say, I'm starting fresh. I remember when you were on the Our Hand House podcast, you talked about- Which I love, by the way. I still remember that conversation. We were sitting on the rooftop.

It was a beautiful day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Soho. And I remember you were talking about how you were a very extreme person. So you like to do things in extremes. And I can really relate to that. Am I saying that right about you? Yeah, no, that's for sure. That's true. So it's so funny because recently I was having something come up emotionally and I can really relate to that. Am I, am I saying that right about you? No, that's for sure. That's true.

So it's so funny because recently I was having something come up emotionally and I was like, I'm so addicted to my phone and just to like my email and to my work and this and that. And I was like, I should go on a silent retreat. Well, that's like a juice cleanse for your technology. Yeah. And Marianne was laughing at me. She's like, that's so you to just want to like go on a silent retreat just because it's like the hardest thing I can imagine doing, just going on a silent retreat. You know, and I get tired of people like going, well, that's, you just have to be like a drama

queen about it in extremes. Like that's what I'm, like, that's what works for me. Like I did the crazy juice thing and it worked, yeah allow me to you know this is my thinking a lot about like i've been thinking a lot about like balance like i you know like oh we should all be in balance i've talked about this on the podcast before but like you know we should eat a balanced diet and live a balanced life and i'm like is that really true i don't know if that's true yeah you know i think when i've when i've when I've moved forward in my life, it's when I've allowed myself to be out of balance. I've given myself that permission consciously and then always letting the pendulum swing back. It's about not being out of balance for too long. But I think being out of balance,

there's nothing wrong with that. And what does that mean anyway? How are you defining that? It's a really good question. And the whole pendulum thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, because when I wrote this book, you know, during the process of writing it, which is a long period of time I was doing, I was still in the midst of doing juice fasts every month. And about a year ago, I wasn't able to continue to do them every month. My eating was very, it felt very good to me. It felt like it was it was what was working for me. But I wasn't

able to continue so regular, such regular juicing. I still do it, but it's not every month anymore. And it occurred, I actually wound up probably gaining some weight but not like much I don't even know because I don't weigh myself but you know I could tell it was probably like five or ten pounds and what was interesting to me is that I didn't care and I felt and I've been this size for a good year now and I don't feel like I would slip back into it because my mentality around it has completely shifted and it was about the pendulum again. So, it was a great moment when I realized that I feel really good and I don't feel at risk. I feel strong. empowering thing, you know, and it's, you know, the adage of self-esteem comes through performing esteemable acts and those esteemable acts can be in the form of your outward advocacy, but they can also be a reflection of how you're treating yourself, right? Yeah. And I was aware that my book was coming out and I was aware that people would be talking to me about weight loss. I had

an interview on women's health and they get on the phone with me and they say, Hi, Jasmine, what's your way? And I was like, what? This is what? This is so weird, you know, and I was concerned for a moment. And then I realized that I'm this just like this memoir, this is my story. And this is what I'm bringing to the table. And I'm remarkably flawed. And I'm remarkably human. And I'm remarkably honest about it. I think that I have found something that works for me. And I'm remarkably human and I'm remarkably honest about it. I think that I have found something that works for me and I feel really good about it. But it's an interesting point. What is balance? Because I think in the moments where we are one extreme or another, there can be a lot of gifts in our lives if we choose to see it that way.

In the dark times. Of course. if we choose to see it that way, in the dark times. Of course. It's the dark moments in our relationship to those that really, I think, define our character. You can't escape them. We all have them. I have a question.

Someone, I was recently giving a talk in Salt Lake City with another memoirist, Josh Henegarney, who wrote a book called The World's Strongest Librarian. And he told me that writing a memoir is like turning over rocks, and you don't know what's going to be under them. Does that resonate with you? Did you feel like you learned more about yourself in the process of telling your story? Yeah, unquestionably. And that process continues to evolve as I go and do public speaking and tell my story. And I've done it so many times now that it continues to evolve. And I figure out, as I tell it, then I realize I start to see emerging themes in my life that I was unaware of when I wrote the book.

If I was to write the book today, there's a lot of things I would have changed or refined or altered. And, you know, for me, writing the memoir was kind of like, you know, what Marianne told you, like I vomited it all out. And I did try to, you know, then edit it and figure out like where the important parts were and what was just extraneous. But that process is like this incredibly therapeutic thing where you see your whole life in front of you and you can identify like, oh, wow, I didn't realize that when these kinds of things occur, this is what I generally do or how I react, right? And that can inform your behavior patterns, you know, moving forward. It's incredibly revelatory. It's revelatory, but I don't find it to be cathartic, because cathartic to me means

you move through something and just the nature of writing a memoir, it's just always there. It's kind of stuck in time in a way. So you have to bend in other ways. Oh, that's interesting. So you didn't feel it was not a cathartic experience for you to write your story? I think the cathartic part for me is now when people are pouring their souls out to me. Their response to it. Oh, it's unbelievable what people are telling me after my talks.

Well, what you're tapping into is pervasive. It's a pervasive epidemic in our culture, and it's a silent one. So many people living in shame over this issue that you were willing to pull the covers on and talk about honestly they don't know what to do people just don't know what to do it reminds me of being you know 20 and in my written house in my in my center city philadelphia apartment grabbing at my stomach just screaming that's what i think our country is doing And someone just the other day at a talk I was giving in Seattle said to me afterwards that her mother had died from complications of gastric bypass surgery. And it's because we are floundering and we are killing ourselves. And along the way, we're killing so many innocent creatures. It's sad,

but there's something very empowering, I think, in not only voting with our dollars and realizing that in a world where we have such little control over so many things, we have control over what we consume. And we also have control over how we decide to love ourselves. That's super important. And that's something I talk about all the time. Like we do feel disempowered as citizens, like our vote doesn't count and who cares? And what could I possibly have to say that's gonna make a difference?

But that decision about what you put on your plate is a very profound political act and it has very real and significant ramifications in the world. It is important. And by swapping off the animal products from your plate and replacing them with plant-based foods, you are making a difference. That is not a small thing. can be a piece in the puzzle of repairing self-esteem and making you feel good about the actions that you're taking

and on that journey to wholeness. And the journey to wholeness, for me, has a lot to do with who I want to be in the world. So I think that people who pick up this book might feel as though they're seeking a different version of themselves that speaks more authentically to who they want to be. And that's an ongoing process. Yeah. And the key thing, I think, just so we're totally clear, you didn't lose the weight and then learn how to feel good about yourself as a result, you got to a place where you love yourself

and the weight loss and kind of, that's just an external manifestation of what was really an inside job. Exactly. And so how has this affected your advocacy, your work life, your relationship, all of that? I think that speaking to the advocacy part first, I've been an activist for as long as I've been an adult.

And I started in AIDS awareness activism, and then that really became, that shifted into focusing on animal rights activism, but it's very similar for me in what I'm doing. for me in what I'm doing. And I have our hen house. But what I'm finding with my book is that it's able to reach the mainstream in a way that our hen house has never been able to nor will ever be able to because our hen house is in it's so special. And it's it's based in a community for people who want to change the world for animals, but it's not necessarily going to reach my meat eating brother who lives in Kansas. And my book could, because it allows the reader to pick up a story that is ultimately about veganism and animal rights, but it's almost disguised in a way through my lens. So rather than talking about the way that farmed animals are being treated so cruelly,

and they can't turn around or extend their limbs or lie down comfortably. I'm talking about what it was like for me to watch that documentary the first time and how my legs started shaking, and I jutted out of my seat. And I thought of how these animals on the screen were being torn away from their families. And I thought of my own broken home as a kid. And I watched as the dairy cows and egg-laying hens were being exploited for their parts. And I remembered a horrible experience that I had at 19 where I was being violated for basically my own female reproductive organs. And suddenly my feminism was off kilter. And I was like, how could I continue to support those products and call myself a feminist? So it was about my journey.

those products and call myself a feminist. So it was about my journey. And I think that the reader can then feel safer than they would if someone was like, hey, look at this video about gestation crates. So that's how it's transformed my advocacy. It's opened doors. Yeah, because it provides context for all of that. And I don't think it proselytizes. No, it definitely doesn't. So that was really important to me. And that's transformed my advocacy. And I'm able to No, it definitely doesn't. And it's turned over rocks. And it's not always easy to see what's under them. Because even though I've really nipped this in the bud in a lot of ways with eating, there's other toxic things in my life that I'm questioning and reevaluating. And you don't always find the sunniest parts of yourself in that process. You know what that's called?

What? The road gets narrower. Yeah. All these things that, you know, were sort of acceptable. When you commit to this path of growth, right, suddenly as your awareness deepens and broadens on the world and in your own life, when that lens, you know, is focused on yourself, you start to get uncomfortable with things you weren't even conscious about before and realize, you know what? I can't do that anymore either, or I can't behave this way, or I can't do this thing that I used to do and not even think about. Exactly.

And that process will continue. But then you attract more authentic people or people who are on that same journey. This is what we're here to do. Yeah. This is a beautiful thing. It's not something to lament, but it doesn't mean that it's easy either. I would want it no other way. Yeah.

And so when did you start our hen house? Because it's been around for a long time. It has. You were like OG early adopter on the podcast. The podcast goes way back. I have not missed a week of producing it. We're in our seventh year. That's amazing.

And it speaks to my OCD about it. I can't either. I can't miss a week. Because if I miss a week, then it's okay to miss another week. Exactly. You can't do that. You and I are dangerous together. You're not a Scorpio by any chance, are you?

I am Libra, but I'm right on the edge of Scorpio. Okay,'re not a Scorpio by any chance, are you? I am Libra, but I'm like right on the edge of Scorpio. Okay. I'm a Scorpio. Yeah. I'm not sure who should be in this. I'm October. Late October. October 30th.

I'm October 20. No. Well, there you go. That's what it's all about. Right. Okay. Sister from a different mister. We can switch glasses.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I told you you'd be a lesbian by the end of this. I know. We're on our way, right? We have the Our Hen House podcast, which allows us to really get into animal rights issues with a lot of biting banter and really explore issues in the news as they relate to animals and interview people from celebrities to athletes like yourself to lawyers and everyone else who wants to change the world for animals.

We also have the Animal Law Podcast, which Marianne, who is an animal law professor, your partner, Marianne, she's been an animal rights lawyer for a very long time. She's brilliant. Like there is nobody as brilliant as she is. So it's so exciting for me to watch as she has this platform. And then I have the Teaching Jasmine How to Cook Vegan podcast, which is the newest. I didn't know that. It's the newest.

So there's three podcasts. We have three podcasts. And that is because- Do you have time to do anything else? I, no, but that's okay. But that one is because there was a bit of an intervention from people who said, you really can't cook and we're going to teach you how and i said well then i'm going to podcast it and it's perfect for people who are picking up my book and are interested in veganism but aren't yet

ready to jump into the arhan house podcast so i'm the befuddled one on the show and i'm joined by a a cook or a foodie or a or a blogger who teaches me how to cook vegan. So we have a lot of fun with our hen house. That's cool. And how's the book tour been? It's so, it's unbelievable. You know, I feel incredibly lucky and I'm only six, seven weeks into it now. I plan on being on tour all year.

Oh, wow. And I'm able to reach communities that are so different, like this huge theater in Tucson with 250 people and this tiny little quirky bookstore in San Francisco with 10 people. And some vegan stuff, keynoting at a women's conference next week in New Jersey. I spoke at a fat phobia conference in Salt Lake City. I'm speaking at LGBTQ Bookstore. There's so many themes in this book that can be brought out depending upon where I'm speaking. And along the way, I'm able to really kind of dip my toe in how that community is working to change the world for animals and meet our Hen House podcast listeners. And I'm having a lot of fun.

That's cool. What's the most surprising thing that and I'm having a lot of fun. That's cool. What's the most surprising thing that sort of occurred as a result of writing this book and sharing your story? This process now. It's much more surprising than writing the book itself. Somebody goes up to me after every single – I'm sure that you have this, too. Somebody goes up to me after every single talk, and they say, oh, you really said stuff in that that I would never tell another living soul. And they thank me for being out there or something.

And I'm always, I take a moment and I'm like, what are they talking about? Like, what do they mean? What did I say? And I realized that in a lot of ways, my story is really out there in a way that most people's stories aren't. And yet I find such comfort in knowing that I'm not alone. I mean, the book is called Always Too Much and Never Enough. And it's something that I always felt was just mine, that I was constantly going toward food because it was always too much, but it was not enough. I constantly needed more of it. I felt I was always too much and never enough. I took up too much space in the room, and yet I was never enough, not able to live up to what society wanted of me or what my mother wanted of me or what I thought I wanted of myself. And so many people are telling me that the idea of being always too much and never enough is about them too, maybe in the same way as me, maybe not.

And that has been incredibly satisfying, gratifying, and moving and humbling. incredibly satisfying, gratifying, and moving and humbling. Yeah, it's very cool when you can own your story and stand your ground with confidence and power, because our culture teaches us that it's not okay to be vulnerable, that we're supposed to know all the answers to everything, and that everybody has their shit together. And if you don't, you should present yourself as if you do. And the truth couldn't be more different from that because when you can own all your warts and your faults and stand your ground and share that from a place of strength,

it's incredibly powerful. And I think that's what allows someone like yourself and your story to connect with a lot of people who are suffering silently and in shame and feel like it's not okay to really talk to somebody about these problems, which is the only way they're ever going to get them resolved and solve for themselves in the first place. Yeah, it's amazing to see how many people who fit society's definition of beautiful say, I feel that same way. And there's a piece of me

that's like, you do? That's interesting. Yeah. There was, you know, there's this scene at the very, very beginning of my book, the jumping in part where I'm talking about how I've mastered the art of looking in the mirror in a way that I don't see my triple chins or any of the other perceived flaws. And a very slight beautiful woman went up to me after an event I recently did and she said, how did you do that? Because I need to do that too. I look at myself in all of the wrong ways in the mirror. And even though I know that my story is not specific to people who are fat,

there was a moment where I was shocked that she felt that way. And I don't have the magic answer, but all I can say is we need to start from a place of beginning to be as compassionate and loving toward ourself as we would be toward our kids or those who we are advocating for. And how do you reconcile that against our Instagram culture of, you know, where every picture, you know, every woman on Instagram looks like a supermodel and everything now looks like it's been professionally lit and filtered and all of that.

It's that you're speaking to consumption habits. Again, my book is about consumption habits. It's just about the consumption habits of what we eat. Your book is about consumption habits of what we drink. What you're talking about is the same thing in a lot of ways. It's about consumption habits and, and it's, that's not real life.

So I think it's fun. I like Instagram. I'm not particularly good at it, but I try, but I need to remember that real life starts with the inside of who I am, not the numbers on the scale, not my social media account, but whether I'm doing the very basic things that allow me to present authentically to myself. And so if someone's listening to this and they're in that dark place that you found yourself,

what is the lifeline that you can throw to that person? Like, how do they begin? I think that first of all, there's a lot of comfort in knowing that they're like everyone else. They're not, they're just not alone, that everyone has this story. You know, I know that I go to different rooms too. And in those rooms, I hear stories of people who are just trying to make it in this world. And that's what we're all trying to do. So I would say that the first step is to kind of give yourself a break and begin to piece together those things about yourself that you love to do. If you can't start with the things you love about yourself, well start to realize that you have beautiful hair then then do something fun like tap dance or or uh you

know go to the theater and just whatever it is that makes your heart sing just start there and then for me i think it's important to take a break from the things in your life that aren't working for you and that's gonna be hard that's hard And that's going to be hard. That's hard. Yeah. That's hard. That's going to be really hard. Yeah. But, you know, do you know Sarah Heppola? She wrote Blackout.

Oh, I'm familiar with that. It's a memoir about alcoholism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote to her about a week before my book came out, and she wrote me back, which was basically like God writing to me. It was really exciting. And she said said i hope that

you realize that you're about to walk across these hot coals i hope there's comfort for you and knowing that others have done that too and they have survived it and i have that email in my wallet and i i guess that would be what i would i'm going to steal her words and say that that's how i would she was speaking about my memoir coming out, but for anyone who's in that dark place now, I'm going to just tell you that others have walked through those hot coals and they have thrived because of it. That's really beautiful.

That just like gave me like chills. You know? Yeah. I mean, is that what you would tell your young self? Like if you could go back, uh, you know,

to a 16 year old jasmine you know even though i was really floundering you know i remember i mentioned that i always felt that my story would be told maybe that was based in some kind of like desire to be famous or something but the reality of that was my true self and me me knowing that there was there was a worthy self in there that had the capability of of maybe helping others along their journey so i think i would point that out to 16 year old me and someday this will all make sense i kind of said that like i would have fights with my mom and I'd be crying. And I had a lot of hair, like just really long, black, thick hair. And I would just like with my hair all over, very dramatic.

My eyeliner making me look like a raccoon. I would like look in the mirror and I would say someday my story will be told. It was very dramatic. And here we are. You're telling your story. If you peel away the drama and all of that, there was something in my knowing that allowed me to persevere and not die. And so I'd point that out and I'd say, you know, it's not going to always be like this. like this you know there's a place for all of this angst and it can ultimately inform what hopefully will be a better world because i plug it into my activism that's beautiful i think that's a great place to put a pin in it do you want to go shopping now

i do we're going to go buy glasses and get tattoos and totally i I'm thinking, well, yeah. Yeah, no, you would be very good on my team, I think. All right, cool. Yeah. Let's do it. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much. That was really fun and beautiful.

Thank you, Rich. You wrote a really fantastic book. I can't recommend it enough. It really spoke to me and it tugged on my heart and it was courageous and beautifully articulated. And I wish you nothing but the best. And it's really quite something when you go out in the world and you share your story and you connect with people. A lot of people are suffering.

And this is a really important message that transcends any one particular issue. issue. As you know, and as you said earlier, we're in a massive healthcare crisis where obesity rates are through the roof, diabetes, heart disease, and the like, and we're gobsmacked with processed, terrible foods that are killing us, and we truly are addicted to it, and we need a solution and a way out, and this is a lifeline, I think, for a lot of people. So So thank you for writing the book. Well, thank you so much. It means a lot to me that you just said all that. Thanks. And if you're digging on Jasmine, the best way to connect with her is to, first of all, definitely listen to one of her 300 podcasts, 324, our hen house.org. It's the.org, right? And all your podcasts are on iTunes. And of course, the book, Always Too Much and Never Enough.

You can find it all fine booksellers. You can use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com or buy it from a nice indie bookseller, maybe even better. And you're on the road speaking, right? So if somebody wants to come and see you, do you have all your dates and all that kind of stuff up on the site? On jasminesinger.com. And there's no E on Jasmine. Blame my mother, I do. Jasminesinger.com.

But yeah, in the events, there's more being added, but I'll be everywhere all year. So you could find me there or on our hen house or on the social media machines. Where are you on social media? What's the best place? On Twitter, you could either find me at at our hen house or at Jasmine underscore singer. Again, there's no E on Jasmine. And on Instagram, I'm Jasmine Singer author. And on Facebook, it's pretty easy.

Just type in my name and you'll see it. Jasmine Singer or find our hen house. Cool. And I'll put links to all of that up in the show notes. And I think we did it. Thanks, Rich. This is fun. How do you feel? I thought it was pretty good. This is like, no, it was really fun. This is definitely the most in-depth. I kind of feel

like we should cuddle and take a nap. And go shopping. And then we'll just come back and we'll do another episode. I'm totally in. All right, cool. Thank you. Thanks, Jasmine. Peace. Plants.

Okay, how great is Jasmine? She's amazing, right? I hope you guys enjoyed that. I just think she's the bomb. She's so cool. So I hope you enjoyed listening to that as much as I enjoyed talking to her. And please make a note of checking out her book. It's really a fantastic read. Lots of links, information, resources to take your edification to the next level. You know what? Are you guys following me on social media? I never kind of talk about this, but I suppose I should mention that I'm at Rich Roll on Twitter, at Rich Roll on Instagram. I'm on Facebook.

I think it's Rich Roll Fans is my page there. And I'm having a lot of fun with Snapchat. It's IamRichRoll on Snapchat if you want to follow me there. I know for a lot of you, you're like, what, another social media platform? Do I really have to do that? All I can tell you is I'm having really fun just kind of sharing the visual experience of what a typical day in my life is like. So if you're into that kind of thing, you can check me out there.

For all your plant power and RRP swag and merch needs, go to richroll.com. We got some nutrition products. We got cool t-shirts. We got even fine art prints, sticker packs, all kinds of cool stuff. And keep sending in your questions for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com. I'm going to do another one of those pretty soon. And that's it. Thanks for all the support, you guys. Keep telling your friends. Once again, do me a solid. Go to iTunes. Leave us a review. Really doesn't take you very long, but it really does help us out a lot. So if you can remember to do that, I would greatly appreciate it. I work hard to bring you your free content every week. And on that note, I will be back

again soon, next week for sure, with another amazing podcast. I got some really incredible guests coming up. I can't wait to share with you guys. So until then, big love. Treat yourself with care and respect. Take care of yourself. You cannot, as we talked about in the podcast today, you cannot be of service to others until you are of service to yourself. Take care of yourself so that you can then provide for others.

Peace. Plants. Thank you.