A popular YouTuber has revealed the harsh reality of transformative weight loss, saying the journey to lose 32 pounds and get clear skin “ruined” her life.
Alivia D’Andrea, 23, who has 2.8 million subscribers to his YouTube videos in which she posts about her exercise and diet routines, documented her epic “glow” in 25 minutes. documentary it shows his unsightly toll – including bruises, bleeding feet, binge eating and crippling depression.
In one clip, viewers see D’Andrea seeking treatment at the hospital for excruciating abdominal pain, triggered by the binge eating episodes that began shortly after her trip to stardom.
In another, the young musician shares clips of her blood-covered feet after a grueling treadmill workout during which she pushed “her limits” in order to achieve her ideal body.
Ultimately, the young influencer says she was consumed by an incessant drive to “destroy my old self,” which ultimately caused her to “lose the will to live.”
The left shows Alivia D’Andrea in April 2020 and the right shows her after her “outburst” in December 2020.
The photos above show the YouTuber before (left) and after (right) her extreme diet and fitness regime.
Binge eating episodes that occur once a week for three months may be considered binge eating disorder, according to the National Institutes for Health.
It is a common eating disorder that affects approximately two million American adults. It is characterized by eating a large amount of food in a short time and feeling like you cannot control what or how much you eat.
Many patients also engage in restrictive eating as a means of self-punishment, which leads to a harmful cycle.
The ill effects of Ms D’Andrea’s weight loss regime forced her to shut down her lucrative YouTube channel in January 2021, until she re-emerged online to share the new documentary last month.
D’Andrea’s documentary comes amid warnings from experts about the glorification of “glow ups” and extreme dieting, particularly for developing adolescents and young adults.
Glow up culture reinforces the widespread idea that people are only valuable when their bodies look a certain way, Kirsten Oelklaus, a social worker and director of the outpatient eating disorder clinic Bellatore Recovery, told British Vogue.
The Glow Up Goals also “reinforce a major misconception that many are trying to move away from in our culture, that weight and height measurements are a reflection of a person’s health and happiness,” Oelklaus said.
This can harm the mental health of young adults, who are impressionable by this type of content. For example, Katie Bell, founder of the Healthy Teen Project, shared a online story of a teenager who was hospitalized after being inspired by glow up trends to lose almost half her weight.
Additionally, the editing of these videos can make it seem like losing weight should be a quick process, clinical psychologist Marianne Trent, told Cosmopolitan.
At the start of the vlogs, D’Andrea struggled with her acne, but was able to manage it within a year.
In an effort to accelerate weight loss, D’Andrea developed extreme exercise habits, such as doing cardio exercises like running until she was “pushed beyond my limits “.
Glowing videos can lead people to take unhealthy approaches, googling things like “how to lose weight fast.” Seeing repeated clips where people look preened and perfect can impact even the most robust of minds,” Trent said.
D’Andrea’s documentary, titled “Glow up Diaries The Movie,” has so far garnered 3.6 million views and earned him about 70,000 new followers, according to social media analyst websites.
The very beginning of her transformation began at the age of 17 in October 2018, when she began documenting her weight loss journey on her YouTube channel through a series she titled “Glow up Diaries.”
Her initial goal, she said, was to transform herself before heading to California to study. This included losing weight and treating her painful cystic acne.
Early tactics included cutting out processed foods and replacing treats like ice cream with low-calorie alternatives. She also improved her exercise routines and incorporated more holistic self-improvement methods, like journaling and reading.
The clips show countless cardio sessions outdoors and on treadmills, stair masters and mountain hikes. She also practiced different calisthenics, trying yoga, dance, Pilates, and weight training at different times.
Six months into the process, D’Andrea hadn’t seen many changes in her skin thanks to the traditional treatments she used – including clay masks, steaming her face and adjusting her food.
So, D’Andrea began taking the acne medication isotretinoin, known by the brand name Accutane, and saw her skin problems begin to resolve within a few months.
But losing weight proved more difficult, and she struggled to lose as much as she wanted over the next two years.
She would lose weight for a short time, weighing 122 pounds in October 2018, down from her baseline of 128 pounds. But she would gain it back, weighing 135 pounds in February 2019.
“When your feelings are this hurt, you can’t help but be consumed by the darkness. I wanted to destroy my old self,” she said in the documentary.
In an effort to accelerate weight loss, she developed extreme exercise habits, such as doing cardio exercises like running until she was “pushed beyond my limits.”
D’Andrea Exercised Until Her Feet Bleed in Search of Her ‘Perfect Body’
D’Andrea shared videos explaining her binge eating, which frequently included fast food like McDonald’s.
In one clip, she shows her foot covered in blood after a workout, soaking her socks.
It was during this period that D’Andrea admits she developed an unhealthy binge eating and cycle of food restriction.
When she felt unwell in her body, she would eat high-calorie foods, like pastries and chips, uncontrollably in an attempt to soothe herself. Clips of a video about her “food addiction” show her eating burgers, chicken nuggets and fries.
Eventually, while spending time at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, D’Andrea lost her desired weight.
In a triumphant video posted to her channel in January 2021, she showed off her slender body, donning jeans that she previously couldn’t button.
She had lost a total of 32 pounds. His three-pronged approach included nutrition, cardio and strength training, as dictated by famed personal trainer Steve Zim.
But the new documentary reveals that, despite appearances, D’Andrea was far from happy at this point. To maintain her weight, she was forced to restrict her food intake and exercise excessively, to the point where all she could think about was that.
“I couldn’t maintain balance in my life and, as a result, I couldn’t maintain the body of my dreams,” she said.
Already, some of the weight lost had started to regain, causing “intense self-hatred”. By the end of January 2021, D’Andrea had deleted her YouTube channel in an effort to protect her mental health.
Six months after the end of the “glow up”, in August 2021, he was diagnosed with depression.
“I felt nothing and I was losing the will to live,” she said.
D’Andrea has shared never-before-seen footage from her trip, revealing for the first time how difficult it had been for her.
D’Andrea continued to record. Footage from early 2022 shows her beginning to understand how unhappy her transformation had made her.
“The whole point of this trip was for me to glow and be happy and here I am at the end of my trip and I’m really, really unhappy. Probably more unhappy than I’ve ever been,” he said. she declared.
As she came to terms with her emotions, her “inner glow” began through therapy and new daily rituals, like trying to change her thinking.
She said she broke the habit of negative self-talk by telling herself, “It’s okay. It’s okay that you’re not perfect. It’s okay that you’re self-critical.
And she started going to therapy.
Now, D’Andrea is in a phase of self-acceptance.
She said: “Self-acceptance is a daily practice. Ultimately, you find yourself with the tools to maintain your self-esteem and that’s when you know you’ve shined and are ready to take on that external transformation if you choose.