Jackie Goldschneider says she’s ready to take a big step in her eating disorder recovery journey.
“I still have not weighed myself since May of 2021,” the Real Housewives of New Jersey star, 47, revealed on the Monday, January 8, episode of Jana Kramer’s “Whine Down” podcast. “But I have lately been having a lot of conversations with my dietician and therapist, who I still speak to once a week each, about getting back on the scale.”
While her doctors think it would be a “horrible idea” for her to do so, Goldschneider said that something in her “wants to know how much I’ve gained and wants to see what happens.” She explained: “I’m at this place where I’m about 75 percent recovered, and I have this 25 percent of these old habits that I’m scared to let go of. Nothing anorexia. I am not anorexic anymore. I don’t restrict [myself] like that anymore. There’s just things that I’m scared of, and a big overriding fear is gaining too much weight if I let go of certain habits because I’ve already gained a fair amount of weight.”
Given her “unhealthy relationship with the scale” in the past, Goldschneider said her doctors are “scared of me adding back issues into my life by focusing on a number instead of how I feel.”
While it may take a bit before the Bravo star returns to the scale, Goldschneider has been enjoying other aspects of her recovery. “There [were] a lot of foods that I hadn’t tried, ever, because I started dieting when I was in high school,” she shared. “So, I had never had a lot of foods that are, like, totally normal to other people, so I am eating them for the first time in my entire life. There’s some foods that I thought that I would absolutely love that I was like, ‘Alright, not great,’ and other foods that I just cannot get enough of.”
According to Goldschneider, she “almost cried” while eating a tuna fish sandwich for the first time. On the flip side, she said a cannoli she tried while out to dinner with friends was “just OK.”
Goldschneider also credits RHONJ for helping her overcome her health struggles. “[The show] did help me recover. … I don’t think I would have recovered if I was the only one holding myself accountable,” she said on the podcast. “So having the show, so that I could do this on a public stage, was really helpful to me.”
Since joining RHONJ during season 9 in 2018, Goldschneider has continued to be candid about her eating disorder experiences on the reality series. “I always felt that it was something to be talked about. I just, I didn’t really have the opportunity. It’s not like you really go out with people and start talking about it,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2019. “But my life is pretty much an open book, and if there’s anything going on in my personal life that I think could help anyone or resonate with anyone or make people feel like they’re not alone, I’m so much more than happy to share it.”
In her September 2023 book, The Weight of Beautiful, Goldschneider recalled a confrontation with her RHONJ costars about her eating disorder. “‘Margaret [Josephs] said you have issues with food,’ Jennifer [Aydin], one of my castmates, suddenly announced to the table, and I wondered if my world was about to crumble,’” Goldschneider wrote in an excerpt obtained by Us at the time.
She continued: “I could’ve come clean, but I wasn’t ready to let go of anorexia. I hated it deeply, I hated the pain and the endless thoughts and the hold it had on everything in my life, but I also needed it. Anorexia was the only thing that gave me control when everything else felt out of my control, and it was the only thing that let me run so far away from the person I used to be that I was no longer recognizable. I traded everything — my health, my sanity, my ability to socialize without anxiety — to hold on to my eating disorder. I gave it everything, and in return, it let the old me disappear.”
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Eating Disorders (NEDA) website or call their hotline at (800) 931-2237 to get help.
