The number on the scale has stopped the actress from paying attention. She doesn’t weigh herself anymore and has a thought that prevents her from standing on the scale. She thinks, “Why would you do that, Valerie?”
In an interview with PEOPLE, she talked about her new memoir, “Enough Already,” and how she is coming to terms with her body just the way it is.
Since she was a child, she has been conscious of her weight. She remembers, “I watched my father treat my mother badly when she would gain weight.” She added, “I had a 5th grade teacher poke my belly and say, ‘You want to keep an eye on that.’ So I learned at a very young age that when you gain weight, you’re not lovable. And what I’m learning is that your body is not what makes you lovable.”
As an actress, she felt like her weight made her inferior. As a teenager on “One Day at a Time,” she compared herself to co-star Mackenzie Phillips. A reporter told her that she looked like a ton of fat. Berinelli said, “I have rarely thought of myself as anything but a failure.”
At the age of 47, she became a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig. She said that it was not about weight loss for her and needed a job. She didn’t want to take Eddie’s money after they split up and worked for Jenny Craig.
The man lost 50 pounds over the course of two years. She was in a bikini for the photoshoot. She said, “I started to gain weight as soon as the photoshoot ended.”
Losing weight and keeping it off was not easy. She said, “I was starving myself and doing twice a day workouts.” She added, “Some people can look like that without doing that but not me. And there is a shame for being part of the problem to make other people think they could do it. I bought into it hook, line and sinker, but I didn’t take care of my head and my heart and I think it really starts with that.”
Two years ago, the last time Bertinelli considered losing weight, was in 2020. She thought she needed to lose 10 pounds and had been trying to lose 10 pounds for a long time. She stopped standing on the scale when she thought she couldn’t be doing it again. Bertinelli explained, “There is no magic number that will make me feel good about myself.”
Instead of standing on the scale, she pays attention to how her clothes fit. She said, “I haven’t weighed myself since I finished writing the book and all I know is every time I put on my jeans, they fit. I don’t have to lay back and put them on!”
At age 61, she isn’t weighing herself anymore, but she’s still trying to feel good about herself. She explained, “I’m trying to dismantle all of the things I learned that are ingrained in me. And I’ve learned there are many people that feel the same exact way that I do. Some of us were taught the wrong things.” In her book, she wrote, “I want to be kinder and more accepting of myself.”