Arielle Lorre on Addiction, Weight Loss & Plastic Surgery

I met Arielle Lorre when we were both guests on Alexis Haines’ podcast Recovering From Reality ( Arielle’s episode here, mine is here ). Immediately I could tell she was someone I’d like.

She was warm, kind & brought some cookies with her. & when I say cookies, I mean COOKIES. They were healthy, delicious & dripping in chocolate. Just imagine the most delicious cookies you’ve ever seen. This recipe is one of a kind….but we’ll get to that.

Anyway, after meeting her we kept in touch via Instagram. She is so open & honest with her community about everything from plastic surgery, to addiction, to her fitness journey. I just felt like she was special & someone I definitely wanted to feature on the blog ( podcast swap coming soon ).

She launched her podcast, The Blonde Files, shortly after I met her. & she recently signed with Dear Media which is a podcast network co-founded by my husband. It’s a female-focussed network & we’re so happy that The Blonde Files is part of the network.

Arielle is an all-around badass entrepreneur & today we did a blog swap. Check out my post on her blog where I’m talking about my quarantine life. You’ll get all the specifics on what books, podcasts, recipes & productivity hacks I’m loving right now.

In this post you’ll hear all about Arielle’s wellness journey which involved overcoming addiction, to drugs, alcohol & fitness, and how she totally turned her life around.

Without further ado, let’s welcome Arielle Lorre to The Skinny Confidential.

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♡ Introduce yourself & tell us how you got started. Give us your whole life story! The more info the better!

Arielle Lorre: Hi TSC readers! I’m Arielle Lorre & I’m a blogger/podcaster/influencer & creator of the wellness platform, The Blonde Files. I’ll give you some background on me because it was a crazy twisty road to get to where I am today, & it’ll give you context as to why I cover some of the topics I do across my channels!

I grew up in Rhode Island & had a pretty idyllic childhood: my dad was a doctor, my mom stayed home to raise my brother & me, I went to private school, had a golden retriever & I drove a freaking Volvo. Bear with me—this is relevant because despite all of this wholesomeness things went terribly wrong when I found alcohol & drugs my senior year of high school.

All of a sudden my priorities & ambitions went out the window & I was only concerned about when the next party was. The thing was, I never knew I was uncomfortable in my skin until I felt comfortable with some alcohol in me, & it became my solution to life. And I wanted that solution all the time. Unfortunately, it also brought consequences & things spiraled out of control pretty quickly. 

To make this quick: for ten years after high school I found myself in & out of rehabs, moving around a lot, wanting to stop drinking but completely unable to. I experienced pretty unfathomable pain, shame & trauma in that time & my drinking & drug use progressed steadily. By the end, I was living here in LA, having nonstop seizures, in & out of consciousness for 3 months & basically dying a slow death.

After a series of events I ended up in treatment again in 2014 & that time I got sober for good. There is SO MUCH more to this story but I don’t want to write a novel here. Needless to say I found myself newly sober at 28 years old with absolutely nothing; no car, no apartment, no job, no friends—nada.

My first year of sobriety I really focused on staying sober, working a little non-stressful job, working on issues in therapy & building a support network. My second year of sobriety I decided it was time to get healthy which at the time meant ABS – I just wanted abs. I began doing Kayla Itsines’ BBG program & started an anonymous Instagram account to track my journey & progress & The Blonde Files was born. 

Both the account & my understanding of health & wellness grew & evolved & eventually I revealed my identity (spoiler alert: nobody cared!). By that time, I knew I had found something I truly loved. Writing is a passion but so is connecting with others & sharing my struggles & how I try to overcome them; it’s how I got & stayed sober, after all.

I also LOVE editing photos & have a really specific aesthetic eye, so that part was fun for me too. Along the way I discovered so many other things I was passionate about including cooking healthy food, gut & hormonal health ( maybe not so much a *passion* per se but it did contribute a lot to my overall wellbeing ), sharing about mental health, trauma & addiction & of course more lighthearted subjects like beauty & my love of cosmetic — ahem — enhancements. Yes, we can do it all. 

Anyway in 2018 I started my website & in 2019 started a podcast ( now with Dear Media! ) which is TRULY my passion. There’s nothing I love more than talking to experts & inspiring people about their own journeys & knowledge. Oh, I also got married 2 years ago to my husband ( producer Chuck Lorre ) sooo that was interesting & unexpected! 

♡ I know in your podcast you talk about addiction. Would love to hear about your transformation & how you’ve gone from addiction to completely killing it as an influencer. 

AL: I was lucky in that my life got so bad as a result of drugs & alcohol, I had no choice but to completely surrender & accept a new way of living. People in recovery call it the “gift of desperation.” I got really involved in a recovery program & the principles of that program are very much aligned with Stoicism. I learned how to be humble, work hard, practice radical acceptance, have faith, to give exactly what I want to receive, & to avoid judgement of most situations. Also, a really beautiful gift that comes from almost dying is a certain boldness & “what have I got to lose?” attitude that has allowed me to chase my dreams pretty fearlessly.

On that subject, when I look back on my addiction a lot of it had to do with fear; fear of what other people thought of me, fear of not being enough, fear of feeling uncomfortable things, fear of being my true self, fear of other people. Becoming an influencer pretty much requires that I just walk through all of that, which has been incredibly empowering.

I’m not saying becoming an influencer is the antidote to addiction ( could you imagine?! ) but it has forced me to confront these fears in real life. Also, people these days don’t want to see perfection; they want to see messiness, flaws, pain & struggles, triumphs & just REAL life. I always say alcoholism & addiction & the traumas I went through have become my greatest assets today because they shaped my character but also give me a means to really connect with other people & be my true self. That is invaluable in this line of work. 

♡ You also went through a mental & physical transformation. Can you talk about how your mind, body & spirit has changed?

AL: As I mentioned, in the early days of my Instagram account I just wanted abs. I truly thought abs = health. I tried to achieve this in many different ways including restricting foods & food groups ( bye carbs ), being super strict Mon-Fri. then bingeing until I was sick on Sundays, tracking macros, over-exercising, PRAYING to not be hungry ( seriously ) & probably other weird phases that I can’t remember.

I got to the point where I was a rail but at the time all I could think about was what I wanted to change. This is important for everyone to hear: it’s NEVER ENOUGH! Maybe you, the reader, have had a different experience but in mine, when the goal is to look a certain way, the goalpost keeps moving & you never get there.

That’s not to say that we can’t have goals or want to tone up or lose the baby weight, but you get what I’m saying. It can’t be the only motivating factor. Anyway, eventually my body kind of shut down on me—I also had terrible gut & PCOS symptoms that, with all the stress on my body, were out of control—so I was forced to stop altogether & reevaluate. I’m a rock bottom kind of girl; I need to absolutely run myself into the ground before I’m willing to try a different way.

In being forced to slow down I realized that in my quest for “wellness” I had gotten really, really…unwell. At that time in my life a lot of people around me were doing Transcendental Meditation so I started that & learned how to really be in my body. It taught me how to sit still. I focused on healing my gut & hormones which meant focusing a lot on reducing stress, including physical stress, i.e working out.

I stopped tracking macros & began eating intuitively which was tough. I started doing more nourishing, low impact movement like Pilates. I focused more on work & going back to school & being of service in my community. Basically using all the energy I was using towards obsessing over food & exercise towards something more productive for me & I grew a lot in that process.

♡ Your body is rockin’! What are your 3 tips to staying in shape, your favorite healthy snacks, & your favorite healthy-ish dessert? Give us all the details; I know you’re the queen of desserts.

AL: Thank you! I’ll start with my 3 tips to staying in shape:

♡ Do something you enjoy otherwise you’re going to find reasons not to do it—& to that point, switch it up so you don’t get bored! 

♡ Try to focus on goals like getting stronger or building endurance vs. just what your body looks like. I’m NOT saying it’s bad to want to be in shape, but that isn’t a motivator that is going to sustain you in the long run.

♡ Schedule workouts in your calendar like an important meeting & show up for yourself!

Ok as for my favorite healthy snacks, I love Elemental Superfood bars, dates with almond butter & a piece of Hu chocolate ( Lauryn I know you feel me on that one! ), homemade grain free granola ( I have 2 great ones in my ebooks! ), oh & Bulletproof Vanilla Collagen bars, I seriously can’t quit those things.

My favorite healthy dessert will forever be my Crowd Pleaser Cookies; they are SO EASY & universally loved. If you haven’t made them yet you’ve gotta try!

♡ What I love about you is that you talk about the beauty procedures you’ve done & that’s really rare in this space. Can you talk about your favorite procedures & ones you wouldn’t recommend?

AL: I have a whole podcast episode #45 breaking down everything I’ve done BUT there are 2 procedures that I really love. First, the lip lift. For years I tried filling—to the point where I had a Marge Simpson lip—trying to just get a little lift. It was NOT CUTE. I got a surgical lip lift ( actually I got 2, but that’s another story ) which lifted my top lip just a few millimeters & brought total balance to my face. It really gives a more youthful appearance without looking done at all. That said, you have to go to a really good doctor for this & there are only 2 I recommend: Dr. Ben Talei in Beverly Hills, & Dr. Miguel Mascaro in South Florida. Some women are getting absolutely butchered by doctors who don’t know what they’re doing & you can imagine how awful it can be to have a giant scar right under your nose, or a deformed mouth.

The other procedure I got that I love is an endoscopic brow lift. I naturally had really heavy brows & hooded eyelids which was unique & cute until I turned 30 & things started falling. I perpetually looked tired & sad & Botox wasn’t cutting it, so I got a really subtle lift & it totally refreshed my face. The best part about these procedures is that nobody could tell I really did anything ( until I opened my mouth & blabbed about it! ) but they did make a big difference in just refreshing things.

The procedure I want EVERYONE TO KNOW is not worth it & is mostly BS are THREADS. I got threads in my cheeks & looked great for a few weeks when I was swollen, but then they didn’t really do anything. It wasn’t necessarily problematic ( except that time when a thread popped inside my cheek at a big event honoring my husband & I couldn’t move my face, yikes ), but it’s not a good use of several thousand dollars.

The problem with threads is that med-spas & some doctors are using photos of Bella & Kendall & promoting threads in insane places like the nose, lips & eyes which is really harmful & also really misleading. I will stop myself before I go off on a tangent but I’m hoping it’s a trend that fades into oblivion when people realize it doesn’t do anything &, in many cases, only causes problems. My surgeon, Dr. Ben Talei, goes off on this subject on my latest podcast episode #56.

♡ What’s your morning routine?

AL: My morning routine is: wake up around 6; make a matcha latte & immediately do a 20 minute silent meditation; read a few passages from various books & maybe journal, but honestly I’ve been slacking there; take my dog for a walk; then by 8 or 9 I’m usually firing on all cylinders with work. Aside from my matcha I like to intermittent fast so I usually don’t eat after 6pm & I’ll have my breakfast around 11am. I usually prefer to work out in the afternoon.

♡ What’s your nighttime routine?

AL: My nighttime routine is: remove makeup & do my skincare routine; take a bath with calming bath salts, candles & whatever book I’m reading; get in bed & do a quick review of my day in a journal or the notes on my phone; & continue reading until I fall asleep!

♡ What’s your favorite beauty product in the world & why?

AL: Well this is impossible to answer but if I have to choose one, I would have to go with Skinceuticals Vitamin CE serum. It really does it all for me: brightens, plumps & makes things super dewy.

♡ What’s your best life hack?

AL: I’m not sure this would be considered a hack ( I mean it’s been around for thousands of years ) but meditation truly changed my life in such a short amount of time, with such little effort. I really don’t know how I functioned before it. It has enhanced my energy, mood, clarity, creativity, inspiration, outlook, sleep, appetite, serenity, faith, acceptance…I could go on & on. It’s a simple thing that we ALL have the ability to do & it completely touches every aspect of our lives.

♡ What’s a book, podcast or resource you recommend & why?

AL: Well I have to do some self promotion here & recommend my podcast; I really believe in what I’m doing, the message I’m spreading & the guests I have on. My life may not always be relatable on the outside, but underneath it all I’ve had a LOT of struggles & challenges to overcome which I’m very open about. It’s also lighthearted so it’s packed with information without being cumbersome. Other podcasts I love are Armchair Expert, TED Radio Hour, of course TSC HIM & HER Show & Absolutely Not ( I mean we all need to laugh right now )!

As for books, Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart will always be a favorite that I think everyone should read. There are also great condensed books by her like The Pocket Pema for a quick daily reading!

♡ Where can everyone find you? Pimp yourself out!

AL: You can find me on Instagram @ariellelorre & @theblondefilespodcast.

You can also visit my website to check out lifestyle stuff, recipes & my eBooks, plus listen to my podcast here.

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Hope you guys loved this post & be sure to check out my post on The Blonde Files blog all about quarantine life.

Highly recommend you guys also listen to Arielle’s podcast The Blonde Files & stalk her Instagram @ariellelorre.

x, lauryn

+ if you liked this post, check out Alexis Haines’ guest post here.

++ scope 3 tips for mental toughness.

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