Stephanie Buttermore

[babykalechip]

Hey! First time poster in this thread. I’ve been following Stephanie for a couple years now - I started watching her because she was a fellow PhD student and for that I was drawn to her videos. When she left academia to pursue her fitness content I was so confused because I know how much time, effort and money goes into this degree. At the beginning, I was supportive of her idea of going ‘all in’ but I wanted her to address the mental health aspect to this and also to acknowledge her own restrictive eating but nope - it was all to do with banishing her nonstop hunger. I mentioned this to my partner back then and he said that he 100% believes that in a years time she’ll have lost all the weight she gained and start marketing this journey as a diet plan. And here we are, she’s back to being slim and is clearly more comfortable in her own skin now that she’s slim again. She’s basically sending the message that to feel comfortable means to be slimmer. The amount of posts she had about being uncomfortable with the weight gain was just ridiculous because she should have been working on her self esteem back then and learning to love her body. Now she’s all about self love and positivity but she’s lost most of that weight - I’m lost for words tbh.

You bring up a really good point: From the beginning, it was all about being slim for Stephanie. The reason she went "all in" was to deal with her hunger, not to find her "healthy set weight" as she stated. Throughout this journey she's shown us those old photos of herself over and over again, basically setting up her audience's expectation that she's naturally slim anyway, and she'll get back there eventually.

Now Stephanie is starting to sound like a diet book. "Get rid of your hunger AND stay slim--with my All In plan!"

The most confusing part about all of this is that she's touted her most recent weight loss to her anxiety, yet she continues to not address her mental health. I really think that Stephanie needs to stop promoting what she does to gain/lose weight. From my own perspective, as someone who just exercises moderately to feel good, and who eats a balanced diet, Stephanie has never engaged in healthy behaviors around her weight. Eating "all in" was not healthy, restricting was not healthy, etc.

 

[Qwerty1995]

You know what's the problem with her? She isn't consulting an actual expert regarding with her "recovery" and she mostly relies on random youtubers. What pisses me most is that she is stigmatizing people to not seek professional help with eating disorders and making them think relying on youtubers are okay when it's really dangerous

 

[testingonetwothreefoiur]

Coz she’s in full blown denial and thinks because she has a PhD that she somehow is above having one. People with a healthy attitude towards food and body image don’t think or talk about it as much as Stephanie does, or take full body selfies every day, or record every morsel of food that goes into their mouths, or pathologise the act of eating a bit too much/little on occasion like she does via her War and Peace monologues on youtube.

The problem with her “full disclosure” videos like the latest one where she dances around the idea that she has an issue with food, is that the “few months where I lost control” were chronicled on social media while she was preaching about the glories of her All In journey and selling food and exercise plans to people who wanted to be just like her. Before All In, her entire brand was workout videos, cheat day videos and weighing herself, “I eat so much and stay so lean” and selling products off the back of that. Yet we now know she had “extreme hunger” ahem was starving herself to the point where it justified an entire lifestyle change.

She’s got zero credibility and throwing her hands up every few months to own up to some level of dysfunction while blanket denying she’s down a rabbit hole of an eating disorder isn’t “woke” or “telling her truth”, it’s exhausting and annoying.

 

[Beanss12345]

She’s just a joke. So yet again she’s lied to people about just being lean even though she’s eating loads. That video she had where she was tiny again she was acting like she eats loads and fixed her issues with food but now we know her again this is a lie.

She’s a liar. Can’t stand her.

 

[Beanss12345]

It really does bother me so much how many younger girls will be watching her wondering why they don’t look like that.
I also wonder how many naive people she roped into ‘all in’ and now they are all 30 plus pounds heavier but stuck with it and unhappy while she parades around looking amazing. I dunno if I am overthinking it but that thought just makes me so sad.

 

[Snarksalot]

I cannot believe she tried to claim she was only 24% bodyfat at her highest in that video today. It just goes to show how defensive she is. She says it wouldn't matter if she had reached that obese category, but she likes to let us know she definitely didn't (even though go look for someone who got a DEXA at 25% and they look far different and far leaner- it's fine she was higher, just don't lie ffs). Lol I know how she arrived at those numbers. She uses the "athlete" setting on her #sponsored scale (she no longer flaunts/advertises because it no longer reads out super low numbers with crazy low bf%). I have one like that and right now and if I use the athlete version it tells me I'm at like 13-14% bf which is ridiculous and clearly untrue. On a related note, I'm tired of all these instagram lifters who have almost zero strength/performance goals calling themselves athletes. I guess Stephanie doesn't that much (if at all), but she released a program for "advanced" lifters, all while only being able to demo the upper body stuff with like 5-10lbs. And don't get me started on her joke of a home program. She was telling people to use RPE 8 on everything in the 8-12 rep range even though she said it was with home equipment and advised light dumbbells (water jugs as a substitute) and band type equipment. On moves like deadlifts where a lot of people who have been in the gym for not that long would easily need well over 100 lbs of resistance to get that RPE in that rep scheme.

Ugh, I honestly think she does look healthier, but this all in thing has been surrounded by lies and covering up some serious past issues she put out for the whole world to watch (and try along with her). If she'd just admit she was HAES now and point to some corresponding literature maybe I'd respect her more. Instead she acts as though it's true science with her experiment of n=1.

 

[Noraonabus]

I watched that new video of hers, I don’t get how she’s magically lost like 20lbs? All seems a bit fishy too me. Also it’s soooooooo repetitive like here’s my cake pop oatmeal, here’s more about me me me me like I swear she thinks she is the most important person on YouTube.

 

[soggybrilliant]

Hey! First time poster in this thread. I’ve been following Stephanie for a couple years now - I started watching her because she was a fellow PhD student and for that I was drawn to her videos. When she left academia to pursue her fitness content I was so confused because I know how much time, effort and money goes into this degree. At the beginning, I was supportive of her idea of going ‘all in’ but I wanted her to address the mental health aspect to this and also to acknowledge her own restrictive eating but nope - it was all to do with banishing her nonstop hunger. I mentioned this to my partner back then and he said that he 100% believes that in a years time she’ll have lost all the weight she gained and start marketing this journey as a diet plan. And here we are, she’s back to being slim and is clearly more comfortable in her own skin now that she’s slim again. She’s basically sending the message that to feel comfortable means to be slimmer. The amount of posts she had about being uncomfortable with the weight gain was just ridiculous because she should have been working on her self esteem back then and learning to love her body. Now she’s all about self love and positivity but she’s lost most of that weight - I’m lost for words tbh.

 

[Coffeeismysoul]

Knowing Stephanie, I bet she's secretly hoping she'll get Breast Implant illness so she can do a whole new video series called "Going all Flat: removing my breast implants"

 

[NarfNarf]

The woman has some weird messiah complex with a dash obsessive compulsive behaviors wrapped in a veneer of toxic positivity. Using language like "as long as this video helps someone." And liking all the "you're so beautiful, you made me recover from my ED!" comments. She always has to show her body, always has to report on everything happening with her body or goes into her body (or at least the things she wants to present to control the viewers perspective). It's all "Let Me Help You By Showing MeMeMeMeMe!" Videos. Her channel is nothing more than a vlog at this point in hopes to funnel some viewers to her website to sell those shitty t-shirts and her cookie cutter workout plans.

She has no business helping anyone.

 

[bblondon]

I got roped into watching her videos after she kept coming up in the YT recommended - I have so many questions and feelings. Firstly stop trying to make all in happen, the way she shoehorns that phrase into every video is so so irritating. She has severe issues with food, the way she gorges (binges) especially in the first all in videos was not right, it was the extreme end of eating and the crap she ate too, like the most additive filled foods! She seems so not ok or happpy. And what it with the boyfriend? She seems desperate to be with him / more into him than her and for him to propose but he doesn’t seem as into it. I don’t know how that kind of relationship can survive because he is also food obsessed so it’s toxic

 

[Qwerty1995]

At this point she is a glamourized ED account. She has fans cause her fans sees themselves in her. I wouldn't have known she fakes her videos and posts if it wasn't for gossip blogs I've read.

 

[Littlemisadoughnut]

I think it’s all lip service to honour the character she presents online. Body neutrality? I’ve not seen a single soul more body obsessed than her, for all her protestations

 

[Qwerty1995]

She is a perfect example of someone who is in denial on her disordered eating and thoughts. It's so f*cked up all she thinks about is food and body image. Life has more to offer than those! Why cant she use her phD for a greater cause or something relevant rather than being an attention seeking influencer?

About her and Jeff, their relationship is going nowhere. It's obvious she wants the ring but he isn't that serious

 

[Qwerty1995]

She has nothing to offer both her degree and her career on youtube. I agree, this is the problem of going full time on youtube. You will end up being less creative and a downgrade considering its not something you can hold onto for a lifetime.

With that said, Stephanie not using her phD in exchange for stupid body poses and food posts on instagram is a huge downgrade. She loves to brag about her degree yet she NEVER used it for a good cause. I feel like she only took it to look and act smart but she is an idiot for not knowing the basic rule that eating tons of calories will make you gain weight. She is justifying that it will stablize your metabolism with all the science jargon she probably found on the internet.

 

[NarfNarf]

It's disgusting. She still sells overpriced shirts on her website with saying like "Cheat day shirt" and "assume I'm hungry" and "all in". How does it look to a 15 year old who sees a skinny women wearing a shirt that says "Assume I'm hungry"? Proana much? Anything for a buck, I guess.

 

[Littlemisadoughnut]

She's set herself up with the perfect excuse...

"it's not restriction. Now I've gone all in and got rid of my extreme hunger, my appetite has naturally reduced"

She might even believe her own shit at this point, but facts are it was so obvious she wasn't comfortable in her bigger frame, and is manipulating her weight now using her old tricks. She just won't cut to the same extent, and will go back to being "insta pretty" and shilling shit, and making money on adsense from views of her old videos.

Such a waste of a PhD. Makes me respect her even less, she had potential to do some good in her life and chucked it away, to create content that encourages disordered eating and negative body image within a vulnerable audience.

 

[Qwerty1995]

hearing her parrot the all in phrase induces such rage in me -the way she shoehorns that phrase into every sentence and tries so hard to make it a thing. Her unhealthy habits are triggering and sick to watch

Last time I watched she was still hinting for her odd boyfriend to propose. weird relationship, both of them have toxic food and body issues

She wishes Jeff to have some surprise proposal to her but that's never gonna happen. She is wasting her time hoping for that ring to pop in front of her yet he never even asked to move in with her. He is also somewhat of a mama's boy (red flag).

 

[Littlemisadoughnut]

I don’t see her being able to continue to provide entertainment online without cheat days and all in. She seems to know this too since she hasn’t evolved at all content wise in the last 2 years and seems to know the end is near

 

[seosamh]

i had a really damaged relationship with food and stephanie inspired me to try the ‘all in’ method, mix that with anti-depressants and i gained a staggering amount of weight in a really short space of time - and it’s just stayed

i think what stephanie never talked about is when you heal your relationship with food you need a fuck load of help, my new body is bigger than i’ve ever been and i have a therapist to coach me through my feelings towards it, i also realise now i don’t crave as much ‘junk food’ because i know it just makes me feel sluggish, but me healing my issues and not eating as much takeout HAS NOT caused me to lose the weight again

it’s incredibly careless and disingenuous to talk about your ‘all in method’ WHILE showing off your body, you choose one or the other - showing off your beautifully proportioned body before and after is such a bad representation of intuitive eating and removing your thoughts from weight loss and restricting

girls will look up to her and those girls through society will more than likely have restrictive tendencies, they haven’t had a chance to unlearn their hate towards their own bodies and it scares me that she doesn’t put emphasis on the mental help you need throughout the journey, i don’t think you can just be ‘strong’ through it, ESPECIALLY if you’re a young girl

if you’re a girl trying this you will gain weight and you might never lose that again and it isn’t easy for anyone to accept, let alone the most vulnerable age group

sorry for the rant, it frustrates me that stephanie focuses so heavily on her body when she should talk about what she’s learned and unlearned, what shes discovered about herself that doesn’t even relate to food, how peoples worth is not attached to their body etc. where’s stephanies hobbies?? all i see is cake pop oatmeal and a skinny woman, how on earth does that inspire me to get help for my issues with food???

Don’t be sorry; I really appreciated your post. I’m sorry you’ve had the struggles you mentioned (and props to you for choosing to heal your body and engage in therapy) but I think you have articulated the problem with Stephanie’s content very well. She has a large enough platform to make a genuinely positive difference to many impressionable viewers, but she has chosen to continue down the path of (public) body obsession, which seems to me pretty clearly damaging to herself and also likely to those viewers.