Former fashion model Chloe Thomas, aka Chloe Inspires, tells us about her personal battle to gain weight after years of suffering from anorexia, and why she ditched the catwalk to become a fitness, nutrition and mindset coach
Words: Joanna Ebsworth Images: BassFilm Co Publicist: Super Super PR
Content warning: This article contains references to eating disorders which some individuals may find triggering
‘Body transformation’ is a phrase that gets bandied around a lot in the world of fitness, usually supported by dramatic ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures illustrating significant weight-loss journeys undertaken in the pursuit of so-called physical perfection. But for former fashion model-turned-women’s health, fitness, nutrition and mindset coach Chloe Thomas – who embarked on her own ‘body transformation’ after quitting the modelling industry in 2016 – her journey to better health was only ever about gaining weight, not losing it, and healing her body and mind with strength training, therapy
and self-love after battling a life-threatening eating disorder, depression and body dysmorphia.
Now on a mission to help women feel strong and nourished, and empowered from the inside out, via her coaching platform Chloe Inspires (chloeinspires.co.uk), the 33-year-old from Kent has even more reason today to celebrate her transformation from anorexic model to body positive personal trainer, as she enters a new era in her life: motherhood. Pregnancy is a blessing both she and doctors feared might not be possible for her, after years of restricted eating saw her body weight plummet to dangerously low levels and halt her periods.
‘When I was 19, I was told that if my BMI got any lower and I stayed at a certain weight for a long time, I was much more likely to be infertile when
I was older,’ explains Chloe. ‘Bearing in mind that my anorexia started at the age of 16, I was very concerned about the damage I’d done to my body by restricting my calorie intake and, because I was on the Pill for years, I didn’t actually know whether I had periods or not.
‘So, when I stopped taking contraception three years ago, I started using Natural Cycles (naturalcycles.com) as a method of natural birth control and, once my partner and I decided we were ready to start trying for a family, we switched to the Plan Pregnancy mode. We’d get alerts on my most fertile days,’ she continues, ‘And now, I’m growing a little baby! We couldn’t be happier, obviously, but I do think it might not have happened if I hadn’t quit the diet culture and put in the work to become the healthiest, happiest and strongest version of myself that I could be, both mentally and physically.’
‘When I started buying low-calorie cereal and having crackers instead of bread, my weight started going down, down, down’
Turbulent times
A professional tennis player at the age of 15, Chloe spent a lot of time training in the gym outside of school hours. ‘My training was very cardio-heavy, so I was doing lots of running and ab workouts but I wasn’t lifting any weights. Then, when I was 16, my anorexia started.
‘Initially, on the surface, it was like a diet… I started seeing food the way my mum did. She had followed diets on-and-off my whole life, so when I started buying low-calorie cereal and having crackers instead of bread, my weight started going down, down, down.
‘My mum took me to the doctors in the summer as soon as she noticed the problem, but they dismissed her concerns because my weight was
“not low enough to be a problem”. Afterwards, things spiralled when I went to a new boarding school for sixth form, but luckily, the school doctor realised there was an issue, and that’s when I was officially diagnosed with anorexia,’ reveals Chloe. ‘Unfortunately, the NHS wasn’t great in my area, so my parents paid for me to have private CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), but my “recovery” was rushed. I was doing it for everyone else, and not for myself.’
As an outpatient at The Priory, Chloe quickly realised she would be released from treatment sooner if she hit a certain BMI target and admits now to putting on weight to ‘get people off my back, not to get better mentally’. Thereafter, she managed to maintain a low-yet-healthy weight for two years but sadly went on to relapse worse than before when she dropped 60lbs during her gap year at the age of 19 (Chloe tipped the scales at just 46kg at her lowest weight).
Thankfully, Chloe admitted the cause of her illness this second time around, but with long NHS waiting lists and no help available from CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services), her family paid for a psychodynamic therapist to help her work through the cause of her symptoms, and uncover ‘the deeper issues of where my anorexia came from, such as the addiction side of things, and how it has more to do with control over your food. Because I never wanted to be thin; I used to cry to my mum when I couldn’t eat, as I was so confused and would wear baggy clothes and heavy eye make-up to distract people from my body.’
Model work
It was during her therapy that it emerged Chloe’s trauma came from her childhood, among other things, and it was at this time that she decided to move to London to study speech sciences at university. Once there, however, she was scouted by a modelling agency, quit her studies, became a full-time fashion model and she travelled around the world for shoots and shows.
‘When I first started, my agency actually said I was too skinny, so that probably illustrates how thin I was,’ she elaborates. ‘I was still suffering from body dysmorphia, still restricting my food and still doing cardio (I wasn’t allowed to lift weights because you cannot have muscles as a fashion model). But I worked with huge brands, did some big TV commercials, and walked during New York and London fashion weeks. Ironically, I earned the most money at my thinnest.’
However, after five years of modelling, Chloe’s love for the fashion industry faltered and those feelings were compounded when her agency pulled her in for a visit and told her – despite knowing she’d suffered from anorexia in the past – that she needed to start running more, take water retention tablets for her ‘fat face’ and stop doing the Body Pump classes she had recently posted about on Facebook.
‘While they didn’t directly tell me to lose weight, they said they couldn’t put me up for any jobs while I looked the way I did,’ recalls Chloe. ‘So, after I reminded them that my BMI was 16 and that I would be severely underweight if I lost any more, I went home, thought “What am I going to do?”, and decided to quit modelling for good towards the end of 2015.’
‘My approach now is more holistic and less about aesthetics. I want to empower women to not feel pressured to look a certain way’
Road to recovery
Rather than feeling like she had to lose more weight, Chloe tells us the meeting with her agency had the opposite effect. After deciding she wanted to put weight on in a healthy way (as opposed to the ‘unhealthy way’ she says she gained weight at 16), Chloe searched for PTs who’d previously battled eating disorders themselves and found ‘an amazing coach who understood what was going on in my head’. Soon, she was weightlifting three times a week and sticking to trusted nutrition advice from her trainer, a combination that saw her gain weight and muscle in a gradual way that wasn’t too overwhelming and left her feeling stronger and more confident.
‘It was at this point I started filming my weight-gain journey and posting it on YouTube, because I couldn’t find anything about weight gain back then, and gaining weight can be really hard as a woman,’ says Chloe. ‘I told everyone I’d quit modelling and that this was my journey, so I posted about my training programmes and what I ate. In time, I noticed people were asking if I was qualified, and whether I could write programmes for them or offer advice on food. That’s what pushed me to get a qualification in personal training and, shortly afterwards, I qualified as a nutrition coach too, so I could help more people.
‘One video I posted about growing glutes went viral with half a million views, and things continued from there,’ she adds. ‘But I never worried about other people’s opinions. The feedback I received was always really positive, and that’s where my YouTube channel and social media handle, Chloe Inspires, comes from, because people were always saying it was inspiring to see my weight gain journey.
‘I then launched my first website off the back of seeing so many women struggle with either weight loss or weight gain, and embarked on my mission to counteract the misinformation about diet culture on the internet. Because diet culture is what instigated my weight loss at the age of 16. Back then, I’d had this belief that eating fat was terrible, and it spiralled the anorexia. Whereas now, I know you have to eat protein and healthy fats, and I wanted to share that knowledge with more women and help them get off the fad diets.’
Helping others
In the years that have followed, Chloe has gone on to help over 800 women worldwide reach their goals, all the while adding further qualifications to her impressive CV – including CBT, basic counselling, self-hypnosis and breathwork – to give her the tools necessary to help others realise that true transformation, as per her philosophy, only happens when we address the root causes of our struggles and effectively manage our mental health and mindset.
‘I attract a whole range of women from different backgrounds and age groups, but most of them have weight struggles in common. Most have probably also done a fad diet, are probably doing too much cardio and don’t understand the basics of nutrition and lifting weights. So, I help with both, but what I’ve also found from working with women is it’s about helping them to deal with the emotional eating, the disordered eating, the binge eating and the body dysmorphia.
‘These things are not about the food or exercise; they’re about your mind,’ she continues. ‘I knew that from having 10 years of therapy, and that’s why I wanted to get my other qualifications, so I could teach women what I knew from experience. With emotional eating, for example, you can’t just say to someone, “Oh, just eat less and go to the gym. And if you binge, just eat less the next day”.
‘That doesn’t work. Instead, you have to find out why they’re emotionally eating and work on that. My approach to fitness and wellness is definitely more holistic and less about aesthetics. I just want to empower women to get away from beauty standards, so they don’t feel pressured to look, eat or train a certain way, and instead find what works for them. Because the diets and workouts we see on social media are not personalised, and getting away from those fads is key to creating a healthy lifestyle.’
Plans ahead
With these words of wisdom ringing in our ears, it comes as no surprise to hear that Chloe’s brand-new coaching programme, Your 30-Day Upgrade: Ultimate Mind & Body Glow-up, has absolutely nothing to do with taking on a gruelling fitness challenge in the new year, and everything to do with forming healthy lifestyle habits you can start now. By the time you finish the plan, you’ll have built powerful routines to carry you confidently
into December and beyond.
‘I designed my 30-day reset plan to gently support both your body and mindset in just 20 minutes a day, so you can finish the year feeling stronger, healthier and more confident at a time of the year when we can all find it harder to look after ourselves and stay motivated during the darker, colder months.
‘It only takes 21 days to form a new habit,’ she adds. ‘So, by the end of 30 days, you should be waking up calmer and feeling stronger with healthier food habits, thanks to daily breathwork to lower cortisol and quiet the noise, journalling and gratitude prompts focused on self-worth and body neutrality to boost mood and motivation, simple shopping list and food guides, and three 15-minute, low-impact home workouts you can do anywhere to improve energy while supporting fat loss. Plus, there’s advice on mindful eating and body awareness practices, so you can learn to tune into hunger cues and fullness, and understand how to stop emotional eating at the root cause.
‘Christmas and the new year can be such an overwhelming time for many women; full of stress, exhaustion, illness and triggers if you’ve ever suffered from disordered eating in the past. But I hope this plan will give women the tools they need to help them go into the winter feeling good, so they don’t need to buy into all that, “New Year, New You” stuff,’ emphasises Chloe. ‘You could also use it anytime of the year to build simple, sustainable routines that make you feel good. The best project you’ll ever work on is you, so why wait for January to make a change?’
Find out more about Chloe’s coaching services and programmes, or sign up for her 30-Day Upgrade: Ultimate Mind & Body Glow-up, at chloeinspires.co.uk
