We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Allison Bollinger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Allison below.

Allison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

One of my biggest defining moments in my professional career was booking my dream job as a Radio City Rockette. This was my dream ever since I was a little girl, but it was also the dream that motivated me to recover from my eating disorder. As a dancer in college, I suffered through an eating disorder that took many things away from me – one of them being dance. I was not only physically unable to do what I love as I was taken out of dance classes and performances until I was healthier, but the illness took away so much of my passion, too.
Deciding to change that, the dream of being a Rockette was what kept me going throughout recovery. It was my greatest ‘why’. A few years after recovering, that dream came true. Because I kept going, I got to dance again, on the world’s most amazing stage, with women I have always looked up to and enjoy every moment of it. It is the most full circle moment I am grateful to have lived out, and now I use this story as an eating disorder recovery coach to motivate others going through recovery. It is proof that if our ‘why’ is strong enough, we can do anything.

Allison, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up as a competitive dancer, dance has always been such a big part of me. That changed when I fell into an eating disorder. As a freshman in college, that illness became the biggest part of me. The help that I sought out at the time felt unaligned with me – it felt like no one understood what I was going through. I took recovery into my own hands, which was a messy journey, but one that proved successful in the end.
After recovering, I graduated college with a BFA in Dance, and moved to New York City to pursue a professional dance career. A year after my move to my dream city, I booked my dream job as a Radio City Rockette. There were times during my eating disorder that I truly thought I would never be healthy enough to dance again, let alone live out my biggest, wildest dream as a Rockette. I proved my own self wrong, and this catapulted me to wanting to help others prove themselves wrong too. I wanted to be the example and the help that I wish had when I was going through my eating disorder.
As a certified eating disorder recovery coach, I now share my story and everything I have learned across social media platforms, while also coaching others in recovery. Currently, I offer a 1:1 coaching program, Restriction to Freedom, that is specifically curated for those going through disordered eating, by someone who has been there herself. Not all treatment for eating disorders offers this personable experience, that not only changes behaviors but the underlying thoughts, and I am proud to be making the change this field needs. Through it all, I never let people forget that recovery is possible, and their greatest dreams are too.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Other than training and knowledge, I think what is most helpful in my success in the eating disorder field is my lived experience. Especially with eating disorders, there is a level in which those who have not experienced it can not understand the full scope of the illness, not matter how much you learn about it.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Sharing my personal story definitely helped build my reputation within my market. Not only do I have the experience to understand an eating disorder, I have the tools that I gained through my own recovery but also that I have learned through becoming a certified eating disorder recovery coach. And now, I have not only my recovery, but my clients’ stories too, as proof that recovery is possible with the right care.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lnk.bio/your_spoonful
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your_spoonful/
• Other: TikTok:
  https://www.tiktok.com/@your_spoonful?lang=en

Image Credits

Katelynn Brooker