Brianna "Chickenfry" LaPaglia on Eating Disorder Recovery & Choosing Herself After Heartbreak

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Leave those filters at the door, because it's time to get real. Hello everybody and welcome back to RealPod. Joining us on the pod today is Brianna Chicken Fry,

is what she's most known by. But her real last name is LaPaglia. Brianna LaPaglia is joining us. She is one of the most prominent female voices at Barstool,

which is iconic. She just relaunched her flagship podcast, Plan Bre Uncut, which marks a new chapter for her show. Earlier this year, she appeared on one of my favorite shows,

Fox Special Forces, and earlier in 2025, she was featured in sports illustrated swimsuit. Iconic, love that for her. You may have seen her name in the headlines

after she endured a very public breakup, separating from a situation in person that created a very abusive environment for her. On today's episode, Breonna's gonna share the revelations

that she's had around closure. How can we really feel closure in our own lives and move on from something that felt so monumental? How can we put the pieces back together after heartbreak?

She's also gonna talk about solo travel and her strong relationship with herself. This was so fascinating to me. And so if you're interested in getting to know yourself

on a deeper level and spending time just alone, I think what she has to say on this is super inspiring has definitely inspired me to explore some solo vacations in the future. Brianna is also going to open up about the anxiety-induced eating disorder that she experienced,

and particularly being in a situation where she had to be putting on weight. I know we talk a lot about disorder eating on this podcast, and I think this is the first time we've ever had someone open up about the need, desire, and pressure to gain weight,

to get their body into a healthier state of being. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Brianna to the podcast. Brianna, welcome to RealPod. I'm excited to meet you. Hi, thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat.

You look so cute today. The outfits nowadays that I'm most impressed with are the ones like no one can recreate because everything was like thrifted or carefully curated. I used to want what everyone has and now I'm like, I don't want that.

Oh my gosh, right? It's my favorite to like find the best thrifted piece that no one else has. It's from so long ago and it's like one of one. So how are you doing today?

How's your spirit? I'm good. Today has been a good day so far. I'm just like so happy.

I don't know. It's a good day. It's a good week. Good. I'm glad. I feel the same. I've been starting the new year like with a really positive attitude

and I'm like, let's not lose this. I know. I feel like this is the first new year. Not that I've really made resolutions, but I've set intentions instead of making resolutions. I think it's a more realistic way so that you don't like complete what you want to.

And then you're like, oh, I'm the worst. I didn't do it. But I set my intentions to just like be healthier, to be more mindful, to like really focus on work.

And this is the first year I feel like I'm actually doing it. I love, yeah. I love that so much. What are your intentions?

Can you share? Yeah. My main focus is this year is to really kind of put myself first, which I've done in the past year. And it helped me so much. It's like the first time in my life I've done it.

I think to just be more mindful in focusing on myself. I think we spend so much time putting efforts into friendships. Any type of relationship, you have to put so much effort into it. But if you're not putting that same effort into yourself, all of those relationships kind of crumble.

So I'm trying to really focus on the relationship with myself and then just honestly be healthier. like I'm a fucking mess, like not a mess in a way of like I'm all over the place, just I eat so unhealthy, I like don't work out, I'm vaping up the wazoo.

So I'm trying to just be a little healthier this year. Yeah, and I think I saw your TikTok about this too, where you wanted to take some steps towards just setting yourself up to like feel better every day.

And I think that's so important. I think a lot of people will go on like a crash diet and they'll follow something, but more so it's like, what's working for my body?

What's not working for my body? What are the choices I know are gonna make me feel better? And can I just try to make more of those choices than the other?

Exactly, I was recently diagnosed with PCOS. So I intentionally have to change my diet in order to balance my hormones, which was a struggle at first

because when you're so used to eating poorly, you just crave it. But now I'm in a stable zone where I feel good and my body feels good and I'm like, holy shit.

Wow, mind blowing, eating healthy actually changes your life. Yeah, the nutritious foods make a huge difference. I was gonna ask about this later,

but we're talking about food. So I had an eating disorder and I post a lot of the internet about recovering from that and positive body image.

And I've loved seeing here and there, you kind of open up a little bit more about your experiences with food and body image. And so I was just curious,

was there a point in your life where you hit a low stride with that? And what has it been like working yourself out of that? Yeah, I would say for sure.

So I had an anxiety induced eating disorder where I was always nauseous. Anytime I ate something I would throw up. So I would just avoid food at all costs

because I knew that it would make me sick