Allison Mack detailed the “pretty extreme” conditions she lived in as a member of NXVIM, including a commitment to stay between 105 and 107 pounds.
On the third episode of the “Allison Mack After NXVIM” podcast, Mack, 43, recalled taking “one-minute” cold showers every morning before she weighed herself to get “an accurate read.”
“I would write down everything I was going to do and at what time I was going to do it and then how it related to a character trait that I was trying to build in myself,” she explained, revealing she had to get permission from NXVIM leader Keith Raniere for her daily schedule . “Every single thing that I did was related to some purpose of my character building.”
One thing that was very important to Raniere, who posed his organization as a women’s empowerment group, was Mack’s weight. Podcast host and journalist Natalie Robehmed noted that Mack, who is 5 ‘5, was “significantly underweight” during her time under Raniere’s watch.
“To achieve this absurd goal weight, Keith put her on a 500 calorie a day diet, less than a third of what’s recommended for an adult woman, basically a starvation regimen,” Robehmed explained.
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Mack, meanwhile, said she was not allowed to eat after 5 p.m.
“I was running 6 miles a day. I was really into half marathons, so I was running at least 6 miles on 500 calories,” she continued. “I was very into yoga, so I was doing yoga. I did yoga every morning for about six years.”
Mack’s breakfast would be “kabocha squash, plain nonfat Greek yogurt, a little bit of honey, a little bit of almond butter, and maybe some blueberries,” she recalled. Lunch was a salad and dinner was “glass noodles with kale, jalapeno peppers, and more kabocha squash,” Robehmed said.
Mack started to turn orange because of all the squash she was eating.
“My palms turned orange, my face turned orange,” she said. “My mom was like, ‘You need to not eat so much squash.’”
Mack would “chew so much gum” during this time because she was “so f***ing hungry” throughout the day.
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“I only chewed cinnamon gum, because cinnamon gum doesn’t have aspartame in it, so I was still being healthy,” she continued. “The inside of my mouth was raw from all of the gum, because the cinnamon gum would fry your mouth, and I’d have like an entire pack in my mouth at one time. I obsessively chewed gum and drank sparkling water.”
Monday was a day of fasting for Mack.
“I would stop eating at 5 p.m. on Sunday, and then I wouldn’t eat again until 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning,” she continued. “I always had these huge scarves, because I was always, always cold. I was so thin that I could touch my fingers together around my waist. I mean, I was anorexic.”
Following her 2018 arrest, Mack was sentenced to three years in prison for her connection to Raniere and NXVIM. She was released in July 2023 after 21 months. Raniere, meanwhile, is serving 120 years behind bars.
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Alliance for Eating Disorders website or call their hotline at +1 (866) 662-1235. Text “ALLIANCE” to 741741 for free, 24/7 support.
New episodes of “Allison After NXIVM” are released every Tuesday. CBC True Crime subscribers can get early access to all episodes.
