Ella Magers: 0:05

Oh, alexandra, I am so honored that you’re here. I’m really to be able to share this time and space with you. I see you as someone who has paved your own really powerful path from a very young age, and your deep commitments to making this world a healthier, more just and loving place for everyone really inspires me, and I’m so grateful for you to be on our show.Alexandra Paul: 0:33

Well, thank you so much, Ella. It’s so nice to see you again.Ella Magers: 0:37

Yeah, you too. And as a side note, I was just listening today to one of your recent episodes on Switch for Good podcast and you had talked about mouth taping at night.Alexandra Paul: 0:49

Oh, okay.Ella Magers: 0:50

Just a random fun fact, my partner Quinn. He tapes his mouth at night and I had never heard of that before and he swears by it. And because it works so well for him, it works very well for me. Because he is quiet, he sleeps so deeply, it does no snoring and as soon as he takes it off and it falls asleep it’s snoring. It’s amazing.Alexandra Paul: 1:12

Interesting. So when you met him, was he already mouth taping Yep, he was already mouth taping.Alexandra Paul: 1:18

Okay, yeah, good, yes, it really does help with snoring. And also, I don’t do it for snoring. My husband says I don’t snore. He says I purr. I don’t know. I love that, but I do it because I read a book about. It was called the Oxygen Advantage. But I read other books subsequently Breath for one. James Nestor is a very good author and he talks about the benefits of breathing through your nose. And I was definitely a mouth breather and so this has helped me a lot, not only when, like sometimes, if I, if I have a cold sore, I won’t put a tape, tape on, or if I’ve put too much moisturizer on my lips, the tape won’t stick and I won’t um sleep with it. Uh, and I noticed that I my instinct is to breathe through my nose now, so that’s good.Ella Magers: 2:11

Okay, so it’s like training you also to do it without the tape.Alexandra Paul: 2:15

Oh, that’s so interesting. But I think I’ll just keep with the tape because it’s just, it’s so easy and I must look really funny when I’m getting if somebody like if I’m you know, I go to the bathroom at night. If somebody encountered me in the hallway my tape on and my mouth guard in and I used to also sleep. I used to have issues with, and I think it was a little bit of an iron deficiency. So I’ve solved that. But I used to have, I’m like, restless leg and the only thing that helped was when I put toe spacers on. I can’t explain why it helped for my sister too. So anyway, so can you imagine me going to the bathroom mouth tape?Ella Magers: 3:00

toe spacers. Do you clench your teeth, teeth? Is that why you do mouthguards?Alexandra Paul: 3:04

yes, that’s why so do I.Ella Magers: 3:06

I think we have a lot in common. I also have uh, I don’t think I have restless leg, but I I’m very my skin or something is very sensitive to like the sheets. If there’s a little fold in the sheets or if you know, if I feel, then I’ll have to move. So I I’m awful to sleep with. I feel sorry for anyone sleeping with me, oh goodness, okay. So one of the things I like to ask my guests, because you have an extensive bio and you’ve accomplished so much in between your accomplishments and your activism and your acting and all the accolades behind all that or beyond all that, who is Alexandra Paul? How would you answer?Alexandra Paul: 3:48

that, wow, okay. Well, I consider myself very much a twin. I’m a twin, and so that’s very important to me, my twin sister and I’ve been with my husband too for 28 years, so I do also consider myself, uh, actually very good taste in men and a good partner to him. But I also, um, consider myself someone who struggled with an eating disorder and overcame it, most importantly, and deals with a lot of things not anxiety, but worry more than I know that as I look back on my life so much, and I my guiding principle is what Ingrid Newkirk said, which is be kind, be kind, be kind, and that’s, that’s sort of how the most important thing and I look, I look at the world through a lens of environmental ethic. So when I see a car, I think hmm, what’s the mileage on that car?Alexandra Paul: 5:07

Is it electric? I don’t look at the design or how fast it goes, or technological marvel. No, it’s about how it affects the environment. And the same with I also, and also animals of course. So I look through the lens, the life through that lens. Pretty much everything is through an environmental or an animal justice lens, I would guess.Ella Magers: 5:30

Right, yeah, and you were what? In sixth grade. I found this so fascinating that you were in sixth grade when you really made a conscious choice that you were going to be child-free. Like I’m trying to think of some of your milestones along your life when you had this kind of moment of ah, I’m going to take a stand, I’m going to do something about this problem that I’m learning about or seeing, and that seems like a big one. Can you tell about that story?Alexandra Paul: 5:59

Thank you. Well, I grew up in the sevents when there were a lot of commercials about starvation in India and Africa, and there were a lot of commercials about it, and so I was very affected by that and thought, well, there’s too many people in the world to feed everybody, was the message that I got, and that was a very simplistic message. But then, when I was in sixth grade, my glee club teacher, mr Collins, said that we had to change the words in the song that we were singing because it said three billion people wait, would say. Did it say three? It would have been 4 billion people in the world.Alexandra Paul: 6:45

Because when I was born in 1963, there were 3 billion people. And he said you need to change it to no, you need to change it to 4 billion, because there are now 4 billion people in the world. That was it. And I was like what, 4 billion people, that’s so many. And that was really an eye-opener for me. And I did tell my mom that I wasn’t gonna have children. I might adopt, but I wasn’t gonna have my own because there were too many kids in the world. And she said oh, honey, you’ll change your mind once your biological clock clicks, in which it didn’t really.Alexandra Paul: 7:23

I think it didn’t. I probably because I was so strongly aligned with my ethics about not having too many people on the planet crowding out animals and and also other people, Right, you know?Ella Magers: 7:42

Yeah, yeah, and it’s. It’s so interesting. We’ve got quite a little circle of you, me, Dotsie, women and I’ve got two really close girlfriends who, you know, chose not to have children. And I think things are changing, Culture is changing, but there’s still that. Did your, did your mom ever? At what point did your mom know that that was not going to happen? Was she disappointed? Was she hoping you would have children?Alexandra Paul: 8:10

and the environment and my sister, my twin is gay and so for a long time there wasn’t even a question about whether she was going to have kids or not. So I think she also grew up with a life that was child free. And so my mom yes, she has cried over the fact that she has no grandchildren, and she now recognizes that there are benefits, because now we’re there for her 100%, because we don’t have children, so we’re able to take care of her. Now the question is what about us when we get older? And that was a question that I wrestled with when I was 40 and my dad we were taking care of my dad.Alexandra Paul: 9:05

I thought, well, who’s going to take care of me when I’m older, and what am I missing? These are the questions. And well, maybe I could adopt a kid and save a child. And my husband looked at me. He said you know, all those are not. I’m not hearing you say you want a child. Those aren’t strong enough reasons to raise a child. And so, yeah, I decided to take out long-term healthcare insurance instead, so that when I am older, I can help myself be taken care of.Ella Magers: 9:38

Yeah, that’s interesting, because that certainly has popped in my head. You know, the older I start to get and some of my friends without children, we’ve all been like well, what if we have our own little commune and then we hire a? You know, we have a mutual, a kitchen with a vegan nurse you know to help us out where we need it and we’ll have like can we create that? So we’re we’re exploring all sorts of possibilities.Alexandra Paul: 10:04

Can we create that? So we’re exploring all sorts of possibilities. Well, that’s the thing, you’re right. I mean I have friends too, that we’re talking about that also because I have some friends who are child-free and having children doesn’t guarantee any way that you’re taking care of.Alexandra Paul: 10:15

It costs a lot of money to raise one child, two child, three children. The average number of children per family now in the world is 2.3. So in America we have, on average, 2.1. Yeah, 2.1. It might be I think it’s under now, it’s might be it’s under two now, but still it’s very expensive. So, and I don’t want to reduce children to money, but we could find ways to take care of ourselves as we’re older, other than just depending on our children or our child yeah.Ella Magers: 10:51

Yeah, and, as you said, you have a child, there’s no guarantee that that child’s going to be around or be wanting to take care of you or capable of taking care of you. Yeah, no guarantees there. Yeah, exactly, not a reason to have children.Alexandra Paul: 11:04

no guarantees there, yeah, exactly.Ella Magers: 11:04

Not a reason to have children.Alexandra Paul: 11:05

We have more control.Ella Magers: 11:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And at what point did you really feel called to make overpopulation? You know something that you were really vocal about, that you were going to use your platform for that. You were going to actually do a Ted talk on it, about that you were going to use your platform for that.Alexandra Paul: 11:26

You were going to actually do a TED talk on it. I, in 19, sorry, in yeah, 1991, I developed a school program where another professor and I went around to schools in the LA area and spoke on the issue of human numbers and how fast we were growing to try and combat the pro-natalist culture that we have, which basically assumes that you’re going to have children, and preferably two or even, back then, three. And because you know, lonely children only children are lonely children, supposedly, yeah, and so we developed a program and I spoke to over 6,000 school children during that time. I took time off from acting to do that because I felt so strongly that you know there were and back then there were 5 billion people, five and a half billion, so it was, you know, many fewer because now we have over 8 billion. So obviously my work has not, has not worked.Alexandra Paul: 12:33

I was born, as I said, when there were 3 billion and now I’m 60, there are 8 billion, has the populations more than doubled and it’s quadrupled in my mother’s lifetime. And I’m just so concerned about it because I hear people talking about so many issues like climate change or animals, habitat, wildlife, clean water, available water, all that stuff and it’s all to me. Housing, it’s all tied. Traffic, it’s all tied in, even if it’s just peripherally, it’s all tied into the number of people that are on the planet. And I, I I am concerned that people are so afraid of talking about this issue because there have been bad actors who’ve tried to stop people from having kids, and I just want to be clear that I don’t want to stop people from having kids. If you want kids and you really want them, have them, but think about the future and consider having only one or two at the most. And if you don’t really want them, don’t have them, because it’s such an important job and there’s so many people who just kind of fall into parenting because of cultural pressures.Ella Magers: 13:49

I mean, it’s just another issue that’s so taboo because of the programs we’re fed from the time we’re born, that that’s what you’re supposed to do, all these supposed to habits and the way you’re supposed to live your life. And it seems like you’ve been and I’ve, you know, with me, with animals too been somebody who just kind of was able to see that programming for what it was and make your own decisions. What, what do you think? Where do you think that came from? Like, did that? Was that innate in you?Alexandra Paul: 14:22

Yeah, I I’ve never felt well. Maybe you know I’ve been in a life that doesn’t isn’t very traditional being an actress. There’s a lot of acceptance, a lot of um, my friends in Hollywood don’t have children, didn’t get married, um all that. If they had children, some of them didn’t have partners. So it was a very conscious decision and so I think also my environmental ethic is so important. I mean, I really I grew up first with an environmental ethic and then now it’s broadened to include animals, uh, first and foremost, but uh, very much an environmental ethic. And seeing that, it just was logical to me. Just like we see overpopulation of deer and then the deer starve and people can also overpopulate.Alexandra Paul: 15:15

But humans get very angry if you start saying that that we are overpopulated because we somehow believe that we don’t what we don’t have to abide by the laws of nature and math. We don’t have to abide by the laws of nature and math. But the truth is is that when we ask for a world that has fewer people, that’s better for everybody on the planet, because right now there are so many have-nots and when we have fewer people on the planet, everyone will be able to share what Mother Earth can provide instead of having rich people and very poor people, the people who are going to suffer most. When the population reaches 10 billion, which the UN says it’s going to reach this century around in about 50 years, we are the ones that are going to suffer most. So often people will say that people who talk about limiting fertility that somehow I must be racist or classist or something.Alexandra Paul: 16:16

No, I care deeply about the world’s poorest and want believe that everybody, everybody, needs to have smaller families, especially those of us in America right who use so much. So it’s an issue that, like unfortunately I touched on, had bad actors in the 70s, where China was forcing people to have abortions and have fewer kids and India was doing the same and there has been sterilization of different groups of people. That is not at all part of what I see at all. I want people to see the positive side of being child-free, like you and I see, instead of getting brainwashed which it is brainwashing a lot about how wonderful parenthood is and it is wonderful, but it’s not all wonderful and being child-free is also wonderful.Ella Magers: 17:15

Right, yeah, yeah, it’s looking at both sides of that coin. It’s so important, I think, also looking back now to kind of the next milestone. Looking back now to kind of the next milestone vegetarian at age 14, right, is when you went vegetarian and diet for a small planet, was the book that helped you get there.Alexandra Paul: 17:37

Yeah, ella, thank you so much for doing your homework.Ella Magers: 17:41

Yeah, no, your, your story is fascinating. The biggest in preparing for this interview was like oh my gosh, I want to talk about so many things. Where are we going to go with this? Because you’ve just had such a colorful life and there’s so much to it, especially when you’ve been in the public eye and you’ve had so many things to deal with in your life that I’ve never had to deal with. A lot of people listening haven’t to deal with, and yet the things you were dealing with are very relatable to a lot of people. So it’s just fascinating to me how you’ve been so courageous in using your platform to do good and to make an impact, and I want to cover all of that as the best we can. So, yeah, 14 at 14 decided to go vegetarian and then and was it just reading the book? Can you share a little bit more about what went into that decision?Alexandra Paul: 18:41

Diet for a Small Planet is a book by Francis Ford, more LePay, written in the early seventies, so this was about 1976, I think I went let’s see 1976, 1977, that I went vegetarian and it was basically for environmental reasons. She was making the argument that we should. She kept eggs in, so it wasn’t at all, and milk too, so it wasn’t an animal treatise at all. It wasn’t until I was in high school and I did a book report on the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer that I saw the animal component very strongly, and my brother at the same time we were. We went to boarding school as kids and he was in a different boarding school, but he he became vegan and at very young age, and I remained vegetarian for way too long.Ella Magers: 19:30

Right, and you talk about that. And then you, between high school and college, you took some acting classes, you’re doing some modeling, took some and you, you talked about how something opened up for you at that time. What? What opened up?Alexandra Paul: 19:49

Well, are you talking about in terms?Ella Magers: 19:51

of just yeah, away from yeah in terms of life, like just it sparked something in you that that helped change the trajectory of of your life.Alexandra Paul: 20:00

So I was during high school. I had a severe eating disorder. I was anorexic and, but most most prominently, bulimic, and it it followed me from ages 16 to 28. So I was modeling Can you believe it Like I already had an eating disorder and I had to put myself in that somehow for validation. The the bulimia got so bad that I left modeling. I moved to Canada to be with my boyfriend and told my agent why, and she said, yeah, then go. And I already had taken a year off before going to college. This was during that time, and so I wasn’t planning to be a model more than that year anyway. And during, but before I left, I had auditioned for a TV movie about models and they were looking for an unknown girl to play a model in the lead in the movie, and so I got a call back when I was in Canada and had to fly back, they flew me to Hollywood and I got the role. And that was what, yes, definitely changed the trajectory of my life.Alexandra Paul: 21:15

I moved to Los Angeles and still thinking that I was going to go to college after I did this movie, and then, three weeks before, I decided you know, I’m going to be really old when I get out of college, 21. As only an 18 year old can think right. So I better just take advantage of the momentum now and I’m going to stay. And my mom, she, she committed the mortal mistake of going back to college when, after she divorced my dad when she was 40. And one of her refrains that she would say was oh, college is wasted on the young. So by the time I got to this place, I was. I was able to say to her mom you said yourself that college is wasted on the young. So I’m going to take I’m going to go to college later and just see what happens here in Hollywood. And I never went to college because I stayed busy in Hollywood for a long time.Ella Magers: 22:13

Yes, you did. How many features in movies, TVs?Alexandra Paul: 22:20

I have been in over 100 movies and television shows. Mostly have had the fortune to be the first or second female lead. As I’ve gotten older, I play now, you know, the grandmother, the lawyer who does, you know the not the first or second lead, but I did have very, very wonderful opportunities for the first 30 years of my career and hopefully more to come, because there’s a lot of roles for women of all ages. Well, I’m sorry there aren’t a lot, but there are roles for women of all ages.Ella Magers: 22:55

So and one of the things I love hearing you talk about is how you put into your contracts some stipulations about what makeup you would wear and that you wouldn’t wear fur on set. And I know, when I was had a little bout in like fitness modeling, that was something that was always. It actually just caused me to be like maybe I’m not going to, you know, pursue this because I would be so worried about, okay, which? Oh, if I get booked by this company, oh, but am I supporting, you know, do they wear, use leather, do they use, you know, but products that test on animals? Then I’m not going to take that job and I don’t think I could be that picky. How did you? You know, you just put it in there, and how did that?Alexandra Paul: 23:40

yeah, how did that work? Yeah, I was lucky because I was playing the leads then, so I had the if I was playing. Well, now it’s much easier. So, even if I come on set plus, I’m, you know, an old veteran so if I come on set and say, hey, I can only use stuff not tested on animals, the makeup artist will be like, oh, I’ve got a ton of that, oh, I love that, or I don’t use anything tested on animals.Alexandra Paul: 24:02

But back then it wasn’t very. There were only a couple makeups MAC, mac which was not tested on animals. Then now, unfortunately, they do test on animals because of the rules in china and they want to sell in china. And then there was joe blasco, which is a very hollywood brand. Um, so those two did not test, so I was able to. Makeup artists were fine with it, nobody ever complained. It was really nice. Of course, the internet wasn’t around so it wasn’t as easy to just you couldn’t just go Google does this product test on animals or get an app for it. But yeah, so I stuck to Joe Blasco and Mac mostly.Ella Magers: 24:42

Got it, got it. And let’s talk about your and this fascinates me all the arrests that you’ve had with direct activism. At what point did you get into direct activism and civil disobedience? Do you remember your first arrest?Alexandra Paul: 24:57

I do, I do. It was in 1987. So I was in my 20s and I had just been on. I just walked for five weeks across America on the Great Peace March because I was very concerned about nuclear us all getting blown up by nuclear weapons. That is some, that is an issue that you know there was. Each Russia and America had like 20 to 30,000 nuclear weapons on each side and now we have like 5,000 or 2,000. So there’s been a lot of progress in that area. I’m sure that the ones we have now are far more destructive, but at least we are less apt to be blown up by mistake because there are fewer weapons. But I was very concerned.Alexandra Paul: 25:42

I was pretty sure at that age let’s see 19, it would be 1986 that I would, so I was 23 that I wasn’t going to make it to 35 because of the nuclear issue. So I had been on the Great Peace March and we had gone to the nuclear test site in Nevada where all the nuclear weapons were tested above ground and that were continuing to be tested underground now after laws had passed to protect groundwater and such. But you know, it gets in there anyway, folks. But so I went back to the test site after walking on the Great Peace March from LA to Las Vegas. I went back several times a year actually for the next 15 years to do peaceful civil disobedience. And so that first time yeah, it was 1987, I think yeah.Ella Magers: 26:35

And I know you talk about your kind of your privileges that give you a unique opportunity when it comes to direct action. Can you share a little more about that? And I think somebody maybe put that idea in your head and you ran with it.Alexandra Paul: 26:51

Well, I’ve always been like my mom was, and people ask like, because all of us kids are activists. So people say, well, what, how did you get that way? And my mom was, she always voted, she always gave blood, she donated her time, she, she all sorts of things she would do. She boycotted lettuce when Cesar Chavez’s farm workers were boycotting it, and so that kind of walking, your talk, was very much in our household, so it. But I and my brother and sister also, were more comfortable just being in the street holding a sign, vigiling, and civil disobedience, peaceful civil disobedience kind of just felt natural to us, to me certainly one of the reasons. And so I felt like, because I am a white woman, because I was in a job where I they weren’t going to fire me, because I got arrested because people get arrested a lot in Hollywood for far worse than peacefully walking across a no trespass sign, passed a no trespass sign Right, and because I didn’t have children and because I didn’t have to show up to work the next day.Alexandra Paul: 28:11

Usually my work did interfere a couple times, but you know, I have the ability to be an activist this way but, not everybody does, and that’s totally fine and everyone should be the activist they feel most comfortable in, should be the activist they feel most comfortable in and I guess I’ve always felt very comfortable and I love the community of people in the streets and organizing and, yeah, being more up out there, I guess behind the scenes, although I’m a very good envelope stuffer.Alexandra Paul: 28:44

Back in the eighties and seventies, eighties and nineties, you know, you did a lot of envelope stuffing because there was no such thing as email, but yeah, so I feel like, being a white woman, I wasn’t, I’m not afraid of the justice system as much as a male might be or a person of color. So that first arrest I actually went to jail for several days. I actually went to jail for several days and yeah, it was a big learning experience. And subsequently I’ve been in jail for just five and a half days was the longest that I went in LA at the LA detention center for protesting the Iraq war and and then a couple several days for animals, for uh rescuing animals.Ella Magers: 29:30

Do you know how many times you’ve been arrested altogether at this point? You know?Alexandra Paul: 29:34

it’s over 24 probably, or 25, because I would go back to the nuclear test site several times a year and get arrested, peacefully and eventually. It’s interesting that you you know the point of civil disobedience is not only to to show how committed you are to get press attention for the cause, but also to pressure the powers that be because it’s expensive to arrest everybody and book them and things and eventually the government, because that’s basically it was federal land that we were protesting on nuclear testing as a government project. They stopped busing us to the local jail and instead they just built a fencing on the property that had a bathroom and water that they would herd us into, then they’d process us and then they would herd us into, then they’d process us and then they would release us. For the most part it was too expensive to prosecute us. So I only went to jail that for one time, because after that they would just drop the charges.Ella Magers: 30:43

And how many more times do you plan to get arrested in your life, do you think?Alexandra Paul: 30:49

Oh, many more many more. Yeah, many more. I think it’s a. I think civil disobedience is a very effective way of bringing attention to a cause. It’s not, once again, the the. The issue has to also have the all the other aspects, that the fundraising, the letter writers, the lobbyists, the all sorts of things to affect change.Ella Magers: 31:14

And what caught like at this point moving forward, what causes do you feel most connected to or inspired by right now?Alexandra Paul: 31:24

Right now, I am focused on animal rights and human overpopulation. Those are the two that seem to me to be the most where I’m most needed as an activist. I was a part of the very, very beginning, and now it’s become so much more mainstream. I’m leaving that to the, to other folks, and working on issues that I just think are very important also, which is animal rights and human overpopulation.Ella Magers: 32:01

Beautiful. I want you to come one day. Maybe come visit us at Hogs and Kisses Farm Sanctuary. We’ve got a beautiful B&B We’d love to put you up, so I’m going to put that out there.Alexandra Paul: 32:11

Thank you so much. I would love that.Ella Magers: 32:15

So let’s talk a little bit now. I’m curious how you see you know you’ve been abstinent from purging right and how do you describe it since you were 28? Is that correct?Alexandra Paul: 32:32

Yeah, so 32 years now. Yeah, so I consider myself abstinent. Abstinent sounds like such a funny word, though, so I just say I haven’t binged or purged for 32 years. Yeah, 32 years, for um 32 years.Ella Magers: 32:47

30, yeah, 32 years, so do you consider yourself in recovery, as though that you know you’re going to be in recovery, or do you feel recovered? How do you see that?Alexandra Paul: 33:05

I remember dot dot C really feels like she’s recovered. I do not. I still use food. I oh I haven’t, just to be clear, I haven’t binged. I haven’t binged really in the 31 years. Maybe a little twinge of that, cause there’s a difference between overeating and binging. It’s a mindset right.Alexandra Paul: 33:21

Yes. So I haven’t binged in and I haven’t had that desire, that that overpowering craving to just stuff myself till I’m sick and then throw it up. You know that sort of self-loathing. I haven’t had that. But I definitely use food Like there’ll be times when I just do not eat well and I go right to sugar and I’ll stay on eating sugar because it’s comforting, but I don’t binge on it, I just eat it and I don’t eat enough vegetables.Alexandra Paul: 33:51

So I would say that that is where my work lies. But like my husband’s been with me for 28 years and he says oh, alexandra, you have improved so much, you’re like you’re almost normal now. Whatever normal is right, but still sugar remains my Achilles heel. I would say that I’m addicted to sugar and there are times when I’ve gone off it but then there are other times, basically, where I am able to keep it really a good place in my diet and then it kind of starts to creep more and more and more and then I have to pull back. So I have to always be vigilant. Does that sound familiar to you?Ella Magers: 34:33

Oh, definitely, I think there’s and it is. It’s the mindset when it comes to what we’re eating, how much we’re eating, and for me it’s this very much ability now to be conscious with my meal, to be conscious of making a conscious choice. So sometimes I consciously make a choice that is not the healthiest choice and I’m still making that choice. It doesn’t feel like the food has the power over me, if that makes sense.Alexandra Paul: 35:05

Yes, that’s a beautiful way to put it. Yes, I totally agree. I feel that that’s where I am, and then I will, however, go to periods where I feel like, oh, it’s getting a little bit too much and I have to pull back.Ella Magers: 35:19

Yeah, yeah, I pretty much. A few years ago I cut out sugar altogether for a good maybe six weeks. All refined sugar, even stevia. Anything that would maybe prompt a craving for sugar, I cut that all out. I think I even might have cut out fruit for a little bit just to get that sweet taste, because I had gotten to a place where I was eating a little bit of coconut milk ice cream. It wasn’t the end of the world, it was the kind without the added sugar. But I felt every night after dinner I really wanted some and I felt like it was an addiction and I said I don’t, I don’t want to be controlled by this. So I cut out sugar altogether and I really haven’t gone back. Now I can eat a little bit here and there, but in general it’s. It’s gotten to the point where I’m just I don’t crave it and that’s that’s. The place is a really nice place to be with that.Alexandra Paul: 36:16

Yes, you know what I mean, that is for sure. Yeah, and I too have given it up for months and it’s so great which is so weird that I would go back on it, but it’s so great not to be so. Here’s my philosophy about sugar or about anything that you know. If somebody’s struggling with alcohol, or or some specific food, is that for me, when it comes to sugar, uh, two is too many and a hundred is not enough. So it’s always so. I’m never satisfied wholly. When I eat sugar, there’s always that. Well, when I finish it, I always feel a little bit sad. Yes, so when am I going to, you know? I think, okay, well, I’ll have some tomorrow. So, when you don’t eat sugar at all, that just never enters into your mind. Right?Alexandra Paul: 36:57

There’s so much more peace. You know, because you’re like nope, you know, I know I can’t be satisfied anyway, so if I give it up, okay.Ella Magers: 37:05

It’s so true Every time you start, you’re always going to have to stop and be like, oh, I really want a little more, you know. So you have to go through that kind of.Alexandra Paul: 37:15

Every time, every time Every time, unless you binge, which until you’re sick, which is what I used to do, and I don’t do that anymore. So it’s more, like you said, my conscious mind goes oh, put it down. Alexandra and there’s that little bit of spackness. So it’s more like you said, my conscious mind goes oh put it down, alexandra, and there’s that little bit of sadness.Ella Magers: 37:38

So it’s true, abstinence can often be easier, moderation or trying to manage. How do you help as a health coach when somebody’s kind of battling with that inability to stop once they get started, but maybe they don’t have a full out eating disorder, but there’s some disordered eating in there? How do you work with somebody around that?Alexandra Paul: 37:57

So, just to be clear, I’m no longer. I closed my health coaching business because of my working with my mom, being with my mom, so I couldn’t do both and really be good to both. So, but I had such an education seven years of coaching. So one of the most important things is, if somebody wants to cut down on something, is to just make it easier for them and not ask them to engage their willpower or white knuckle it, because so it’s really important that it not be in their environment, because so it’s really important that it not be in their environment. And when it’s not around, studies have shown that people, if they have to make an effort to get to something, they’re more more likely less likely to do it the harder it is.Alexandra Paul: 38:40

Yes, and it can be as simple as just putting if you live with a lot of other people’s, putting the foods that you crave in a cupboard that’s either high or very low and behind, so you don’t see them. If you have it out on the kitchen table, of course you’re going to eat it, yes, and so they’re. Just to get it out of your environment was number is very, very important. And then also to plan ahead about okay, so you don’t want to eat dessert. But you’re you know. Now you feel like you don’t want to eat dessert but you’re going to want to eat it and come supper time.Alexandra Paul: 39:18

So what are you going to do when you start craving? What kind of substitutions? And they might not be food. It might be getting up and turning on some really pleasurable TV show. What are you going to do instead to get you out of the habit? Because a lot of our eating, for example, is habit and some of it’s and also it helps, of course, with the craving that you talk about is that once we get out of the habit, we also our bodies doesn’t expect it anymore, and so you know we all had habits that we’ve given up tons of things in our life, Like so many people in college ate pizza every night for dinner, an entire pizza, and they don’t do that anymore. So we all can change our habits.Alexandra Paul: 40:06

It seems hard in the beginning. We all can change our habits. It seems hard in the beginning, so planning ahead and figuring out. People always said to me oh no, I’ll just not, I won’t, I just won’t eat dessert. I’m like, no, it doesn’t work that way. It feels like it does, but no, it’s not that easy, otherwise you would have given up dessert a long time ago.Alexandra Paul: 40:25

What are you going to do instead of having dessert to make you feel good and not deprived, so we can get you out of this habit of having dessert every night. So that’s a biggie. The best thing would be to not go to the restaurants that have your dessert. But some people don’t feel like they can’t control that part of their lives, like where they eat, especially if they have family who want dessert or they go on business dinners. So yeah, although I had a client once who said I have to go to business dinners, business dinners, I hate them, I hate them. But I said you know you hate them. Don’t you think, like other people hate them too? What if you suggested just, you know, let’s just have a meat and have a tea or a coffee or a drink. If you have to, let’s just have an hors d’oeuvres. Don’t you think they want to get home to their families too? Right, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, they want. I’m like, no, they don’t. And then, of course, covid taught us all that everyone’s just fine staying inside.Ella Magers: 41:30

Yeah, totally, and I think also it’s that ability to pause right Before you take the action, Because if you don’t have that pause, then it’s automated and it just goes. So, training ourselves to pause before we act and then to have a I’m calling them declarations these days affirmation, whatever, but have this thought ready to counter the thought of I really want. But let me pause and say what would I choose if I really loved myself? Or have something there to kind of coach ourselves right? Did I ever tell you my granola story? I don’t know, Tell me. So I was in my disordered eating days. I was addicted to this one granola, this specific granola that you could buy in bulk at Whole Foods, and it was so delicious and it was. You know, granola is just so calorie dense, it’s loaded with most of them are loaded with sugar and so sweet and delicious, but it has a health halo, but it has a health halo.Ella Magers: 42:35

It’s so true. Anyhow, I could not stop myself Once I started eating granola. I could not stop myself. So I started, instead of just not buying granola, I started buying it, still in bulk, but I would put it in bags in my trunk and I would carry into my home on the only the amount that I wanted to let myself eat that day. But I was still ruled. I mean, it was better, but I was still ruled. And then one day I was with my fitness, like this fitness icon in my, in my town, and she was with me and I I opened my trunk and she and she’s like what is that? Massive bags of granola. And she’s like, oh no. And she, she just took them. She was, she was hardcore. She just took them and she put them in the dumpster and she’s like no more. And I was like you know, and I was like I know, I know, I don’t want to be ruled by the granola anymore.Alexandra Paul: 43:33

And so what happened? How was it for you? Oh no, I give it up cold turkey?Ella Magers: 43:37

No, no, not at that moment I still had a lot of inner work to do. I mean this, it’s all emotional. I mean I was filling a void. That you know it was definitely. It was a milestone. I mean I I started to really do the work at that point. Up until then it was like the physical what can I do, right to manipulate my environment so that I don’t make those choices? Not what I could do to manipulate my, my own emotions and really deal with the root of what it was that I was trying to fill.Alexandra Paul: 44:06

You know what I mean it was that I was trying to fill. You know what I mean? Well, you, but you did touch on something that, by having to bring it inside, you made yourself think, rather than just you know, and psychologically we do tend to eat from a bag and then we’ll finish the bag, but because it takes a little effort to open a new bag, it’s like a new thing We’ll be, hence the a hundred, a hundred calories, snack walls and stuff. So it doesn’t. It’s not always, um, you know, healthy, but it is healthier and it does is a step towards being more aware. And I remember when I was, uh, was just, I would start the day for years with a chocolate chip muffin. And my nutritionist said you can’t do that. And I’m like what? No, I, that’s, it makes me feel good. One chocolate chip muffin. And then you know she’s like no, I want you to have something that doesn’t have sugar in it. And I wept. I wept because I said I don’t know what else to eat. Well, I haven’t had a chocolate chip muffin for two decades, I don’t even know.Alexandra Paul: 45:21

You find and I after you find other things that fill you and then they become things you like and you develop new habits. So I think part of it, of course, is inner work, definitely, but I think also once, a lot of it’s just mindlessness, habit, what we’ve been doing, and we can definitely change so much, so much of that is in our control, because willpower is. People say, oh, alexandra, you have so much willpower. I’m like, no, it’s not willpower. It’s not willpower, it’s habit. I’ve changed my habits Right, and yeah, it took a little bit of awareness and maybe a little bit of willpower. That very first time, the first few days, but after that, that very first time the first few days, but after that, no, I’m. You know, you learn how to build new habits that usually are healthier if you’re aware and working on yourself.Ella Magers: 46:18

Yeah, yeah. And then having some goals. I mean you stopped work for what? Nine months to prepare for an eye and you did an Ironman, you did the Hawaii Ironman. I did.Alexandra Paul: 46:28

I did the Hawaii.Ella Magers: 46:29

Ironman, oh my gosh, I am in awe of anyone who does the Ironman, and that’s a and. So you trained for nine months and you really hadn’t. You were already, you know, swimmer, but not biking, not. You had never done a marathon.Alexandra Paul: 46:44

I’d never run more than I think. I’d maybe run 10 miles on my own maybe, but I’d never run more than I think. I’d maybe run 10 miles on my own maybe, but I’d never done a marathon. And the Ironman has a marathon at the end and then it has a two and a half mile swim which I wasn’t worried about. I don’t think I’d swum two and a half miles. Maybe I had teenager and I was 34 when I started training, 33, 33.Alexandra Paul: 47:15

And yeah, I took nine months off because I it was after Baywatch and I’d loved shooting Baywatch and I’d done a whole bunch of movies and another pilot, maybe two pilots for other networks and it just they were nice, they were good, but they weren’t that community in the home that I had and I just I was okay. I thought you know I need another adventure and I was worried it was going to ruin my career. But it turned out to be actually very good for my acting career. Because after you come off a series like Baywatch, everyone thinks you’re just incompetent and dumb and I don’t know, they just they just don’t give you any credit for anything. And then you go do an Ironman.Alexandra Paul: 47:51

Then it counteracts their former stereotype of you, and back then it was the 90s, 97. So people weren’t really doing the Ironman as much as they do now. Yeah.Ella Magers: 48:06

That’s awesome, that’s so awesome.Alexandra Paul: 48:08

I love that.Ella Magers: 48:09

And how did? How did it go? I really didn’t read anything about that?Alexandra Paul: 48:13

Yeah, oh yeah, well, great, I mean, I I had. I struggled with something that I found a solution to later. I struggled with drinking water. I would get this air bubble on the top of my chest and it made it hard to breathe. But later, when I was doing some marathons, I discovered that if I had a straw that drank from a straw. So I would cut a little mini straw and keep it in my fanny pack and then when I drank, instead of drinking out of gulping air at the same time, I just took a straw and drunk that way. So I got rid of that. So, yeah, it was.Alexandra Paul: 48:48

It was 13 hours, so it’s not like I’m a speed demon, but I certainly was well under the cutoff, that’s for sure. So I think I defied expectations, but I did train very hard. You know I am a very, you know, I I like to fall in school. I was very good at school because I fought. I just did my homework and I did what I was asked. And same thing with the training my, my coach was a former Ironman winner and so I did every single thing he asked me to do, except for one day out of that nine months. And he, he was kind of surprised, because I think he too thought oh my God, who is this person? She’s never even done a marathon. She doesn’t really know how to ride a bike.Ella Magers: 49:30

He didn’t know you. No, he didn’t know me, but he knows me now.Alexandra Paul: 49:34

Yeah.Ella Magers: 49:35

I bet that’s amazing. What are some of the things now that are most challenging for you just in your life? I know one thing that I’ve heard you talk about is that you don’t procrastinate, you pre-crastinate Is that the word? I had never heard that word before and it kind of is very descriptive, Like I get what that means, which can be good, I think, sometimes, but also sometimes probably not so great.Alexandra Paul: 50:04

Right. So I am the opposite of a procrastinator. I will do things right away and not, and then I’ll forget whether I’ve done them or I won’t give myself the time to really think about them. So there are, and sometimes things need to marinate before you rush it and finish a job, so respond to an email or whatever. So there are some downsides, but I do. And so procrastinate was the was the word for someone who doesn’t procrastinate and does things right away. I don’t know if that that article was written by someone who made up that word or not, but that’s the word I use now.Alexandra Paul: 50:44

So it has served me well because I think my discipline has Like and I’m not putting myself down when I say this, but I’m kind of an all round person Like I’m okay at a lot of things. I’m not excellent at one specific thing, I’m not a genius in any way. So my discipline has enabled me to get ahead of other people who might be super talented but don’t have discipline, and it also has helped me feel good about myself, so that I don’t. I’m always working on trying to be better, and it makes my life happier, even though people go God, don’t you? You know, don’t you want to relax and I’m like, no, I do relax, I’m happy, while you’re relaxing and going, oh, I shouldn’t be relaxing, I’m having a great time at the gym.Alexandra Paul: 51:43

So I I think that my discipline, especially in my acting career, served me really well because, you know, I’m a, I’m an okay actress, I’m fine, I can I certainly can make dialogue that’s not great, believable, which is a challenge, and I don’t know if some of the Oscar winners would be able to do that. But I have worked under really, really stringent conditions. So when, you know, I heard once Charlize Theron say oh my God, I shot this movie in 18 days and it was so hard. And I thought, 18 days, girl, you’re so lucky because the the higher budget movies always take longer. But if you’re in the independent film world, like I am, I mean I’ve done big, big studio features, but I’ve done a lot of independence. You are cranking through. There’s no, you know, there’s no big warm trailer that you hang out in until you know the you’re, it’s, you’re on the set working, shooting the next scene. So my discipline has gotten me, uh, I think, to uh a place where I might not have normally gotten to in acting if I wasn’t disciplined.Ella Magers: 52:52

Yeah, well, so many things that you’ve accomplished. I mean, the discipline has been with you for it seems like your whole life.Alexandra Paul: 53:02

Yeah, no, it has. Because I think I realized young you know, Alexandra, you’re not like super good at anything. When I was in grade school I wasn’t a very good athlete. I was a good student, but only because I really worked hard. I was a very good student only because I really worked hard. I was a very good student, I worked super hard at it. I wasn’t like one of those people who just could not do the homework and study.Ella Magers: 53:25

Well, that’s an extraordinary thing in and of itself that your, you know your drive, the drive you had to to do. I mean that’s, that’s extraordinary you know, but I know what you mean.Ella Magers: 53:37

I kind of feel very similar myself, like I’m I’m good at a lot of things, I’m very well-rounded, I’ve got a lot of things that I’ve learned to do because, you know, being a solopreneur you learn to do a lot of things. You know, I’m not an Olympic athlete but I can do a lot of different. You know, calisthenics, exercise, there’s just yeah, but, but the drive is there and getting up every day.Alexandra Paul: 54:02

I see that in you very, very much and I think in the. In the end, I think we’re lucky to have that. I think we are.Ella Magers: 54:11

Yeah, yeah, thank you, yeah, as we wrap up here, alexandra, I think when we were just chatting before we popped on, we were talking about a couple of the books Pema, chodron I just you had said you read which book of hers.Alexandra Paul: 54:28

I read when Things Fall Apart Things.Ella Magers: 54:30

Fall Apart and I just read how we Live Is how we Die, which I have now assigned to two of my private clients to read, because she just has such an incredible way of expressing the grief I’m going through with Shai. And did you read that at an opportune time? That was when you needed it.Alexandra Paul: 54:55

I passed around my family before my brother, jonathan, who became the vegan when he was 14. He went to prison for three and a half years for an animal rights issue and it was super hard on everybody. So, uh, yeah, that book was passed around our family and I give it to people when they have a breakup or a loss, because it’s it’s just really good I recommend it. It’s really easy to read too, like all her books.Ella Magers: 55:28

Yeah, yeah, and this other one about grief and then and aging, and you had said you know I’m thinking a lot about mortality. Do you want to kind of share what, what you’re thinking about and why?Alexandra Paul: 55:40

And as we wrap up, well, remember when I said earlier in our in our talk today, that when I thought that when I was 21, I was going to be old, yeah, and now I look back and go you know what, if I had learned to dance because I remember thinking also, I’m 21, I’m too old to learn to dance If I’d learned to dance and I was 21, 40 years later now I would be like an expert. So, yeah, so to everybody who’s out there going, I’m too old. I know that at 60, I’m going to look back when I’m 70 and go Alexandra, 60 is young. So I recognize I’m excited for this decade. But I’m also really aware, because I’m taking care of my mom, who’s 87, how aging affects us and it doesn’t.Alexandra Paul: 56:22

My mom’s was super healthy and it’s she has Parkinson’s. So there’s a lot that she you know it’s not because she didn’t take care of herself, cause I think she’s doing so well because she did take care of herself. But it’s just makes you feel vulnerable when you see someone who your mother, you know fading and then you know that well, we all do it right. But it’s so easy to be able to not think about it unless it’s kind of in your face more, and then you know, I I see that in our sixties that you know people dying and I think, think my god, that guy was 61 and he died of a heart attack. Um, I’m 60, I mean, I could only have one year to live. So it’s in, in a way it’s good, because it makes you more um less fearful of being on this, what what we do on this planet, and then also more grateful.Ella Magers: 57:20

All comes back to gratitude, right.Alexandra Paul: 57:22

Yeah, always does Gratitude. The attitude of gratitude and our attitude is really important, and for a healthy life, a long, healthy life too.Ella Magers: 57:31

So yeah, Holistically healthy, and I think you’re a shining example of that. Are there any last words you’d like to share and any projects you’re working on or anything, or are you just pretty focused on family right now?Alexandra Paul: 57:43

Yeah, I’ve auditioned a little bit, but unfortunately, even if I were to get a job offer, it would have to be a good one for me to leave my mom, but I’m still auditioning just to be in the game, so I’m not visible. Um and uh, yeah, so no, I’m just working um a lot with animal rights and um things with direct action everywhere and the simple heart, and I am excited for this year to do more work for animals and to speak on overpopulation. So, if anyone’s listening and has a class, I really have been doing outreach to universities to see if I can speak in on the issue of human fertility and population, to science classes, math classes, and I don’t get a lot of response because I think people are so afraid of this issue environmental studies classes. So, if anybody wants me to speak, especially if they are doing classes online, I spoke at several universities this year, but I’d like to do more, and so if anybody listening has an in, please write to Ella and she’ll send it to me.Ella Magers: 59:02

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Alexandra, thank you for all the work you’ve done and continue to do and for sharing this time and space with me. I really appreciate it.Alexandra Paul: 59:13

It’s been an honor speaking with you, Ella, thanks.