She revealed that being on the screen made her more vulnerable to body shaming, which started when she was very young.

While filming One Day at a Time, Bertinelli recalled that a reporter told her that she looked like “a ton of lard” standing next Phillips, who was struggling with drug addiction.

And even before she started acting, she said “I watched my father treat my mother badly when she would gain weight.” She continued, “I had a 5th grade teacher poke my belly and say, ‘You want to keep an eye on that.’ So I learned at a very young age that when you gain weight, you’re not lovable. And what I’m learning is that your body is not what makes you lovable.”

Now she realizes that to resolve her relationship with food, she needs to focus on “the mental and emotional work,” which includes healing from the relationship she shared with Vitale, whom she was married from 2011 to 2022.

Though she’s hasn’t been specific, Bertinelli has been candid when speaking generally about people experiencing emotional abuse in their relationships.

“When it comes to emotional abuse and mental abuse, it’s not talked about, because you just think, ‘I’m not being physically abused, so it’s not abuse,’” Bertinelli said in an Instagram post in January.

But through mindfulness, “journaling, therapy and especially humor,” the actor and author is healing. One of the techniques she uses is rolfing, an intense manipulation of the body’s connective tissue, which she says is “It’s so painful, but there’s a release that happens that’s really helpful.”

“I worked really, really, really hard. Physically definitely. I wish to God I had worked just as hard on my mental shape,” she told People. “But when I don’t work on what’s eating me, I’m going to start eating.”

In a recent Instagram post, Bertinelli posted a video, sharing her shrinking waist size with her fans. “So it’s getting about time for me to probably go down another jean size. I can’t believe it. And this all started in November, the month I got free,” she said in the clip, referring to her divorcing Vitale. “And I started really concentrating on my emotional and mental health. And when I started doing that, I started caring about the nutrition that I put in my body more.”

The post continues, “The harsh words and abuse can never be unheard and taken back, but here’s the thing, I wouldn’t have taken them in and believed them in the first place, if I hadn’t been saying harsh and unkind words to myself first,” she writes.

Fans responded to her thoughtful post with comments like, “Seeing you always gives me hope,” and “I love you Val. Little do you know how much you inspired me to get up and moving and get out of my funk of depression. I’m so much happier now. You don’t know how much your journey has helped me.”