Opening up.

Bachelor Nation fans saw Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar find love and get engaged on Season 27 of “The Bachelor.”

Zach and Kaity have been continuing to share their lives with fans on social media since their time on the show, and last week Zach stopped by the “Real Vibe TV” podcast for a candid conversation.

Zach opened up about his past with disordered eating and extreme dieting after getting to 300 pounds when playing football in high school and college.

He talked about how he and his friend tried to lose weight quickly and it got unhealthy fast.

Zach said, “I lost 40 or 50 pounds after the first month. I went too drastic. I took intermittent fasting to a new level. I talked about it a few times. I went too crazy on that, and it’s obviously not sustainable. I had that football offensive lineman mentality where if I wanted to get it done, I wanted to get it done quick. I was probably eating 700 to 800 calories a day and I was working out with my best friend. He would do the same thing.”

The former Bachelor went on, saying, “We were starving by lunch and we would compete with each other. Our lunch would be half of a Quaker granola bar. We would only eat ground turkey and lunch. I was so tired of how heavy I was. I wasn’t like that. It was some muscle and pudge. I didn’t feel natural. I was sweating all the time and didn’t feel good in my own skin. It affected so many different aspects of my life, like how I viewed myself, how I thought others viewed me, and I just felt gross in my own body. That was all motivation for me to go crazy.”

Zach said he started to realize the habits weren’t healthy and knew he needed to make a change.

He said, “Then I evened out as time went on and started to set healthy habits and didn’t need to go full restraint. I was losing over a pound a day and we were tracking it; it was addictive. Eating disorders are no joke and we had to be very cautious about it. I knew it couldn’t go on forever and we took it to an extreme. I wanted to take care of myself more.”

The co-hosts asked Zach how he made that change and started taking care of himself and he said it started with prioritizing his mental health.

Zach said, “Taking care of my own mental health was huge for me. For a long time, the football weight, college, dating, and growing up, I was trying to find myself. I was running into a lot of self-image issues. I had little to no confidence. I had body image issues. I had everything. It was causing problems in every aspect of my life and past relationships with ex-girlfriends and my family. I hit a point where I asked for help and I went to therapy. I went for about a year or so and addressed what was going on.”

He continued, sharing, “I talked about it like it wasn’t a big problem if I could vocalize it. It was tough, but after several months I started to recognize who I am as a person and be proud of who I am. I realized I could like the person I looked at in the mirror every day. Where I am today is still a work in progress, but it’s night and day from where I was even six months before I got on the show in the first place. The past three years have been totally transformational.”

We know Zach sharing so honestly about his experiences will help others. Check out more of his conversation on the podcast below.