Danielle Fishel Is Just As You Expect Her To Be

I’m 44, and like so many others my age, I spent my Friday nights (and let’s be honest, Saturday mornings) glued to ABC and NBC watching teen-based sitcoms. Boy Meets World was, of course, one of those shows, and one of my favorites. So when I got a chance to talk to Danielle Fishel, aka Topanga herself, I nearly peed my pants.

Like me, Fishel is now also a mom to two sports-loving sons, ages 7 and 5. And like 1.9 million other people, I follow her on Instagram to get a dose of nostalgia, a heap of funny motherhood moments, and so much more. I caught up with the actor and mom via Zoom, and suffice it to say, I had a blast. We talked about our matching Stanleys (hers filled with Metamucil fiber powder, mine with protein powder because #agingmillennials), motherhood, and what her post-cancer life looks like now.

Scary Mommy: Let’s jump right in. What's your wellness like now as a mid-40s lady?

Danielle Fishel: My wellness routine now, in my mid-40s, is very clear to me. I used to just kind of, like, waffle in and out of different trends, and now I really know what works for me, and I just prioritize it. And a lot of that's even just stuff I've learned in the last year or two. But my wellness routine really begins with the way I start my day every single day, which is waking up at least 30 minutes before my kids, because I have to have some coffee and some silence before I start my day.

SM: What time are we talking roughly?

DF: Somewhere between 5:30 and 6. I get up every day, and I need to start my morning with that quiet time. And actually before I even get to my coffee, the very first thing I do is I start my day with fiber. And my medications that I take. I really just started myself on my health journey. I include fiber right from the beginning of my day because, as a type A personality, I like to wake up and already start checking things off my list.

SM: I understand that. It’s like, look what I've already done!

DF: Yeah, look at what I've already done, and I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet. So that makes me feel good. The quiet time before my kids get up helps me start my day mentally, and then working out is extremely important to me as part of my wellness journey. It’s become a lot of lifting weights. Like a lot of women, I thought that cardio was where it was at for so much of my life, and I would kill myself doing it, which I've never really fully enjoyed but thought that's what I needed to do, and getting my heart rate as high as I possibly could, only to not actually feel as strong or healthy in my body as I wanted to. Now that I lift weights consistently, I feel so much better. And with that comes the need to make sure we're eating enough protein. These are the things that I know really help ground me and make me feel like my best self.

SM: And has that changed during your cancer journey?

DF: Yeah, everything I just mentioned about my wellness experience has been since I discovered I had cancer, and it's not like because I wasn't doing those things that led to me getting cancer. It was more like, OK, our health is something that we take for granted when we have it. And then all of a sudden, when you find out there's something that could potentially be really detrimental, it makes you go, hmm, maybe I need to be more intentional about all of the things I'm doing, and not just throw caution to the wind and assume I'm healthy forever.

My doctor was actually the one who recommended fiber to me because as I got older I noticed that everything about the way I was going through life just felt like it got slower. My digestion got slower. So I started talking to my doctor about, like, what can I do about this feeling? I'm not regular, I feel weighed down, and my doctor said, “Are you taking any fiber?” That's when I really learned about the power of psyllium fiber. Once I added that into my day, it's been a game changer.

SM: What has surprised you the most about parenting? Or what’s been, so far, the most shocking thing you didn’t expect?

DF: The most shocking thing that I don't think anybody can prepare you for when you have kids is the amount of self-parenting you have to do while raising them. Your flaws come to the surface so fast when you see them emulating you, and you go, Well, where did you get that? And then you're like, Oh. Right. I think it's from me. So adjusting the way I talk to myself, adjusting the way I carry myself.

My oldest son has very much internalized my perfectionism, which has been very difficult for me, because it's painful to watch someone be so hard on themselves when it's just unnecessary. On the one hand, it's painful because I want to stop him from having that mindset and from being so hard on himself. And on the other hand, it's really beautiful because it's forced me to be nicer to myself. I am much easier to make a mistake and think, if I react to this mistake... he's going to think that's an appropriate response to what just happened. And, Danielle, it's not. It's OK. So he, in a lot of ways, is helping me be kinder to myself because I want him to emulate that and not emulate being hard on himself.

SM: Switching gears a little bit, you grew up on camera in a show about growing up. How has that shaped how you've parented, if at all?

DF: I think the thing it has shaped is knowing that the bite-sized 22-minute lessons we get on TV, while absolutely beneficial — and there are things I look at Alan and Amy Matthews and I think, Man, if I could strive to be like them in this way, I would want to do that — life isn't always wrapped up with a pretty bow at the end of 22 minutes.

I try to remind myself that hardships or issues you have in either your marriage or as a parent or with your children, they're all normal. No one goes through life completely unscathed, and even if our social media feeds make it look like everyone's got it all figured out and all got it together, my neighbors are both probably dealing with exactly the same things or, if not the same thing, something very similar in their own lives to what I'm going through, and it's all part of the process.

SM: Speaking of growing up, we both grew up during toxic body culture. What was that like navigating that as someone in the public eye?

DF: I'm so thankful that we didn't have social media, because even though I was in the public eye, I didn't necessarily have to deal with what people were saying about me, because there was no real way for me to know what people were saying about me. But I still had to deal with the general imagery of what was being held up as the epitome of beauty standards. Back in the day, it was like heroin chic, just absolute waifs, all those words floating around. And I was never that body type, you know? It's always difficult when whatever society decides is the beauty standard du jour, and you don't fit it. You definitely feel like you are on the outside.

With that said, I think it's almost impossible to go through your teenage years not feeling like an outsider about something. So, although the body image stuff was very difficult in the '90s, I wasn't the only one who went through that either. You could just be in high school and not on TV and not feel like you were fitting what society was calling beautiful. I think I'm just one of any other girl from that generation who didn't fit that stereotype and we all felt the same way.

SM: I will personally say that I have boobs, and I remember seeing you on TV, and I was like, she looks like me. And I was very happy that I saw someone who looked a little bit like me. Although you had fabulous eyes and fabulous hair, but it made me feel better. So thank you for that.

DF: I appreciate that because yes, that was something I remember as a teen feeling like, like, how come shirts don't fit me the same way? How come when you can wear a button-down shirt, and all the buttons lay nicely? And when I put on a button-up shirt, I either have to wear a huge oversized button-up or one where it's pulling everywhere.

SM: Have you talked to your kids about that at all? Or are they too young?

DF: They are still pretty young, but we have definitely talked about the idea that we don't comment on people's bodies. I do think that's important for them to understand because I don't want there to be certain words that are necessarily worse than others. And I don't want them to feel like they can't describe somebody or themselves in whichever way they want to. But commenting on something that, for the most part, is out of people's control, and thinking about bodies in any other way other than they are all different, and they are all fine, they're all acceptable, they're all beautiful. They're all something to think of what our bodies are capable of doing. And so, that's kind of been my thing, is like, we don't talk about other people's bodies. We just don't.

SM: Have your kids watched Boy Meets World or Girl Meets World yet?

DF: My oldest son wanted to see an episode of Boy Meets World a few years ago; I think he was maybe 3 or 4 at the time. So I played Season 1, Episode 4, which was my first episode on the show, and I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, this is such a big moment. He's gonna love this! And I come on screen and I go, “That's mommy!” And he looks at me, and he looks at the TV, and he's watching for a few minutes, and I'm looking at him going, Oh my gosh, this is so special. And he looks over at me, he goes, “OK, I'm bored, let’s watch something else.” And I went, “OK, you’re not ready for this yet. No problem.” So I'm gonna wait. I think maybe 9 or 10 is kind of the perfect time to start the show in Season 1, and then my goal will be to binge-watch it the whole way through.

SM: Switching gears, who are you rooting for on Dancing with the Stars?

DF: I mean, first of all, I'm completely blown away by the season already. There is no way around it for me: I am 100% all in on Pasha [Pashkov] and Amber [Glenn]. I am so excited for Pasha to have a partner like her who has such incredible athleticism. I'm so excited for them and I'm really rooting for them. With that said, I'm also really rooting for Tatyana Ali. How could I not? She's a friend of mine. We go all the way back to the ‘90s. I'm also very excited about Julia Stiles. There are so many good people to root for. I am absolutely about women power! I am, like, all in on all of the women.

SM: Do you sit and watch them dance or do you have to move around?

DF: I sit and watch it, but then every time, through the results, I stand up and I pace. There is no way you can have lived through standing up there as part of one of those bottom three, just even seeing the red lights, I just got chills thinking about it. It is not a good feeling. I know how hard everyone is working. And so even if you can say, well, being that someone had to go home this week, yes, that was the “right” person to go home. You still know how devastating it is. So that's the only part I can't relax through.

SM: OK, so tell me what you have coming up next. I know you have a book coming out and so much good stuff happening.

DF: Yeah, so we have a book coming out that we're really excited about, Book Meets World. I also have “Dugout Dads,” which I did with Patrick Renna from The Sandlot. We did a YouTube show and all nine episodes are available now. They're short-form, but they're still horizontal. And we're taking that out to pitch. We're using it as a great proof of concept, and we're taking it to networks, and we're taking it to streamers, and we hope to get full 22-minute episodes out of that. No matter what, there will be a whole season.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.