Episode 24 Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 24 of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host Victoria Welsby and in today's episode we're talking about physical and mental food insecurity. Oh my gosh, let's do it.

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty podcast. I'm Victoria Welsby TEDx speaker, bestselling author and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self esteem to being a courageous and confident first fatty who loves every inch of this jellied society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter. Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century. So how do you stop a negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty podcast. Let's begin.

Well. Hello there. It is April Fools Day. There's not been any April fools stuff around the internet today has that probably cause we're like, don't fool us. We can't handle any tricks right now. So hello, welcome. Hey, did you know that as of a few episodes ago, I started recording the video for the podcast and I'm putting it on YouTube because I know a lot of people like to consume the video and look up my gorgeous photos. So if that's you, if you want to see what I look like or where I'm recording the podcast or my wonky hair at the moment then go to YouTube. The link is in the show notes. The show notes for this episode is fiercefatty.com/024 for episode 24 fiercefatty.com/024.

And my hair is wonky because before the pandemic came, I was late and getting my haircut and I had made an appointment like the Monday before everything close. I went to the store and it was closed. And so my hair needs to be immediate cut like three weeks ago and it was like maybe a month overdue for being cut. And because I work from home and I'm in the middle of nowhere, then it's really easy to not get your hair cut because not that many people see. Now my hair is like so long. The longest it's been in a year. Yeah. And cause it's super short my hair is really short it was shaved. If you want to see the video of me getting my hair shave, go to my YouTube channel. And so any type of length feels insanely long. So I've probably got on the side of my head and inch of length and all the top of my head a few inches. And I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to style it. Someone tell me how to style it. I've never had hair this length before. Yes. Help me. Someone help me.

Yeah. So, Hey, thank you for your reviews that you keep sending me. I so appreciate it. If you leave a review and before you submit it. So if you do like, you know, five stars and then you write something take a screenshot and then email it to me at victoria@fiercefatty.com I'm going to send you a digital copy of my book, best selling book, a Fierce Fatty, a digital and audio version for you. And if you're in quarantine and some free stuff to keep you entertained. So I'm so do that. And the reason why I say take a screenshot before you submit the review is when you write a review, once it's submitted, it goes into this black home and then it will come up and be on the internet in God knows how long it feels like, you know, 10 months later the neighbor like, Oh, there's other review that I got 50 years ago. And obviously I'm exaggerating because I've been only doing the podcast since November, 2019 so it's actually probably just a couple of weeks.

So today's episode, we're talking about food insecurity and this is very timely with COVID19 going on and something that's quite close to my heart because this is something that I experienced. I grew up in poverty and so we didn't have an abundance of food. Now we weren't starving. I say we weren't starving. There was lots of times where we didn't have appropriate food. So yeah, we weren't starving. But there was lots of times where I would do things like there was nothing in the house apart from one dry Weetabix and then doing something like I remember putting butter on a Weetabix to try and make it edible, you know, cause there was no milk and there was no bread and there was no, so, you know, that type of thing sticks out in my mind.

And on top of that I also lived in pro weight loss fat phobic household where we should be losing weight, we shouldn't get fat. And that was very confusing as you can imagine, because when food did come into the household, when we know we had food come in, when we did our weekly shop at Quick Save and UK, those we know, remember Quick Save. It's not a shop anymore, but it was like the cheapest of the cheapest of the cheapest places that you can go and buy food. And it was all very low quality and you wouldn't want to be caught in there if you were like, you know, as a young person, you wouldn't want your friend from school seen you in Quick Save cause it was like really embarrassing. Anyway, and on top of that, one of my sisters had bulemia and so we didn't have food often when we did, we were told, don't eat it because one, we don't have food and we need to make it last and two, you don't want to get fat.

And on top of that, having a sibling who because of the mental health issue would take the food for herself. And so it meant that we had to, it was really confusing, right? This is really for a child. You've got to get the food but don't get the food because if you do, you're greedy. Your taking it from your siblings and you're going to get fat, which means you're greedy, but if you don't, then you won't get any food. So that was unique. That was a unique experience. And the reason why I've called this episode food insecurity physically and mentally is because I'm apart of food insecurity, is not having access to food, not having access to food that we like. And food that is nourishing and all that type of jazz. But also we impose food insecurity in a way in a different definition of insecurity.

We impose that on ourselves because we all say, Oh, we can't have that thing in the house because I'm gonna eat it all up. I shouldn't be eating that thing. I'm feel out of control at the moment around food because of COVID19. And so I'm not going to buy it because if I do, then I will eat it. And then that makes you, it triggers you into those old dieting type behaviors thought processes. And it's very hard for the brain to distinguish between a self-imposed food insecurity environment versus one which is because you don't have enough funds, all that type of stuff. So, let's talk about it because a lot of us will be having a lot of different experiences around food. At the moment because of COVID19. And a lot of things are making us feel weird and like what's wrong?

I seem to have regressed back to my dieting days. I'm eating all the food. I feel out of control. I'm greedy. There's always a means on the internet saying COVID15, don't put on weight. And I'm saying that I should be exercising and taking up a new sport of marathon, running in between looking after the kids and all that other stuff. And also dealing with the global pandemic is really confusing. So I want to talk about that today. So in case you don't know what food insecurity is, let me read a definition for you. Household food security exists when all members at all times have access to enough food for an active healthy life. Individuals who are food secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Food insecurity on the other hand, is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA as a situation of limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. Let me read that last bit again and see how this mirrors potentially your current experience being isolated. If you are social distancing going to the store and then not being all the food that you want. Food insecurity defined by the USDA is a situation of limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods and socially acceptable.

That sounds very familiar to situations that a lot of people are going through right now. As an example, I live in the middle of nowhere in Ireland as you know, the Irish government have just announced that we are not allowed to travel further than two kilometers to get food. Being in the middle of nowhere, two kilometers away is the local village. I say village, I'm like village. It has one grocery store and it's not like a grocery store, like a grocery store. It's, you don't know one of those little places. I don't even know what that word is, but it doesn't have a lot of stuff. And so knowing that, that it doesn't have a lot of stuff, it will have, you know, maybe you know, one packet of pasta and maybe one pasta sauce or something like that.

Irish people love bread. And so when you go in, there's not really any bread the milk, you can only buy maybe one pint of milk versus the big things. There's not going to be a lot of variety. So I wanted to get mushrooms to put on a pizza and there was no mushrooms. And so it's not like there's not stuff, but it is potentially nutritionally not nutritionally adequate and uncertain ability to acquire food. Because this has happened a couple of days ago. I don't know how much the locals are going to ransack the store, you know, because what we tend to do around this area as we'll travel an hour to get into the city to go to the big supermarket grocery store. And now we're not allowed to do that. So who knows if the locals are gonna panic and just, you know, buy everything, I don't know, right. So it's, you know, it feels uncertain at the moment.

Now there are different levels of food insecurity. There's two different levels. So there's low food insecurity, so low food insecurity and that means that there isn't many choices or the choices aren't good. So that is probably where a lot of people are right now. There isn't many choices or the choices aren't good. There is also the next level of food insecurity is very low food insecurity. And that's when you don't have enough food or you have to eat less. And so it's, there's no food to buy at the store. Now, depending on what country you live in. Like I live in Ireland currently, the UK is next door. It's an narrow way. The UK is narrow way. That's where I go to get my groceries. When I was allowed to and Canada and the US there, there is enough food.

Okay. There is enough food. We are not in a place where we're any type of actual food crisis. It's just people at the moment buying a ton of food because people are feeling food insecure and a way to help overcome food insecurity is to buy more food and other types of insecurity. You know how people are buying toilet paper, you know, I don't think as much now, but when it first started people were like, well, toilet paper and it's because other people were buying toilet paper. And so you're like, fuck, I need to get toilet paper, right. So the reasons why people are food insecure, there's lots of reasons, but nothing on my research for food insecurity had pandemic pandemic global pandemic could be one. Most common reason is money. For my family growing up, my mum worked part time in a corner store and so made definitely made minimum wage. I know she, she made minimum wage and only part time basis. My dad was an alcoholic. It didn't work. And any money that you got from the government he would spend on alcohol. So money was the reason for us that we were food insecure and mental health issues because my dad had a mental health issue. Other reasons change in employment. That could be a big thing for people listening. If you've lost your job or your job is not paying you what it normally pays, it's just, it's so mind boggling to me that companies will do this. Companies who have money will lay people off well reduce their salaries. Like my brother in law, he's worked for the same company for years and years and years and they're like, Oh, we're a family company. We really value you. And they'll put on like a yearly thing to say, Oh, we love you so much.

And they do really well. They're not struggling company. And the Irish government have said, you have to stay home his job is non essential. He makes cabinets you know, like a woodwork, that type of thing. Definitely non essential. And his company was like, well, if you will, we've got big project we need to finish. So if you go home then we're not going to give you any money. And he decided to go home and the only money that he's going to get is from the Irish government. The Irish government are going to pay him 80% of, of his salary, but his company are paying him nothing. They're taking away his sick days and so he's going to have no sick days or holiday days or the end of this because his, his company are not doing anything to help the employees.

How fucked up is that? There's going to be so many stories of this where, you know, companies show their true colors and so his company are like, Oh, we're just such a family company. But you know, when it comes to time that you need help from us, fuck you, right. It's just so fucked up. So yeah, change in circumstance, changing location. So a big thing is, so this is my example is where you live. Maybe if you change location, you're not close to a big store, you don't have the transport to get to a big store you don't have a car, et cetera. And with my change in location is a change in distance that I'm allowed to travel. Other factors, disability, illness, mental health issues abuse. And so you could be experiencing food insecurity because whatever situation you're in, your parents, your spouse, whoever is abusing you and not allowing you to buy food, not giving you access to food.

And that was also another experiences experience of mine. Whew. My relationship with food was complicated. When I was 17, I met a 30 year old abusive alcoholic creep, stayed with him for a couple of years. And he wouldn't let me eat food. The food I wanted to he decided a meal plan that I should stick to. If I ever deviated from it, there would be consequences. If I ever wanted to say if we're out and about and I would say, let's get some lunch, he would only let me have half of the lunch. And so I experienced food insecurity due to abuse. So it took a long time for me to fix all that in my broken. Now the effects of food insecurity, basically it's bad. Forbes article I will link to talks. Basically you have worse mental and physical health because of food insecurity. Now it doesn't matter if your food insecurity means that you don't have access to food or if it is like in my example where I have enough food but it's not as, you know, it's not the normal variety that I'm used to. You still have negative consequences.

Now, this Forbes article says, lower overall health status, poor physical health, poor mental health, greater mental distress, lower cognitive function, depression hyper lipidemia, hypertension, diabetes. And as I mentioned, this is not just a lack of food, but other factors are at play now because in COVID19 I don't know the factors that you potentially are experienced and you could, you could be experiencing so many different factors that are at play. You could be in a very difficult situation and you could be in a lot better of a situation. And so the amount of negative impact this could have on you is we don't know. We don't know, right. but if you think about some, a child who is living in a food insecure household, what else is going on there? It's not likely that the child who was living in a food insecure household has, you know, the best household experience.

And so, taking me as an example, not only will we food insecure, but the was an alcoholic parent. There were you know, living in a terrible area. There was all sorts of other things going on, which was not just the fact that I didn't have enough food, which could lead to these outcomes. And it's not a, definitely you're gonna, you know, you're gonna experience all these terrible things because of COVID19. But you know, this is what could happen. Now, Cindy Young, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at University of Michigan says this is in the Forbes article. And I read, I quote, my research has focused on the role of chronic stress. My hypothesis is that food insecurity, they experience of not knowing where your next meal is coming from is inherently stressful. The chronic level of stress associated with being food insecure changes the way that we think about food and acquire food changes how we eat and metabolize food and leads to worse physical or mental health outcomes over time. My research has shown that food insecurity is not just stressful, but it's associated with other elements of psychological, physiological stress. It includes feeling isolated from one's community, embarrassed or ashamed of being food insecure or using federal food programs, feeling sad or depressed about not having enough food, no free for food, angry and frustrated about their situation. So a big part of that what Cindy Young is saying is stress and the way that we feel about the fact that we are food insecure, which is what is very difficult, is what she's saying her hypothesis is, that's why it is bad on our mental and physical health.

So let me read this another bit from a paper from Elsevier Health Sciences. I'm going to link to that as well in the show notes. And it says food insecurity can affect your mental health. So food insecurity affects nearly 795 million people worldwide are though a complex phenomenon encompassing food availability, affordability, utilization, and even the social norms that define acceptable ways to acquire food. Food insecurity can affect people's health beyond its impact on nutrition. A new study determined that food insecurity was associated with poor mental health and specific psycho psychosocial stressors across global regions, independent on individuals, social economic status.

So taking from those two articles is that a big part of this is it's a complex issue and we can do things to support ourselves of supports those stresses of not having access to enough food at this time. And that is to help with stress and to not isolate from our community. And obviously we're isolating basically from our community, but we can still connect with people online, which is incredible. So that is the physical side of food insecurity. And let's talk about my version of the mental aspect of food insecurity. And this is something that I've been thinking about a lot, but there's nothing that I can find on it. And basically it's, it's the self idea or the idea of self-imposed food insecurity. So AKA living in a fat phobic diet focused home, having experienced that which is technically straight up food insecurity.

So if for example, the home that you grew up in your caregivers were like, Oh, we can't have sugar and we can't have this and we can't have that. You do not have access to the foods that are going to keep you mentally well and you need also, you need, you know, a variety of foods to keep you healthy. And so that could be, you know, is that abuse your getting down but your mental health has been damaged. But as adults we continue this trend, even if we didn't learn it in a home environment. If you've had any type of experience with trying to shrink your body or become healthier with the foods that you're eating in a disordered way, then you have engaged in a self-imposed food insecure environment. And you know, like when you go to your cupboards and you don't have anything that you fancy eating, like if you're going on the upswing of from brief binge to restrict cycle and you're like, I've got nothing in because everything is like boring diet shit.

So we know food insecurity and dieting or diet culture can damage our mental and physical health. So it's bad news, right? Self-Impose food, food insecurity is bad news. And we also know that our adventure to heal ourselves from the damage that we've experienced through diet culture and dieting it's not linear. It's not a straight line. We're not going to one day say, okay, I've decided I'm not going to diet anymore. And the next day you wake up and you're like, Oh, I remember those funny days when I used to diet. I feel so good about food. It's not learnin, right? And what right now, what is happening for so many people is you're being dragged back into a place where it feels like the world has been turned upside down and it's massively triggering and it feels like you do not have access to all the foods that you need or the foods that you want.

And even for those who have been doing the work, this work to heal themselves for years and years and years. This is extreme. This is an extreme situation. So know that if you are feeling weird around food right now, you are in the company of many many many people. I wouldn't want to hazard a guess of what percentage of people are feeling weird around food right now. But I'd say it is the majority of people because literally we're not sure if we have access to food. You know, when we know that if you live in a country that has all these systems in place, that you know that you're not probably going to starve, you're know that you're probably just going to have to choose a different brand of chips that you normally have. And, but that still makes you feel weird. It is weird.

It's weird. It's, you know, how many times have you gone through this before? How many times have you experienced COVID19 before? Never. Never. None of us have experienced exactly this before. And so with a disruption to our usual schedule and our usual things that make us feel safe and make us feel good our relationship with with food and how we relate to food and how we relate to our body is going to be just re-upped it. And on top of that, say if you are, if you have been let go from your job, if you don't know if the government is going to give you money or not, that adds another layer onto it of what is the future gonna be like. So, by the way, I have seen many people say that many people in leaders in this industry talking about how they are feeling weird around food and I am one of them too.

And so for me, my experiences are that's randomly throughout the day I will just have a desire for something that I don't normally have a desire for like something which is different, you know. So halfway through the day I'll be like lunchtime. I'd be like, okay, I need, I need some popcorn. And so what we do in those situations when our brain is saying, I need this thing is you give your body what your brain is asking for. You know, if you don't have popcorn, obviously you might need to, you know, buy, have something else or whatever to try and do it as well as you can at that moment. But not denying yourself the things that you need. And this is really important. It is 1000, 1000000%. Okay. If you are using food to comfort yourself now or any time and now you have to be in a place where you expect that because all of our coping mechanisms are our ways that we have.

Maybe if you don't use food to heal to soothe yourself currently. Maybe you did in the past, but maybe you've found different ways which were more useful for you. You will be doing it more and it's absolutely to be expected because everything's changed. You know, maybe you would have, you know, if you were not feeling great before you might have gone and gone for a swim or gone and saw your friends or went to see a therapist and maybe that is not available right now. And even if, you know, normally you'd go for a swim and see your therapist and see your friends and whatever and you still would use food to comfort yourself. That is still 1000000000%. Okay? It is one that is so okay to use food to comfort yourself. Anyone that tells you that you shouldn't, even if we're not in COVID19 is wrong because it's okay.

It's absolutely okay. Whatever you do to help yourself survive is okay, right? I mean, what's alternative? You don't use food to comfort yourself and you feel absolutely fucking awful. You can't get out of bed in the morning. Your mental health is absolutely destroyed. Whereas you could have had a little bit of comfort, a little bit of soothing by eating food like hello, eat the food. So whatever cravings, no matter what time of the day, no matter what is going on, please listen to what your body is telling you. Because either way that I think about it is my body is, you know, my brain and my body, the fucking scared at the moment. They're back to a place where I was being abused, back to a place where I was living in a household when I was young. I didn't know if I was going to get the food and if food did come into the house a family member would take it and I wouldn't have anything.

And all of that stuff is rushing back now. It not, might not necessarily be as powerful, but because of this weird situation, it's still, it's they're just, they're just simmering. And so I need to go back to what young Victoria, if I could go back to young Victoria and young Victoria was like, I want some popcorn, but it's kind of a weird time of the day. I don't normally have popcorn now. Like should I have popcorn? Should I just not have popcorn? Adult Victoria can go to young Victoria and be like, bitch, here's your fucking popcorn. Here is a gallon of popcorn. Here is a room filled with popcorn, please. Eat as much popcorn. You would want to go to that younger version of you, that child version of you and sweep them up and be like, Oh my God, we're going to eat all the food. It's gonna be so much fun. You don't have to worry about it. I'm gonna trust me, I'm going to get you the food. And you're an adult now. And probably if you're listening to this podcast and you're an adult now, and so you can do that. You can heal yourself and say, instead of having a debate like, Oh, should you or should you not? Would you have said to your younger version of you who says, Oh, Hey, can I have some popcorn? Whatever it is. Oh, but would you say, Oh, but you really shouldn't be having that. You don't normally have that. Do you know how many calories that has? Do you know how many blah, blah, blah. Do you know? No. Cause you would know that would fuck up the younger version of you. You would just be like, here, have the absolutely have the popcorn and give them the big kiss and hug. So you need to do that for yourself. Now you need to be quietening those thoughts and reassuring yourself that it is important. So important for your mental and physical health, for you to allow yourself to have the food for you to buy as much food as you can to make yourself feel secure. So right now, my fridge and my cupboards are so fun. We held with food. So to the point where I'm just like, okay, I feel very, very secure around food at the moment. Maybe there was a week where I was like, Oh my God, am I God, you know, this feels weird, but I feel a lot better now because I've gone back to that place of healing, which is allowing myself access to as much food as my sweet little young Victoria heart needed.

So speaking of that, what I am doing in that moment is intuitive eating as best I can. That is not always possible right now because say if I wanted a popcorn and the local store just doesn't have popcorn. And I'm just like, but I need that thing. That one thing is what I'm craving or what I know will help me right now. And I can't get it. And Oh my God, I feel stressed out about it. I want this thing, but I can't get it. It's not at the local store and dah, dah, dah it's not in my house and I can't go out for another few days or whatever it is. What do you do in those circumstances?

So something that I wanted to talk about is Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. I've spoken about this in the past, but I want you to understand a little bit more about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you, if you don't know about this already or you don't know how this relates to intuitive eating but What Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Imagine a pyramid. And at the bottom you will have different levels. There's, there's five levels in total. I'm going to link to this in the show notes. And so you can see a picture of it. You can see what it is exactly. But from simple psychology, this is what Maslow's higher the definition, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising of a five tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchal levels within a pyramid needs lower down in the hierarchy, must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up from the bottom of the hierarchy upwards. The needs are, so the first level is physiological, safety. So the next level is safety, next love and belonging, esteem and self actualization. That's the end of the quote. So physiological, so first thing, humans need air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction is apparently one of them. Ah, I don't know about that, but I guess you, you need it to sort of for the human race to continue. So the first thing is they are what you need the next level. So when you have those things and you feel secure that you have those things, then you move into safety. And so that's personal security, employment resources, health, property. The next is love and belonging. So that's friendship, intimacy, family and sense of connection. Next. Once you've got all that, then you can move into esteem. So respect, self esteem, status, recognition, strength and freedom. And the final level, right at the top is self actualization. So that is the desire to become the most that one can be. Now normally who knows where you are on this period, this Maslow's hierarchy, who knows where you are.

But most people would be in either self actualization, they would be in esteem or they would be in love and belonging. So they're the top three layers. The bottom two are, you know, having safety and security and the bottom one, air, water, food, shelter. Now just because of COVID19, you could have been knocked down to the bottom layer because you don't know where you're going to get food from. Maybe you don't have a job. And so do you have somewhere to stay? Luckily a lot of places that are banning evictions and so, so that's good. And so hopefully most people are not on the very bottom there on the safety needs. So the next one up, which is personal security, employment resources, health property. Now, if you're in North America, not North America USA, if you're in the States because Canada is not like this how you don't know if you're able to pay for health necessarily because of your absolutely horrific health care system.

And so what I'm saying with this is you could be exactly where you are. You know, you could not have moved in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but if you are unsure if you can get food, if you are unsure, if you have a money or a place to stay, it is very, very difficult for you to be in a place where you expect yourself to be self actualized, actualizing. So set self actualizing the very top of the pyramid desire to become the most that one can be. And so that is heating. You could lump intuitive eating in with self-actualization or the one below which is esteem. So, respect, self esteem, status strength freedom. And so either way, intuitive eating is going to be on the top, top of the pyramid there. Those are something that you can do when you have a safe home environment. When you have all the food or the money that you need to feel safe, it doesn't mean that you have to have all the money and all the food, but enough for you to feel safe. And so if you are not able to intuitively eat at the moment, then no shit. Like obviously when you look at it like this and obviously you're not going to be able to do that. Like imagine if you were on remember that Book Life of Pi and it was a film and they get stranded and you're on a boat with some rations and a tiger and whatever. And you were to try and intuitively eat when you're on a boat with some rations and a tiger and some other people. And so if you were trying to intuitively eat day one, you'd be like, well, I all the rations because you know, I was listening to my body, my body said he was hungry then that, you know, shortly you would die.

And so you cannot intuitively eat when you are not secure around getting the food. Now how much security you need to be able to intuitively is different for everyone, right? so I don't have the answer for that. And for me, I have access to food, but it's not necessarily my most favorite food. You know, the foods that's going to be like, Oh my God, this is the most delicious thing in the world ever. So saying that, eat as much as you can and the variety of food that you want and you desire and that you need. But if you can't, don't beat yourself up and be like, Oh my God, I'm a bad intuitive eater. I'm going back. I'm undoing all this work. No, this is a traumatic time in our life, in our personal history. This is absolutely our traumatic time. You're probably going to look back in a couple of years and be like, Ooh, wow. I just, wow, I was so hard on myself or I expected myself to be perfect or expected myself to do this and that and you know, expected to within a couple of weeks of self isolation be back to normal and just felt good about it or whatever. And no, no, not at all. That would be a bit, you know, expecting way too much from yourself if that is what you think. And because we currently in it right now, like this is still happening and we don't know when this is going to end. It's very difficult to process trauma when you're in trauma. And so we are, you know, in a year's time, six months time, you know, 10 years time, whatever, when it's over, we'll be up to look back and be like, wow, I can recognize now that I was really triggered by that time.

And it was very difficult for me and this is what I was feeling and this is what I took from it and all of that stuff. But because we're in it is a lot more hard to do that. So let me read you there's a little thing about about trauma and traumatic events from mentalhealth.org.uk. When you experience a traumatic event, your body's defense defenses, I'm so fucking North American defenses, defenses take effect and create a stress response, which may make you feel a variety of physical symptoms behave differently and experience more intense emotions. This fight or flight response where your body produces chemicals which prepare your body for an emergency can lead to symptoms such as raise blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased sweating, reduced stomach activity. This is normal as it's your body's evolutionary way of responding to an emergency, making it easier for you to fight or run away.

So here's another thing from mind.org.uk, which is a mental health charity in the UK. These are some of the common effects of trauma that you might recognize. So if you're having experiencing any of these things, flashbacks which is reliving aspects of our traumatic vent or feeling as it is happening. Now. Side note, this is me talking. So flashbacks, if you've experienced trauma around food dieting, being in diet, culture, being in food insecure, if you're having you know, you could be having not necessarily flashbacks where you're like, Oh my God, I'm reliving it but your experiencing those feelings of that time again. And you could also be having actual flashbacks. Going back to the article, panic attacks which is a type of fear response. Dissociation, one way your mind copes with overwhelming stress. You might feel numb, spaced out, detached from your body, or as though the world around you is unreal. Hyper arousal, feeling very anxious on edge and unable to relax. You might be constantly looking out for threats of danger, sleep problems. Hello, this is me. I've been sleeping very strangely recently. You might find it hard to fall or stay asleep, feel unsafe at night or feel anxious or afraid of having nightmares and low self esteem. So trauma can affect the way you value and you perceive yourself. So that's what happens when you experience trauma. Oh, that could be what happens. Obviously everyone is different. So you having a something stuff is happening to your body, raise blood pressure, increase heart rate new stomach activity, being weird and also having all these things happening with your mental health. And so this could be, you know, a small trauma to you.

You could be in a place where you're like, yeah, cool, whatever. You know, it sucks. But we'll get over it and that's absolutely fine. You could be in a different place where you're like, Oh my God, this is, I can't cope with this. I'm on the edge of what I can cope with in life and this is just pushing me over. And that's absolutely normal as well. And because of that, the way that you relate to your body and to food of course, is going to be weird, is going to be different. And it's scary. And so we are in the thick of it right now. We're in the thick of it. So judging yourself on the way that you're responding and how you cope with this thing that has never happened before and our lifetime is not helpful. Judging yourself or the way that respond.

If you need to eat more food, if you need to have low food in your house, whatever it is, judging yourself, he's got the vibes of victim blaming, right to cope with this. If this means that you need to sleep all day, you need to hide you need to eat all the food or you don't eat anything that you deemed to be nutritious. You say fuck you to vegetables or whatever or you need to watch 37 hours of Netflix every day, then it's all good. It's all perfect. You are doing your best, you were doing your best. And then when things get back to normal and they will, this will pass things or change and it will get back to normal again. Then when you're in a better place, you can go back to, if you want to working your way up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, making sure that you have all the food.

And I can imagine what is going to happen is that when we are allow to go to the, to the store and to the supermarket, to the grocery store that we will buy loads of food, right? Well buy those are food because we need to feel secure that we have that food again. And so expect when things start to feel like they're relaxing a little bit and you can travel more freely and do all those things that you will need to make yourself feel, feel secure and you'll need to you know, go to all the stores and do all the stuff that you couldn't do before. And that includes buying more food. And so if you get to that place and you're like, what the hell is over? And I'm still buying loads of food and I'm still eating loads of food.

Well, yeah, you've just come out of something that is, that is traumatic. That could have caused you trauma and no shit that you need to heal, like, so be kind on yourself during this time because fuck is hard. It's really, really, really, really hard and to limit the potential harm that food insecurity could have on you. If we go back to what the what was it? The assistant professor in nutritional sciences at University of Michigan says that a big factor of food insecurity, the negative outcomes is is stress. What ways can you reduce your stress a big way might be eating their needs. What ways can you feel connected to your community? Because Cindy Young said feeling connected to your community and not feeling ashamed of where you are.

So doing things like, Oh, Hey, join my Facebook group, Fierce fatty friends. I'll link to it in the show notes. Get on Instagram. Find all your fat positive accounts, reach out to people, get into anything where there's online groups and online support things. There's so much of it at the moment. Like, for example, my therapist tomorrow has a COVID19 support group building resilience and connection in times of uncertainty. And so that's something that my therapist is putting on for free. I bet you you can find so many free things. Like I put on a free thing last week, which was last week's episode. So getting connected with people, realizing that so many people are in the exact same boat feel weird. Feel like there's maybe something wrong with them, with the way that relating to food there is not and reduce your stress as much as possible. Some things that for me that helped me is to recognize that why do I presumed that I'm going to be just as productive now than I was a few weeks ago?

Like, what's up with that? Why do I assume that everything is, you know, business as usual. Like I said in the last podcast, things for me as business as usual, as in business as usual. As in you know, I'm not having to work from home when I don't normally work from home, things like that. But business isn't usual because I'm being so much kinder to myself in regards to like I just don't feel like working today and because I have my own business, I can do that. But I think about when I used to have a real job, when I used to work in the corporate world. I remember when I first got to Vancouver in 2009 I think it was. Yeah, it was 2009 the Olympics were on and I had just started working in Vancouver. It was a winter Olympics, so I had just started working in July, so only a few months. And because the Olympics were in Vancouver, it was expected that it would be impossible to get downtown to work. And so we were told to work from home for two weeks. What I didn't know is that pretty much every other fucker in the office was not working. They were out going to the bars, enjoying olympics, having fun, having the best time of their life. Cause I was new, I didn't really know anyone. I didn't, you know, I was being the best I could be. Day in, day out. I was at home on my computer, which was like a big computer that I took from the office working, calling clients. I was in recruitment at the time and no one in Vancouver was fucking recruiting in during the Olympics. Everyone was out getting fest got having, it was the funnest time even when I was not, you know, when I decided I should not work evenings and weekends it was a fun time.

One of my most favorite moments from my whole life was during the Olympics in Vancouver when Canada won against, I think it was, no, it wasn't the USA cause, you were saying I'm not good at hockey is ice hockey. I might be wrong anyway. I don't think it was the USA. I know it. Canada won the gold medal and in the bar and it was so fucking good. Anyway, so now I'm able to look back on that time and be like, Victoria, what the fuck were you working so much? You were working eight till five, like taking exactly an hour for lunch, calling clients all day long and no one was already checking up on me. I wish I could go back to Victoria there and be like, bitch, like fucking Washington telly, go to the bar, don't you know, expect that it's going to be business as usual.

You're working from home. This is a different time. How many times in your life are you going to experience the Olympics in Vancouver. So now that I have that insight of I shouldn't have worked as much, even though I was trying to be good, you know, but everyone else in the office was dicking around and I only realized it when I got back and I was like, look at all the work that I did. And everyone in the office was like Oh we didn't expect you to actually work sort of thing. I was like, Oh shit. So your boss say if you're working, if your boss is probably skiving and dicking around too. And so why can't, why? You know, I don't want to get you fired or anything, but can you not Dick around a bit more? Can you not like, you know, watch some more Netflix and, and don't expect your output to be as high as it was when you weren't in a global pandemic, right?

Can you have some naps in the afternoon? What ways can you reduce your stress? Now me saying Dick around when you should be working, that might increase your stress, you know, you best. So but give yourself the permission to do things that are gonna make you feel good, whatever they are, and be kind and gentle yourself. And think of yourself as that younger version of you. Imagine younger version of you in a global pandemic and younger version of you is like, Oh, I'm not being as productive with my homework at the moment. You'd be like, ofcourse a really weird time. Don't be bad on yourself. So yeah, just try, be a bit kinder to yourself.

Okay, so I've got a couple of things. Is that a thing I wrote for this? I've got so many pages of notes for this one. Normally I have like when I'm doing an episode, Oh I do, I research before I do an episode and it's normally like a page and a half of notes, but this is like, I don't know, four or five pages of notes. So there's a lot in more. But a reminder, nothing ever stays the same and this too shall pass. Everything's always changing. So a couple of things to make you happy here. I've got a link for you. I found some free coloring pages, fat coloring pages. And so I'm going to link to that in the show notes. The show notes again is fiercefatty.com/024 or you can just click on wherever you are listening to this, there'll be a link to get there. So fatty coloring pages. And I also found this fat dance thing. So like a hip hop dance lesson. Now I want you to be thinking that because I'm telling you about, Hey, here's a dance thing that you need to be dancing because you need to exercise or whatever. But you know, for me, that type of stuff just makes me happy. So if that type of stuff makes you happy, then click on the link. If it's making you feel guilty or stressed out, do not click on the link. Do not have a dance party. Don't do it. Say whatever makes you feel good. So there's a link, Dottie Fans party, a Dottie Fans party, a fatty dance party. It's not really a dance party. It's like a hip hop lesson. But I'll link to it as well as well how I'm gonna link to this by Neuro Beats. There's this thing, I don't know if this is true or not, but I read it on a a facts page. Did you know that there's, this song is called by Neuro Beats something, which is just like a really relaxing like song like that. It doesn't have any, you know, tuned to it or whatever. But it's science. I say quote unquote science and it's probably a load of bullshit, but it's still a relaxing song. It shows that it is the most relaxing song in the world and reduces your heart rate and makes you feel good. So I have those when I'm working, a lot of times if I'm feeling stressed, I'll put on something like that in the background to make me feel less stressed. So I will link to that as well. This binaural beats thing, let me just write it in the show notes by Neuro Beats. Okay. cool.

So there we go. That's our show for today. I hope you enjoyed it. Keep those reviews coming in. The more reviews and more people will discover this stuff and this stuff is important, right? Because we want to make sure the world is a fat positive and not a big bunch of jugs. So yeah, hope you enjoyed this episode. Oh, what on for a bit today. I know I didn't, it's one hour on one minute. I was like one hour, 19 minutes because that's the seconds, but still. Okay. Well, just reminder, be kind to yourself. Don't expect so much. You're not a robot, you know, a robot. And I will see you in the next episode. Okay. Good bye. See you later.