Episode 57 Transcript

Welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby and this is episode 57. Today, we're talking about “Path A or path B choose your own adventure.”

I'm Victoria Welsby TEDx speaker, Best Selling Author and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self esteem to being a courageous and confident Fierce Fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. 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 negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty podcast Let's begin.

Unknown Speaker 1:20

Phones your Ville COMM A little common was German I think welcome. Um, so international. Hello, and welcome to episode 57. I'm so pleased to have you here. Hope you're doing all right. Hope you're surviving life and everything's good. I'm currently sweating my tits off. And so I was wearing a turtleneck. But I have changed into like a vest because it's so hot. And it's November. So it's was pretty cool. Lucky me. Do you remember a few episodes ago, like maybe five episodes ago, I said that. I'd realized that every single morning, I have a shower and get dressed before I go downstairs and start my day. And I was like, Why do I do that? Because some people go downstairs with their pajamas on and like hang around a bit. And then maybe don't have a shower, then maybe get dressed. And that's cool. And I was like, why am I doing that? And I was exploring that idea of Am I doing it because I always need to feel presentable. And how I have been wanting to wear more sweating pants. Well, I got me a sweating suit, so that I can sweat, income comfort. In my own home and outside and public whenever we're allowed outside. We're currently quarantined again. So yeah, I got myself a sweating suit, read like it. And I've been wearing more like leggings and comfortable trousers and things like that. And you know, what the heck, why have you been keeping this a secret from me? Like I've been going around wearing jeans every single day of my life with belts, and they kind of get a little bit uncomfortable, right? And no one no one has told me that there's these like, thing other things that you can wear? Yes. You've told me all right. I know they existed but I just never consider wearing them. For no reason. But yeah, so if you have not partaken in a sweating pant, a sweating trouser. Give it a go. Give it a whirl. It's great to feel comfortable. Yeah. So in today's episode, I'm talking about path A or path B choose your own adventure. Now, do you remember? Do you remember? Or perhaps you're currently reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book? Now? I think I hadn't I got my hands on a couple of those books. When I was a kid. I never read them. Do you know what I used to do is I used to, like read the first little bit, skip until it had like the end of the chapter where it said, Go to page 152 If you choose this and go to page 17 If you choose that and I'd always be like, Okay, let's look at 152 Oh, there's like blocks or texts come over to that. Or let's look at 17 Oh, you die and I'm like then read the book. And then if it was like 150 do I'd go to I'd like skip skip all of the texts and just go by like, go to page 78 Or go to page 212 And then I just skip and just basically seen all the different ways in which you can die. In this choose your own adventure story. So I've never read a book actually a chooser an adventure book, but I completed them. Question Mark fraudulently And as well do you remember? Do you remember that movie? I think it's from like the 90s or the naughties. I think it was one of the naughties. Sliding doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. Do you remember that movie? Basically, the plot, the premise is looking at the two different lives from

Unknown Speaker 5:25

the consequence of missing a tube of A. What do you call them in the states Metro? No underground? No, that's what we call them. underground train, underground train in London. So she one day she misses a tube to go home because she was fired. And in the other scenario, she gets on the tube. And the one that she gets on the tube, one of the others, she goes home and she finds her boyfriend is cheating on her. And the other one she doesn't, and she doesn't find out her boyfriend is cheating until later. And anyway, you keep up with who's who because she cuts her hair short and one of the scenarios and so you can work out which Gwyneth is scenario and Scenario B. And I've always just been so interested in and like fascinated thinking about the different kind of one little decision how that could change your life, you know, and choosing to go this way, or that way, how that one little thing could potentially choose your whole life change your whole life. And, you know, black mirror, I love black mirror a TV show on Netflix. They did an episode, it was probably my least favorite episode, actually. And it was a choose your own adventure episode. And I went through every single like option to see what each option would, would would happen, what would happen. Because I want to know what happens with all my choices. And so life is kind of like our own. Choose your own adventure, but in real life will last exactly what you choose your own adventure is right. But we know the final outcome, so we know the final outcome is that hate to break it to you that we're gonna die. I know, I know. I know. I thought I was immortal of Well, turns out we're not sucks or does it? Do we want to live forever? Would it be like that film? That film with I think Meryl Streep, yeah, Meryl Streep. And what's that ginger one. The truth, the truth becomes her lies become her devil becomes her something becomes a anyway. And they have like, oh, immortality juice, and they drink it. And then they just like, their bodies are falling apart because they're not designed to live forever. So yeah, we know the outcome of our Choose Your Own Adventure is that one day we're going to die. What we don't know is when and what the content of our life will be between now. And then. So I want you to look back at my own like path A and path B, which is very similar to a lot of people's path A and then path B is kind of like what if in our lives in regards to learning to love your body, and stop dieting or not. And so, you know, you can always see kind of like pivotal times in your life. and think, Oh, well, that was kind of like a pivotal time. And if I didn't do that, then maybe that wouldn't have happened and that they'll enter data. And so my kind of pivotal A B path decision happened in my late 20s. So in my late 20s, where I was in my brain was I had spent my life not liking my body. And now I was like, What is not about what you look like question mark didn't really believe it. But it's about how, you know, healthy is the new skinny. And so I really want to focus on my health. That was kind of like me trying to be a more enlightened version of me being like, I just want to be thin and not like a model, you know, but still, I want it to be thin, like a model. So that's where I was. And I remember I took a I think it was about three days of work to go to this health workshop. And so it was like three days of learning about how to be healthy. And the reason why I took it is because I believed that I didn't know how to eat, which is what diet culture teaches us right? Like you don't know how to eat look what look what's happened to you because you've been eating on your own you'd become really fat and horrible. Do our diet plan and we'll teach you how to eat infantilizes you and you ain't no baby you know how to eat. I didn't know that other time though, so I, I thought going to this workshop, they're going to teach me how to eat, what to eat, when to eat, what to do with my life to make myself healthy, aka thin looking like a model.

Unknown Speaker 10:14

And I was in a really influential state, I was quite kind of, I know nothing, teach me everything. Clearly, I have no control over my life, because I tried everything to become thin, right. And in that life, in that time of my life, I was quite successful with my career. I, everything in my life was pretty good. I'd say pretty good in regards to how good it could be when I was hating myself and dieting and all that type of stuff. And I just really thought I just need to get rid of this fatness, and I'll finally be as successful as I deserve to be. And finally, I'll be recognized. And finally, oh, that last little thing, because I dealt with a lot of shit and trauma and all that type of stuff. I just need to get rid of this this fatness. So, you know, I was spending time and money learning, taking no time off work to learn how to be quite quite healthy. And the content of this workshop could have pushed me one way or the other. So one way is pushing me into learning how to love my body realizing that diets don't work. And the other way path be really going all in on this health and fitness stuff. And I was kind of like, yeah, yeah, this workshop was was kind of could push me either either. Or, I remember during the workshop, I asked the leader, we were having lunch, I asked the leader, how many nuts should I eat? And I was like, Can I eat three nuts? Or should I eat five nuts? And she said, just eat what you want. You know, she wasn't a diet fiend. Which was so lucky. Eat like eat like however many, many you like. And I was like, but like, it's five too much is 10 too much? Is like 22 March, I think she kind of gave me some sort of answer because I needed to know how many nuts I was allowed to eat, which is silly. And we had this as I went. So that was a good thing. That was kind of a good thing. She must have given me some sort of answer. But I remember that sticking with me of her saying eat as many as you want, or how eat what you want, you know sort of thing. I remember that sticking with me. And also, I remember we had so we had the lunch catered by this organic food company. And what they provided was salad. And it was a cold, rainy time of the year. The place we were in was this yoga studio, which it was concrete floors, like polished concrete. And it was very cold, like hard chairs. And when we were sitting, when we were like doing the workshop, we were sitting on the floor on thin yoga mats. And it was uncomfortable. And having salad when when it's like a cold day. And you just need you know, warming up and you know, a nice bowl of soup or something hearty would have been really nice. And and we're all there saying oh yes, Alexander's. Oh, great. Oh, this is lovely. I remember like with my tofu salad being lovely, and I was so fucking hungry. And it could have been lovely, you know, I was so hungry. And salad is you know, unless it's a really hearty salad is not enough food. And even though the leader said you can eat as many nuts as you like, I still wouldn't allow myself to eat more nuts because I was looking around or these other people on the table. A couple of them were professional athletes, one of them was a gold medal Olympian. And I think the other one was an Olympian too, or some sort of professional athlete anyway and so I'm looking around are these other people and someone was like a professional chef and and they weren't they were just eating their salad and they were content or so I you know, thought they were probably fucking starving to and didn't want to be like, Oh God give me some food because we were like learning how to be happy and all that type of stuff. So something inside me said like, this isn't feel good. Like it didn't feel good. Be cold and hard floor and cold food and hungry and I just didn't, I was like this, this is not sitting right with me. I'm hungry, hungry. So instead, what I did is after that workshop

Unknown Speaker 15:15

sometime after, I don't know how long after, somehow I stumbled upon the book Health at Every Size by Dr. Linda Bacon. And I stumbled upon dances with fat Regan chest pains blog, and I started following fit, quote, unquote, fit fat people. Because I couldn't follow just a normal fat person was a normal, like, an out, you know, any, any fat person had to be someone who's like health focused, because I couldn't cope with with being interested in a fat person who's just like, I'm fat, whatever. And so I started kind of educating myself. And I realized that this, this is what I was looking for, like, this is the answer. And focusing on my health in that way, because also so much about health. But you know, health really was I, I thought I was so like, focused about my health and making myself healthy. And I discovered that this was health every size, learning to love your body and stop dieting was actually super health promoting, and what I was doing previously, not so much. And I finally realized that it wasn't my weight holding me back. But it was the way that I viewed my weight, how society viewed body weights. And my mindset totally shifted. And this thing that I thought was a problem was, was no longer a problem in the way that I previously viewed it. The problem was the way the society views fat bodies, not the fact that I had a fat body have a fat body. And I realized that I had nothing to be ashamed of continue to educate myself, I became an intuitive eater, it was hard, but I did it. And my Achilles heel was gone. That big, dark, shameful thing, having a bigger body was no longer shameful in my eyes. And I didn't have to quote unquote, fix myself. So instead of thinking, how to become thinner, and how to become healthy by controlling food, and forcing myself to exercise in ways that wasn't healthy, like I remember, I was such a knob. One time I remember one time posting on Facebook, a picture of me, you know, just a picture of the road. Me and my then partner, I said, let's go out and read him. Because I'm dedicated a picture of the road that we ran, covered in ice and snow. And I was like, I'm so dedicated to being healthy. I will run in the ice and snow, when other all these other lazy bastards are just inside. Having a good time. I'm so dedicated. I risk breaking my neck in order to be healthy. I remember posting that picture being like, hashtag out for an evening run. And it was dark. And it was it was nighttime. Like hashed out, I can't even run hashtag What's your excuse? Something like that. Something obnoxious. Yeah. So I did stuff like that. And, and so instead of doing stuff like that, I did stuff that actually improved my life. So instead of going out running at nighttime, in the in the ice and snow, I would do things like I got a better job. I then eventually started my own business. I ended friendships that weren't healthy for me, didn't serve me and invested more in the friendships that that did. And we're good. I made new, healthy relationships. I stopped dating people who were not suitable for me. As soon as they showed me their true colors. I was able to do really cool stuff. I made mistakes, and I grew from those mistakes. And all because I wasn't spending so much time, money and effort in trying to become thin or thinner, or healthy, whatever that means, you know.

Unknown Speaker 19:46

And now I believe that I'm a more compassionate and kind person, not only to others, but to myself, which is super important, and I don't think that I would be where I am Now and, and be as compassionate towards myself if I didn't choose Path A, the love your body and stop dieting path, I don't think I could be compassionate towards myself and to others, because if you're compassionate towards yourself, you can be compassionate to others if I didn't choose that path, so what do I think could happen if I or others, because this my story is resonates with so many people I've met so many people like yet yeah, obviously not the specifics of I went to a health workshop for three days and asked the teacher about nuts, but you know, the general kind of things that you were doing, and the path B, I think, you know, a lot of it is going to be resonating with people because maybe, where you see things going, or what you think your life could be, depending on which path you decide to take, or you have decided to take, okay, so what would path be looked like? So at that time in my life, so imagine if I went to that workshop, and from that workshop, I was taking something away from it saying, Okay, I must eat only three nuts or whatever. And I must become thin, you know, versus kind of questioning how this made me it makes me feel. I remember at that time, I was in recruitment, and I was interviewing with different companies. So around that time and being a recruiter and knowing lots of people in so when you're recruiting you know, lots of people in in the city who have kind of professional type jobs know a lot of the other recruiters, even if they're your like your rivals or whatever. And one of someone who worked for a rival agency who then then worked for a company. I became friends with him and then he got a new job at Lululemon so Lululemon working in the corporate head office in in Vancouver, so Lululemon, I don't know if you know about Lululemon so Lululemon is a Canadian yoga wear brand. And the former CEO or was he? He's like the founder, he was the founder and CEO Chip Wilson was a is a notorious fat phobe and has made you can read like articles about if you just Google Lululemon and plus size or Lululemon and Chip Wilson, you'll get articles about the shit that he said, like, basically, we don't want to make clothes that fit fat people because they'll look bad in our clothes. And we don't want fat people to represent our brand. And he's, he's, he's, he's just a bit who said some other things too. So anyway, so I don't know, I can't remember if at that time, he was still there or not. But that's kind of even still now. Lululemon still don't make clothes for fat people. And it's still kind of very, not fat friendly. And when they try to do things which are which are inclusive. They like I remember one time in Vancouver, they did like a feminism, a feminism panel. And the panel was made up 100% of white men and women all straight sides. Like literally, I think they had a token, a token person of color. And everyone was like, this is peak white feminism anyway. So that, you know, I don't get sued for the shit I'm saying. Allegedly, allegedly. Okay, allegedly, all of that stuff. So anyway, so I went to visit him at the headquarter offices. And he's like, he's a good guy, like down to earth guy and stuff. And so I was like, no, no, but I went to visit him lots or he gave me a tour. And there was lots of Lululemon type people. And so Lululemon type people would be, you know, beautiful, thin people. You know, very organic, dairy, celery, that type of thing. No fat is there. And immediately I felt like before I felt like I probably don't fit there, but this guy's working there. He's super cool. He's not like that.

Unknown Speaker 24:45

But I felt like I definitely don't fit in here. And I know so another one of my friends worked there and head office and she would tell me about their staff discount day where they'd get like, the stuff items super cheap and Lululemon stuff is expensive, right? So maybe a pair of leggings is $100? I don't know, obviously, I don't buy their stuff. But I remember thinking, well, when they have stuff discount day, I won't be able to buy anything. And maybe some some socks or a hat or something. I don't even know if that makes socks and a hat. Because they're notoriously fat phobic. And they have like, you know, go to size size large, which is probably a size 10 or something I don't know. So what if I'd come from that workshop, I'd gone to Lululemon to see about a job or whatever. And what if, instead of saying, and thinking or understanding that it didn't feel good to be there? What if instead, I internalized that stuff and said, working for a company like this would be really good for me, because it helped me become more fit and healthy, to be surrounded by all of these thin people, it's going to rub off on me. And before you know it, I'm gonna be a world class Olympian or something, right? You know, what if and that is very realistic that not the limping thing, but very realistic? That I would see it like that, because I worked previously for an organic food company. And what do you think went through my head while I took that job? I'll get so healthy with all the organic food that I'm eating. And actually, while I worked there, I sat behind one of the buyers, the buyers is the person who buys picks what what food is going to be in, you know, in store, whatever. And I remember him talking to like the other buyers and being like, Oh, isn't it so interesting how organic has a load of bullshit and how even the organic farmers, they, they think it's bullshit, but they do it because they make more money from it. So I was like, Oh, before I didn't really know about organic, I presumed Oh, it's probably better. But you know, the people who were working now know about this stuff was like, Nah, it's bullshit. Don't worry about it. And so, you know, I came away from that stand on a, you know, a lot of disordered food shit that I learned, but not thinking, Oh, organic food is better, or organic milk is better. I literally, literally, one time. So I started buying this really expensive organic milk. And my boyfriend at the time, he was a scientist. And he was like, why are you buying all this expensive organic milk? Like, I buy them in these really fancy, like glass containers? And I was like, well, it just tastes better. And, and he's like, does it and I was like, Yeah, as soon as I taste that organic milk, I'm like, I know, it's organic. And so he did a blind taste test for me. And so I was like, swear straight up and down. I know that taste of that organic milk is it's so beautiful. And so then I did the taste test, I tasted the organic milk, and I was like, that is the organic milk. i It's beautiful. It's lovely. And he was like, No, this is a milk from the cheap superstore. And I was like, oh, oh, shit. But anyway, if you buy organic milk, whatever you like it, go for it, whatever. No big deal. But, you know, luckily, some things there happened that stopped me going down this path of something else, Plan B, option B, path B.

Unknown Speaker 28:35

So yeah, so what if I pursued a job at Lululemon? Or maybe I didn't, and maybe I just decided that I need to be thin enough to work at places like this. Because I knew I couldn't cut it didn't fit in, you know, I didn't own any Lululemon clothes. And I went to yoga because I like a bit of Kundalini Yoga. You know, I was very active and have to have two bikes, but roadbike and I was I was very active. But still, I didn't, I didn't feel like I fit in there because I had a big body. So what if I could have pursued a job there? Or maybe I just took from it. I need to fit in. I need to become thin enough to be worthy. And maybe I could have really got into healthy living and organic and working out 365 days a year. And I wouldn't have read haze like that. Maybe at that point. If someone had had said, Hey, read this book cover every size. I wouldn't probably be be in the mindset or be curious or open to reading something like Health at Every Size. I wouldn't be inclined to because because it wouldn't align with my goals of becoming thinner and therefore worthy and therefore attractive and sexy and all that time. The stuff maybe I would have got made more new friends got rid of the old ones, maybe the old ones who were good for me. And maybe the new friends would be super health focused. Because I started I started doing that, actually, at that time with the health workshop, because the person who ran it was a friend. And I, I leaned towards beef being friends with her because she was a health coach. And yeah, so I can imagine, and then I made friends in that workshop. And I can imagine leaning into those friendships and from me, you know, more more friendships from people that they knew that type of thing. And so being surrounded by people were very focused on on health and weight, and all that type of stuff. And I would probably watch more health documentaries on Netflix. And you know, those health documentaries on Netflix are like, damn, Tony, don't eat potatoes, because they're gonna ruin the world. I'm talking about the ones the health documentaries, which are not helpful, you know, the ones that are, you know, scare mongering people into not eating food. And that's problematic in lots of different ways. So I would be be watching more of these health documentaries on Netflix, and then that would influence my behavior a lot. And maybe I would cut out more food groups. Maybe then my disordered relationship with food could turn into a full blown eating disorder. But I wouldn't see it because I still wouldn't be thin, because we know it's very hard to become thin. So no matter what I would try, I couldn't get thin, thin, maybe I could lose weight a little bit, temporarily. And I would blame myself, when I put that weight back on. Everyone I know, is thin, right? All my friends, all these health people, they're all thin. And I wouldn't be able to see that maybe they're just naturally thin, or perhaps they have an eating disorder or something else is going on behind the scenes. And this would be my whole life, I'd be really deep in focusing on health and weight, maybe I'll do something like start a business around this, maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't have the energy to start a business around this because I'd be so fucking tired and hungry, that I wouldn't have the capacity to do something like that. And if I did start a business around, you know, health and becoming thin, I would be all in with a disordered relationship with food and my body. And I'd be teaching it to others. And it would be hard to come back from that. And it'd be hard to say, you know, you know what, I was wrong. I was wrong. And I would feel ashamed because even though I'd be teaching about health, a lot of times I'd be sneaking food and eating things that I quote unquote, shouldn't, because I would be so desperately hungry, for food and for comfort and for all the normal things that human beings need.

Unknown Speaker 33:27

And I'd probably see my body as this project, this thing that needs to improve, and it would never be good enough, I would see it as bad. And if I had a partner, I'd probably choose someone who is into health and fitness. And they would add to my way of thinking they would objectify me as they objectify themselves, I wouldn't be able to keep up the dieting and restriction. There'll be times where I break and binge and put weight on. And I would believe that I was addicted to food. And maybe I'd go to Overeaters Anonymous, Anonymous meetings. I would believe that I was so deeply flawed and my body was so wrong. And I would continue on this cycle of restriction restrict and binge just like everyone does on diets. But I would never say I'm on a diet. I would say things like, I'm just being careful with what I eat. I just want to be healthy. And life would continue with me being distracted by this meaningless thing, what my body looks like, and believing that I had good health because I ate organic food. But my mental health would be awful. My self esteem would be awful. Dieting has terrible consequences on our physical health. So I Probably wouldn't actually be healthy and, and so does Hating Your Body having shame around your body has terrible consequences on our mental and physical health. Maybe I would do things to prove that I am worthy even though I am still fat, like being a people pleaser, or not standing up for myself or trying to prove that I'm attractive despite my body. So maybe I would spend lots of money, altering my appearance or buying new clothes and, but nothing would ever deep down make me feel good. All this stuff would kind of be like a temporary solve. And this continues through life. Everything is tainted by the relationship I have with my food and with with food and my body being disordered. And if I have children, I worry what that means for my body. And I worry that my partner who is health and fitness, fitness focused what they think of my body, if I have children. And if I get married, being obsessed with being as thin as possible on my wedding day, but still looking at the pictures from my wedding day and thinking, I didn't look good enough, I still looked fat. And as I raise my kids, I teach them how to be healthy or so I think. But really what I'm teaching them is how to be disordered around food, and not trust their bodies are not like their bodies. I have no idea what I'm teaching them, I want them to be healthy. When I say I want them to be healthy, I want them to be thin. After all, I don't want them to be fat like me, and have a bad life. Because of their fat body. I want them to be thin. And even as I age, feelings about myself don't change, nothing I do makes me feel like I'm good enough. And now I don't have youth, I don't have my use or have to really double down on my weight and really work to get thin. Because I don't have that youth advantage. Because obviously I think that being young. And youth is, you know, beauty because I don't understand about patriarchal beauty ideals. At my grandchildren's birthdays, I would say all only a tiny piece of cake. Because I'm worried that I will ruin my diets. Maybe I go to weekly diet meetings with my friends, and feel ashamed when I don't lose weight. When I go on holiday with my family, or go out with my friends, I don't want to be in pictures. Because seeing myself look, quote unquote, so big, really makes me sad. And I'm very old now, and I'm dying. As I look back on my life, I can finally see all the time, money and energy that I wasted trying to become smaller. And I realized people love me no matter what my size is, and that my body has taken me through life, even though I did everything to make it disappear.

Unknown Speaker 38:28

But I realized I can't get back that time. And as I see my children and grandchildren go on diets, and stare at themselves in the mirror while looking disappointed. I'm sad to know, my legacy will continue for years to come. That legacy of body hate disordered relationship with food. And that is a scenario for path B, a scenario for path B of what could happen to you or I if we decide to double down on these efforts to become thin. Or if we say You know what? This isn't this isn't making me feel good. Let's explore something else. Let's let's look at this path A and of course there's gonna be variations on that path like maybe say if I you know my disordered eating and path b My disordered eating turned into a full eating disorder. Maybe that could have killed me. Maybe I could have died from my dis eating disorder and never made it to be the old lady who finally had that realization. Or maybe in my 50s I finally discovered Health at Every Size and body positivity and fat positivity and then make a change. You know who knows? A lot of people, they kind of they feel like they kick themselves because why didn't I do this earlier? Why didn't I realize earlier? And I always think, you know what? Unless you can't, you can't, you can't blame yourself. You know, if someone like what I'm doing right now shows you the possibilities, a path a path B, then you can make an informed choice. But the thing is, at that very moment, we don't know, do we, I didn't know that going on this. This wellness health retreat thing could be the catalyst for me, making positive changes in my life. I didn't know that by saying, You know what, eating a salad when it's really cold, and I'm hungry doesn't feel good. Instead of saying, it doesn't feel good. And that's about me. You know, in that moment, I didn't know that I was making potentially a big decision for myself. But I had had experiences that made me curious, you know, working at that organic food company, and not and it not being exactly how I thought it would be, you know, maybe if I had worked at that organic food company, I could have come out, as you know, raging, you know, don't eat this, don't eat that type of thing. And it wouldn't necessarily have been a choice. But so that's why I'm doing this doing this kind of comparison, so that we can look and think, okay, so this is what could happen if I continue trying to make my body small. And continue trying to control my weight with food and continue to continue exercising in ways that don't make me feel good. And instead, I'm going to start to explore, moving my body in ways that I like, or taking time off from moving my body, and allowing myself the foods that I want to eat, and allowing my fat body to just be fat. You know, what could happen, then, and the good thing is, is if you know the two different levels, so if you go down path A the loving your body path, and you're like, Do you know what this is, I don't like this, this is not for me, I just love dieting, and I love hating myself, probably is not going to happen. But if that is your thing, then you can always just go back on path B, right. Whereas I see it as like path B is just a time suck. It's like a waste, it's like is going in the wrong direction. When you can have beautiful happy stuff on path A, it's still gonna be hard, like, it's not fairy tales, and rainbows and all that type of stuff. It's still gonna be hard. But it's a different, it's different, right? It's hard. But also, at the end of the day, you're gonna be like, You know what, my body's alright. You know, I don't even think about my body. I don't think about food.

Unknown Speaker 43:11

Something that really inspired this episode is that I grew up with. So my mom has a best friend. And she lived like 10 doors down from my childhood home. And she was like a second mom to me. And she she was fat. She was that she always has been fat. She's, that's just who she is. She's fat. And as a kid, as a young kid, I was just like, Oh, she's fat is you know, whatever. It's fun to have her. You know. I never thought it was a problem. But she was always on dice. She never got thin for any amount of time, you know, temporarily. She'd lose a little bit of weight and then put it back on and. And my mum spoke to her last week. And when she was on the phone to her, my mum's friend said, Oh, that she was going to go to her diet club that day. And I was really surprised, because because we moved away from my family home. I moved away when I was 17. And so I haven't really seen her. I've seen her a couple of times, like my mom's wedding. And when my dad died, she came to the funeral. But I hadn't really been a part of her life for this amount of time. And I presumed that she would have just kind of come to the realization that she's just a fat person. And when I heard that she was going to this diet club and she's in her mid 60s. I just thought no, oh, no, I'm, you're perfect. You're you don't need to do that. This is what I was thinking. I just wanted to ah, and I think I've sent her my book before Maybe I don't know. But anyway, it's not my, it's not my place to do that. But my mum sent her my book. So thinking about her still pursuing weight loss, and me kind of having the belief of, oh, we'll grow out of this stuff, you know. But I knew already I don't I guess I did. I didn't connect it with people in my life. But I knew already that why would we, you know, why would we all of a sudden, when we get older, become incredibly wise, and incredibly knowledgeable, and able to look at all the bullshit that we've been fed all of our lives? Why is it that an age that we hit a number, then all of a sudden, we are like, oh, like, the knowledge of the Earth has been downloaded into my brain? And now I realized that dieting is a load of bullshit, and not my body is absolutely fine. Why would that happen? Unless you decide to make a change, and you educate yourself and all that type of stuff. Right? And we know this, we see this with, you know, older people in our lives, who we're still talking about one muscle or muscle, and oh, you know, all this diet bullshit. And then we kind of think in our brains are, but when I get older, it's gonna be different. But why why would it be different? You know, we do what we do. We continue to do what we do throughout our lives, right? Why would we suddenly change, we wouldn't, unless we decide, okay, I'm going to make a change, I'm going to work at this, we will always do what we've always done. Unless we decide to make a change. So unless you decide to make a change, then nothing's gonna change that is gonna change. But it's really cool, because you can choose your own adventure path, and it is an adventure, see what happens. So part A and part B are both scary and difficult. And I'm so thankful, I'm so thankful that there was something inside me that helped me pick path A, I honestly shudder to think that where I would be right now, if I had gone on path B, maybe I'd be exactly where I am today. Maybe if I had gone on path B. And I went into like hardcore dieting. Something would change. And I'd be like, You know what, this is bullshit. And I'd be even more fiery about it, because then I wasted even more time about it. And I'd be the same where I am today, or maybe not, you know, maybe I maybe I'd be thinner. But at what cost? And at what cost? What cost? And my mental and physical health?

Unknown Speaker 48:01

Oh, maybe actually, you know what, I probably wouldn't be thinner if I did go on path B, because what we know about dieting is it makes us gain weight. So we're I would probably be fatter. Not the being fatter is worse. But you know, I'm just trying to think of the scenarios. So maybe I'd be fatter, but deep in disordered eating, and not know why I couldn't control my weight. I'd also probably be with some creepy guy that I didn't feel worthy of and maybe I pressure him to get married to me to prove that I'm worthy of being a bride. Yeah, because we probably never know about the other versions of ourselves in parallel universes. But it's kind of cool to think about right. Another version of Victoria I think about is the version of Victoria that never left my hometown. That never left my abusive partner. And I think about her, and, you know, getting married to him and having kids with him and how very sad I would be, and I'm so pleased to be not living that reality. Right now. Yeah. So even Yeah, thinking about this stuff. Please make me feel thankful. Thankful. So what's your path? What path are you going to take path A or path B, or maybe there's a path C, or D or E, F, G and on and your path, your path A might be similar to mine, your path B, what I my my scenario that I read read out and that might be similar. You're probably not a grandparent with grandkids on your deathbed right now. thinking, Oh, the last thing I'm going to do in my life is listen to this podcast called vs. Fatty and think about how much time in my life I've wasted. You probably not going to do that on your deathbed. So what path do you think is best for you? I don't know. Everyone's different, right? Maybe path B is better for you. I don't know. If we have someone like Jillian Michaels McMichaels Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser, that evil person, she probably say pop be, right. I'm not saying you have to be evil to go on path B but I'm saying you know, sometimes Poppy might be better for people sometimes Part A is better for people. And paavai scary right? Because you're gonna have to say stand up to the world basically at some point and be like listen, I'm fat fucking deal with it. That's hard and scary and dangerous. Yeah, so All right, well, thank you for hanging out with me on this episode. Choose your own adventure. I hope your adventure of your life is fun and adventuresome. And thank you for hanging out with me today I will see you later crocodile stay fierce fatty. Goodbye thanks for listening to the episode and if you feel ready to get serious about this work and wants to know when the doors open to fears fatty Academy which is my signature program, where I teach all about how to overcome your fat phobic beliefs and learn to love your fat body, then go to fit fatty.com forward slash waitlist again that is fears fatty.com forward slash waitlist to get your name on the waitlist. For when first party Academy my signature program opens