Episode 194 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast episode 194. How to protect yourself from anti-fat bias this holiday season. Let's do it.

Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Vinny Welsby. Pronouncing them. Thanks for hanging out with me.

I appreciate it. If you're listening to this episode, then maybe you are seeking some respite from. Anti-fat nonsense, diet culture nonsense.

Perhaps you're at a holiday gathering and you are concurrently listening to me, then welcome. Or if that's none of you is that and it's just a random day.

Hello, welcome. I thought it was important to make this podcast, especially at this time of year, because so many of us are bombarded with absolute gargantuan amount of anti-fatness.

One from holiday settings and then two from new year, new you bullshit. And I feel this time of year, we just need extra support.

I also was inspired because one, I'd just done a training on this. If you want to get the training. You can. Today, we're going to be going over sections in the training.

But if you want the whole training, you can. One. Two, I watched the Your Fat Friend documentary.

It came out on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on their YouTube. So you can go watch it there if you haven't already.

I'm sure non-Canadians can watch it, too. I'll make a note here to link the doc. Anyway, Aubrey Gordon from Your Fat Friend, maintenance phase, fame.

In the documentary, I was really surprised by the lack of awareness of people around her.

And she was at a holiday table and the things people were saying and she was laughing along with, not laughing along with us in "haha, yeah, this is great to be anti-fat",

but laughing along with, as we all probably have, which laughing along of "haha, I'm laughing to maintain my safety" type of laugh because I don't want to confront you about what you're saying because, A, it's not safe.

B, I don't know you. C, whatever other reasons we don't know.

And it made me think about how powerful Aubrey is in the fat liberation world and how put in with a group of people who don't know, I mean, I mean, it's it seemed like family members and maybe friends of Aubrey's parents, maybe people who maybe understand what she does, but maybe don't get it.

And if they do get it, they are not connecting the dots that by saying anti-fat things and diet culture, things around the dinner table, that is harmful and exactly what Aubrey is is championing against.

It just, there's a disconnect. Anyway, so it doesn't matter how much you've done this work, how well versed you are in how fucked up anti-fatness and diet culture is,

there's still likely going to be times where you're exposed to anti-fatness and diet culture.

So I just want to share tactics have helped me because thankfully that's not my experience anymore because I, I lay down the law.

So, yeah, hey, listen, before we get into that, I checked out my podcast reviews.

Guess what? I got two one star reviews.

The first, the first one star review since I started, I got a one star review when I started the podcast, like five years ago.

And so in the five years since, I think it's only been five star reviews.

And one of them, I don't know what this person is saying.

This one person says lies to self. Heart health is a real thing.

Please stop spreading lies. Listen, I'm up to one hundred and ninety four episodes of the podcast.

Not once ever have I spoken about heart health.

So I don't know. No, nowhere, nowhere in any content I've ever produced have I spoken about heart health.

I know what this person is talking about. So and then the other person says, I only just talk about myself and I only read other people's articles.

I do read other people's articles, not articles and fall read snippets of it.

Sometimes some episodes might have more quotations from articles. Some none at all.

Like this one is none at all. So anyway, if you appreciate the podcast, if you can go and leave me a review, I would really be very thankful because these are the top two ones from the UK, ones from the US.

The first thing people are going to see these two, these two one star reviews depending on where they are.

So if you've listened to the show, you've got any type of benefit from it, if you can go and leave a review my little fatty heart.

Maybe that's where people are getting it from. My fatty heart will be will be very happy.

OK, the other update is last episode I spoke about fat and health care survey has been released.

It's been out for a couple of weeks. We're up to one hundred and eighty seven responses so far.

Love to get to two hundred if you haven't already go to the link and share your experiences about accessing health care while having a fat body.

If you had any anti fat experiences as a kid with the health care, that's that's also really interesting.

OK, I'm going to link link the health care making a note. Leave the health care survey.

Here's a few snippets though. Here's a few snippets from the stories that people are sharing.

By the way, your story doesn't need to be I almost died.

Your story can be I had a good experience, although we haven't had we haven't had any of those so far.

I have no no good experiences. It could be that there was microaggressions.

They could be that you have a have a sense, a feeling that you're not welcome, right?

All of those things are really important because I tell you why the big stories are important because they're egregious.

The small stories are important because I feel like health care providers can relate more to the smaller things.

If they're trying to do good, if they're not overtly aggressively anti fat,

they're more likely to be doing those smaller things that they don't realize are impact.

So all ranges of stories are really important.

And this information is going to be shared with health care providers like I've got nine trainings.

I've got a lot of stories that I've already got booked in with organizations and a few of those are medical organizations.

So this is really directly people are going to hear your stories.

So anyway, I'm going to be making a report that's probably probably going to come out in February.

So here's some snippets. I wrote an email with some snippets.

A 12 year old child who was told to jazzacise their fat away when they had precancerous mold.

This is what people have shared in the survey.

They're better and lose weight in response to a ruptured ovarian cyst.

Immediate medical attention was needed for that one.

Many folks reported being denied medical mental health meds because they may cause weight gain as a side effect.

And I guess that's better to be suicidal and thinner. I guess. Right. Sarcasm.

A doctor saying aloud and in front of other people, oh, here comes the one that won't get on the scale.

And another who called their patient names in relation to the food that they ate.

A massage therapist who waited until their client was already undressed on the table and part way through the appointment to start talking about how the company's weight loss products and suggestions.

A doctor looked at one person's body groaned and said, how do you people let yourselves get like this?

The and finally, the fat vegan who was told to eat more vegetables without being asked what they eat.

So that's just me. That was just me scanning and picking out random things.

There are there are stories of people having devastating outcomes, not that not that these are not devastating.

There's a lot. There's a lot to share. So I can't wait to share that info with you.

And if you feel called to do that survey. All right. So how to protect yourself from anti-fat bias.

This holiday. First off, I just want to give you a big fat, juicy, warm hug.

Just hug you in my brain and say you are worthy. You always were.

You always will be. Your body is not wrong. Your body is not bad.

You are not greedy for eating food. You are not lazy. You deserve comfort and peace and acceptance.

And if the people around you don't get that, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry if that's your experience.

Hopefully, just being with us today in this fat community, which is a podcast, is somewhat of a balm.

I did a podcast on how to protect yourself from anti-fat bias according to science.

And what science says is that being in the fat community, being part of the group, the in-group of fat, fatness and identifying as fat and being like I'm a fat person and I'm in a group of fat people already helps you deal with anti-fatness when it happens.

Versus if you're like, I don't want to be associated with fatness, I don't like being fat.

So if you're here, it's already doing something for you.

And if you can get any more fat community, joining Facebook groups, following people on social media, listening to other podcasts, if there's any way for you to meet people in person or in groups virtually, that's all going to be helpful.

As long as they're fat positive, right?

First off, first off, big thing that I advocate for and I've shared it on my Instagram before is a method that I've created called remove, reduce, protect.

You might have heard me say this before, but these are really, really important in order to try and get anti-fatness away from your life.

So first off, the gold standard, if you can do this, and by the way, this is not possible for a lot of reasons, for a lot of people, for a lot of dynamics due to privilege, et cetera, et cetera.

But if you can remove anti-fat bias, and so what that can look like removing anti-fat bias is look at your life and say, go through different areas and say, does this relationship?

Does this habit?

Does this item of clothing?

Does this TV show that I'm watching?

Does et cetera, et cetera?

Does it support the belief that my body is okay and that I'm allowed to eat food?

Or does it do the opposite?

Does it reinforce some unhelpful things?

Now, if it's a relationship, that can be tricky, unless it's someone that you're like, ah, this is just some person I met recently and I don't want to see them anymore.

Or you could be at the place where you're like, you know what?

I've had enough of my weird Uncle Keith making jokes about my body, and so I'm just going to not talk to him anymore.

You could be at that stage.

Sometimes it can take a long time to get to that stage.

But if we can, if there's a TV show that really fucks with us and makes us feel bad afterwards, and sometimes you might not even know that it's making you feel bad, can we remove it?

And some clues are, some clues are, if you're having a bad body image day, is to be a detective and see if there was anything triggering in the last little while.

Did someone say something to you?

Did you get exposed to something?

Is it just a random thing?

But can we be a detective and find out?

Ah, I know what it was.

Guess what?

I realized that my body image had been triggered.

I was on Discovery Channel, and they had...

I knew I shouldn't do it.

I knew it was a bad idea.

But I watched three episodes of What Not To Wear from the 2020s, 2010s, whenever it was out.

Season two with, you know, Stacey and I think Clinton, you know, where they grab people and they're like, "You dress really fucking bad and you're really fat.

Oh, let's hide all these problem areas and get slimming clothes for you, you big whale."

I knew I shouldn't, but I was like, "Well, there's nothing really else on that I'm watching right now.

I'll just put it on.

I'll just put it on."

Three episodes later, I was like, "Oh, that was gross."

And it's so obvious now with a lens of what we know now, looking at these people, there's one person that I'm like, "This person's going through some gender thing because they're like,

'Why are you dressing like a man?'

And you need to be wearing a dress."

And the person's like, "No, that doesn't feel like me."

And they're just like, "Ugh, this is gross."

And someone else was clearly neurodivergent and had issues with, like, had special interests and wanted to wear band t-shirts.

And another one was like really, really anti-fat and had body image struggles that were just really needed.

She really needed help from a mental health specialist, therapist or something.

Right. And they're just like, "Shut up.

You don't even know what looks good on you."

We know and force them to do things that they're uncomfortable with anyway.

So it was obviously terrible and horrible and, you know, I was just like, "Well, maybe it was, you know, I remember it being a good show, as in entertaining.

But I also remember it being fucked up, even at the time."

And I went back and no, no, I started thinking like, ugh, I felt something, I felt something in my brain in the next day or so where I was thinking about the things that they were saying.

Problem areas, slimming, you must follow this rule.

And this, this is coming from someone who has worked on this for years.

So for me, even though it would be a guilty pleasure, it would be, there would be some pleasure in watching this trash, I'm just not gonna, I'm just gonna protect my health and not gonna.

So the next is reduce.

So if you can't remove, reduce.

So if I said, actually, I really liked what not to wear, even though I know it probably wasn't great, but the amount of enjoyment I get from that show outweighs the negative body image, I might choose to reduce the amount of time I spend watching the show.

And that goes with for, you know, all of the things that we mentioned before that we, areas in your life that you might identify.

You might reduce spending time with weird Uncle Keith because you can't not see weird Uncle Keith because he's gonna be at the Christmas party or whatever.

But you're just gonna reduce your exposure.

So are there things that you can't remove or maybe you're not ready to remove, but you can reduce the amount of exposure.

And next, finally, is protect.

So if you can't remove, you can't reduce.

So, for example, it's your boss, you know, you can't be, you know, telling your boss to shut the fuck up with your anti diet talk.

Can you protect your mental health in other ways?

For example, listening to this podcast, engaging in self care, looking at fat positive things, leaving the room during diet talk,

talking to your therapist, talking to a friend who's fat positive, right?

So protecting yourself from the inevitable anti fatness.

And a lot of times that is what we're doing is we're protecting ourselves as much as possible because we're going to be exposed to it.

No matter what we do, which sucks.

I think the thing is with the protect is or any of this stuff is what we're saying is that this is not OK.

We're not going to just let it seep into us and agree with the anti fatness.

I think that's a key difference in that one podcast I was talking about.

The science is not agreeing with your oppression and saying, I know this is not OK versus saying maybe I should lose some weight

or maybe I shouldn't eat X, Y, Z. OK, so if you're at the stage that you say, right, I have done the protecting, I've done the reducing.

I want to just get rid of people who are talking about anti fatness as much as possible, especially in key relationships.

Setting boundaries is super important and also super difficult if you have been someone like I was for most of my life,

of avoiding conflict, people pleaser and minimizing the pain that I was feeling when people would say anti fat things.

I'm like, well, I don't want to be a troublemaker. That's my big thing.

Don't want to be a troublemaker. And I don't want to say anything. I just want to keep the peace.

But the only peace that I was keeping is with people who were saying awful things, because I wasn't at peace.

I could tell you. Right. I wasn't at peace.

There's a quote here just about what a boundary is. Boundaries are the lines you draw in life that when someone crosses them govern what you do in response.

And so it's about how you're going to react versus trying to get them to do, change their behavior. Right.

Because, you know, they might change their behavior, they might not.

But what we have control over is our behavior and how we're going to act.

Something to recognize here as well is that setting boundaries, if you have a marginalized identity, if you have a bigger body,

you already have a marginalized identity. If you have other marginalized identities, it means that you're going to have to be more creative and more flexible.

Because if you have less power in society and might not be safe for you to set boundaries with people, depending on if you rely on that person,

if they have power over you in any way, if they could react in a way that is not physically safe for you or you know that they're going to be abusive in some way,

we you might have to take that in consideration too and decide that maybe boundaries isn't the best thing.

Maybe that's not what's going to be to serve you. Also, it might not work if well, it's not going to work with people who you've not already have an established relationship to stop them doing something.

If it's just a spur of the moment thing, it's a random thing, you know, you've never had a problem with your aunt Millie, but then all of a sudden aunt Millie says something, you know,

then you would need to be deciding if you want to set a boundary or not or just let it go.

So sometimes boundaries are the way to go, but sometimes not every situation is relevant.

However, when talking to people who clients who are struggling with body image stuff and they just feels like they've tried everything and they say,

I'm listening to all the podcasts I'm doing, you know, I'm doing all of this and that there's a couple of things that could be going wrong.

And so I asked them, what are your relationships like? Do you have supportive relationships with people who say, fuck yeah, love fat people, you know, intuitive eating, blah, blah, blah?

Or do you have a mum that's like, oh my God, I'm so fat, oh, have you tried eating celery and putting up your bum?

Often they'll say my friends are great, but my mum, but my sister, but my family, they don't get it.

And I told them before not to say X, Y, Z, and they still do it.

The other thing that people will say is, I've listened to the books and the podcasts and blah, blah, blah, but they've not taken any type of action in order to help with reinforcing new confidence and gaining new confidence.

So, for example, they want to wear a swimsuit and they're too scared to and they just hope that reading a book or listening to podcasts is going to help them have the confidence to wear a swimsuit.

But kind of a catch 22 of supporting yourself to be exposed to wearing a swimsuit, maybe just a little bit.

We've spoken about in another podcast, Tinkling Your Toes is then going to help you often feel better and more confident if you're able to wear the swimsuit for one minute to be able to wear it for two minutes, five minutes, etc.

So they're the two things that I know is a pattern in people.

And so I find that people often minimise how spending time with anti-fat people, diet, culture, people affects their mental health, affects their sense of wellbeing.

Because to know that your family would theoretically love you more, celebrate you, praise you, cherish you, if you had a smaller body, that's really painful.

And to know that you are not able to give that to them and hoping that they're going to love and accept you as you are, but then they continually keep reminding you that they really value thinness.

That's difficult, that's difficult, right? Not only is it potentially hurting your self-esteem, it's meaning that you can't have as close of relationship with that person.

Because there's a wall, there's a barrier. I think that you'd be better if you're thinner versus busting that down and getting true connection, closer connection, authentic connection.

So by not setting boundaries, often what we're doing is we're putting others' comfort over our own mental wellness.

And I think that my own mental wellness is more important than the comfort of someone else.

And we're not saying like making them uncomfortable and hurt them. It's just that don't make trouble, don't say that to your elder, don't tell them to not talk about it, don't do it.

But we can set boundaries in ways that are authentic to us that are, we don't have to unless you want to be, you know, bold and sassy and be like listen, shut the bug up.

If that's not your personality, that's not your personality. And also it might not necessarily be the best way to do it.

OK, so if you're at the dinner table and someone's saying something, there's many different ways that you can react.

Let me just go through a few. You can do things like smile and nod. Agree with them. Engage in the conversation. You might do that to keep yourself safe. Say and do nothing.

And then you'll probably ruminate about it, tell a friend about the experience later. You can change the subject. You can make a joke and be lighthearted about the situation.

You can gently tell them that you don't want to talk about this because xyz. You can firmly tell them that you don't want to talk about this.

You can walk away either saying something or not saying anything. You can give them a sassy response, which could educate them. You can tell them to fuck off. Many different options, right?

The giving them a sassy response or telling them to fuck off might not be necessary relationship building ways to go about this, but it could be protective for you.

The first four, smiling and nodding, not saying anything, changing the subject, again, are probably not necessarily relationship building stuff. It's not going to get you closer to that person necessarily,

but it will avoid conflict and it'll help you survive the situation. So that might be best for you.

But the kind of the juicy, challenging things that could be good for you and the relationship, gently telling them that you don't want to talk about something, firmly telling them and walking away.

They could be effective in getting the message across that you don't want to talk about this stuff.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

Is like I said before, people will say, I've told my mum not to talk about X, Y, Z, and she keeps doing it.

And so I dig into that and say, OK, so what is the conversation and what's happening here?

And so what will normally happen? What I'll normally hear is that I've said, Oh, can you not talk about that? Don't talk about that.

And then next time mum says, oh my god, I'm so fat because I licked a cucumber or whatever, then the person is not setting the bottom line or reminding them or a consequence. Right.

And so in that situation, next time mum says I licked a cucumber, I'm going to be really fat.

Hey, mum, remember we had I told you that I don't want to talk about food and then mum will react in any way, whatever way she's going to react.

And then next time mum says I ate a speck of dust, I'm so fat, or should you eat that?

Mum, I've asked you twice now to not talk about food. And so I'm going to enact your consequence.

Your consequence could be I'm going to end this conversation.

I'm going to walk away. I'm going to take a break from our relationship X, Y, Z. So you have to get serious, right?

This is like this is our friends and families have probably known us as people who engage in anti-fat talk and diet talk for most of our lives.

And so all of a sudden, if we just say, hey, can you not? It's kind of we have to support them through that process of really understanding that we are not in that anymore.

And to help people understand just saying constantly saying, can you not? Or, you know, rolling your eyes or ending the conversation.

It's not necessarily helping them get there because it's not necessarily communicating with them that you're serious about this.

Also, the people in your life could just be dickheads, you know, and just rolling over your boundaries anyway, even if you are stating them.

And that's where we kind of escalate the consequences type thing.

So if you know that you're going into a situation where there's probably going to be diet talk and you feel that your relationship, you want to have a deeper, more meaningful relationship or even a safer relationship,

which is really what's really important before going into a family gathering, saying, hey, by the way, let me share with you my favorites, my favorite way to talk about this, OK, that's been really successful for me and other people.

I'm wondering if you could help me with something.

Now, if someone said that to you, you'd say, oh, yeah, as long as it's not helping you to move because then, fuck, no, I'm wondering if you can help me with something.

So, as you know, I've been working on accepting my body and I've recently discovered that talking about bodies with other people can trigger low self-esteem in me.

Even if it's not about me, my brain makes it about me.

Do you think that you could help by not talking about any bodies around me?

You're the best. So in this situation, that word track, you don't have to share or, you know, I'm working on something, but that can you help me gets people kind of, oh, yeah, I'd like to help you.

You're not making it, hey, you're a piece of shit. You talk about bodies and it makes me feel terrible. And you, you, blah, blah, blah. That would probably get their defenses up.

You're saying you're making it about you and what you've recently discovered about you and how people can support you.

You're not saying that they're a terrible person. And you're saying, you know, even if you're not talking about me, which is what a lot of people say, well, I don't say anything about you.

They're talking, you know, and, you know, they're talking about them, but even if they're talking about them, it can make us feel shit.

So this seems to be successful in not creating conflict in that first bit. Listen, people, you know, whoever's going to, who you say this to, they could create conflict or, you know, from what you say anyway.

So that was my favorite word track. But the other things I like doing, depending on my level of relationship with a person is changing the subject, saying something like, I'm not into diet at all.

Or saying something like, being fat is amazing. I love being fat. I want you to get your own phrases that fit you.

Might be just one. I'm not into diet talk. Being fat is cool. Whatever it is. It could be something that's just shutting the conversation down.

I'm not into diet talk. That could shut the conversation. Saying being fat is amazing. I love being fat. That could open it up being like, too. Oh, how could you?

So you might decide that that's not. For me, I would happily say being fat is amazing. I love being fat because, you know, no matter what they say, I would have a comeback, right? Comeback is, hey, fat people are human.

Like chill. Or, you know, changing the subject if I'm not, if I don't have the relationship with that person and I don't feel it's appropriate.

So, for example, I was at a party last week. We were playing games and a guy had made a fat like fat joke reference and then had made a fat joke to me. Not about me. It was a good joke.

It was a good joke if it wasn't based on anti-fatness. And so he was having like an not intimate, but, you know, it was a joke for me to make me laugh.

And he was doing it because we were all laughing and having fun. And he didn't know me and he didn't know what I do. And he thought that I would be like, yeah, good one, because if it was about any of if it wasn't punching down, I would be like, yeah, that was a good joke.

But I didn't know the guy. I didn't know his name. We were having fun. But, you know, I probably might not see him again.

And so I just smiled and changed the subject. That was it. Now, if, say, maybe this was the second time I saw him or I wanted to have a relationship with him in that moment where he did this, this, this fat joke, I would say, oh, no.

So I think it's great to be fat. That's what I would have said. And he would have probably felt uncomfortable.

And it might have stalled the relationship a little bit, you know, the friendship, but I would then be able to be my authentic self and be creating safety to say that I'm not into fat jokes.

Then if I was sooner have met him another time, I'd probably be telling him what I do. And he might be like, oh, shit. That's why I shouldn't be making fat jokes.

So have like put that in your notes app, whatever some some phrase that is going to help you in the moment. Try and do the work beforehand to set boundaries.

And then we want to make sure that we are, if you want a boundary to be successful, you have to have a consequence.

You have to follow up when someone does the same thing. They might be doing it because they're a dickhead, but chances are, they forgot, you know, it's so part of the lingo, blah, blah, blah.

But you just have to keep not keep, but you have to at least, you know, the initial times being like, hey, by the way.

But that's the thing is you don't the you know, having to keep restating your boundary is not the way to go either.

There is a graphic that Courtney J. Burge, B, U, R, G made violations boundaries.

And so we've got a chart here, one going up is violation, one going across his boundaries.

And there's a line that goes straight up that set that shows like what you would do.

So the first step is restate the boundary. So you set the boundary, hey, don't talk about this or hey, you know, the words I just previously used, hey, do you think you can help me?

And then they're like, oh, my God, whatever. And so, hey, do you remember next?

You might decide to, by the way, this is whatever feels good for you, create some space.

And so that might be saying, I'm just going to walk away from this conversation. I'm just going to have my dinner and sit in a different room.

I am going to end this call. I'm going to stop texting this person, whatever it is next.

If they keep doing it, limit contact. If that doesn't help.

And then, you know, you limit contact, then you go back to them and they're like, oh, my God, I put a cucumber at my bum or whatever, then taking a break.

That doesn't work. Disconnect. And you can disconnect for however long you want.

Now, this process is not going to be day one. Hey, by the way, can you not talk about this?

And then someone says, oh, geez. And then you're like, fuck you. You're dead to me. That's not how it happens, right?

If you want to do that. Fine. But normally this stuff, it takes takes a while, right?

Because we generally don't tend to want to end relationships, right?

These relationships are a lot of times are important to us.

And even if you don't really like that person that much, you still want to be creating harmony.

Right. And this is how we've been socialized. And I've used the example of one of my sisters.

I have always kind of had a fraught relationship because. Anyway, her personality and boundary violations.

And so for probably five to 10 years plus worked on trying to get her to respect my boundaries and doing everything,

like going to therapy and being like, why can't I just get over it? Why do I have to be so mad at her all the time?

And the reason was because she kept violating my boundaries every time I saw her. Right.

So it took years to get to the point where I said, I don't want a relationship with you anymore because we we just couldn't get there.

We couldn't get there where she was able to say, oh, OK, I won't talk about that. Guess what?

It feels fucking amazing. And I'm able to extend way more love to her through the, you know,

not in person, but when I think about her, I make stable, able to extend compassion and grace,

empathy towards her, because she's not in my life, continuing to hurt me.

And any time she just she still violates my boundaries, she keeps trying to get back into my life,

even though I've told her that then knocks it back again and makes me realize, oh, no, this is why this is not good.

So, you know, we talk about there's lots of stories of people going no contact with family members and it being seemingly this this terrible thing.

And it can be a terrible thing. And but also it can be really healing.

And it has been really healing for me and feels feels really fucking great. Look at me.

But every other other relationship in my life has been, you know, restating the boundary, maybe got to creating some space.

But basically, it's led to better relationships. It's led to only being in in in relationship with people who don't talk about anti-fatness and diet culture.

How fucking amazing is that? How lucky am I? I know that's not reality for most people. Oh, it feels good. It feels good. It feels good.

I want you to embrace for the types of reactions that you might receive when you're talking about this stuff with people, if they're new to it,

if they're not a boundary person themselves, there's lots of different ways that people are going to react.

And first, they could respect your consequence, learn from the experience and do better.

34:45 --> 34:49

That could be the outcome. That's really cool. That could happen.

They could also do things like, quote, forget. There's a consequence in place.

Oh, are you still not talking to me? Because I said that one thing they could belittle you or call you quote crazy or tell you that there's something wrong with you.

All I said was this. It's nothing. Why are you so sensitive?

They could love bomb you so that you feel guilty. They could get angry. They can make themselves a victim.

Oh, you hate me. All I ever did was this. They could gaslight you. No, I didn't say that. What are you talking about?

They could ignore you or so. So you want to not engage with manipulative tactics if possible because they're trying to get you to break your boundary or consequence, which will which will harm you.

Right. So what we hope for is that they're going to respect your consequence.

Maybe there might be a little bit of other stuff in there because, you know, they're human.

But it's almost like you're parenting these people, which is not OK.

You should not have to do it. But perhaps your relationship gets better from it and perhaps, if nothing, you are able to protect yourself.

So I want to write down in your notes app or whatever, a couple of easy responses when you're experiencing anti-fat bias in the moment.

I'm not into diet talk. I'm not into anti-fatness or I'm going to change the subject because listen up here.

Listen up here. If you come up with some big, long, sassy, science filled response of, did you know blah, blah, blah, what's going to happen in that moment?

Something fucked up and then your brain is going to go, no, don't remember anything.

You should just start crying. You know, my brain does, not saying that you might do it.

But, you know, likelihood if you're newer to this stuff, it's hard. It's hard even for me. It's hard.

So just support yourself to do simple, even if it is just, oh, nice weather today, you know, then.

So you've got your responses for when, if it happens, just spur of the moment.

If you can, messaging people in response or the person, you know, that's the biggest boundary violator, with your boundary,

and then when they forget, remember what your first stage of consequence is, which is restating the boundary.

Then after that, if they do it again, you can decide what you want to do. You might decide I want to restate it again.

I'm going to give them five restates or whatever feels good for you in the moment.

Or I'm going to just do it once. Or I'm, you know, they don't get any, whatever feels right for you.

And then after that, I'm going to go to a different room and a conversation, whatever it is.

Also, the remove, reduce, protect because you can't always do this stuff.

We're not always in the position to be the best communicators for whatever reason.

So can you, if all of that ends up, fucks up, you go into, you go into spending time with your family or whatever,

and you've got the best intentions and then someone says something and you're just like, "Ugh!"

Protect, can you protect your mental health? Can you talk to a friend?

Can you go into fat community in groups? Blah, blah, blah.

Or can you, there's a song that Regan Chastain does, "Oh boundaries, oh boundaries, they help me deal with family."

"Oh boundaries, oh boundaries."

And the lyrics go, "Don't talk about my weight or food. Why can't you see it's hella rude?"

"Oh boundaries, oh boundaries, you help me deal with family."

It's on YouTube. Oh boundaries, let me find, let me see, I'll get the link. Oh boundaries link.

Don't we listen to that song. I think it's with Jeanette de Patti.

They might have another tune, another tune related to this. Okay, link.

Anyway, if you want more about this stuff, I have the whole training, this whole two hour training on this stuff,

which gives you word tracks, it gives you the jab technique that we've not spoken about today.

It gives you just a ton of other stuff, a ton of other stuff.

So if that's, you know, you're feeling like, "No, I need some more, I need some more ideas and responses."

And "I need to know how to whatever, I'm not doing very good at," "I need to know them types of boundaries."

"I need to know how to find things to remove, reduce, protect."

Then yeah, get the training. It's on, you can watch the replay.

If you feel called to leaving a review for the podcast, if you feel called to sharing your experiences on the FAT survey,

that would be a dreamy.

And again, just big giant fatty hug to you because you deserve a world that is free from bias against people's bodies and diet culture.

Horse shit! And in this corner of the world you will be.

You're welcome here, your body is respected here.

I think you're cool. Okay? Okay.

Well, have a lovely end of your year. We will see you in 2025.

Feels like a good, you know, quarter of a way into the century.

It's nice, like that, kind of quarter, nice round number.

Thank you for being here and we'll see you in the next episode.

Tata bye!