Episode 209 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast, episode 209: 10 Lessons from 10 Years in Fat Liberation. I'm your host, Vinny Welsby. Pronouns: they/them. Let's do it.

Hello! Welcome to this episode. I'm so pleased to have you here.

Hey, quick question. Quick favour. I happened to look at my podcast pages on Apple and whatnot, and Apple does this really annoying thing where it doesn't collect all of your reviews—it only shows reviews from certain regions. They should stop doing that. I guess it makes it tricky if reviews are in different languages, but anyway, whatever.

My question to you is: if you enjoy the show and appreciate the work that I do, could you go and leave me a review of the podcast on Apple? I think Apple's the only place you can leave written reviews. I was looking at it and realised I haven't asked people to leave reviews in probably a couple of years, which is why there aren't many recent ones. They're also spread across different regions, right? So I could have 10 reviews from the US, but if you're in Canada, you'll only see the Canadian reviews.

Anyway, there are already some wonderful reviews, and I really appreciate every single one. But if you're able to leave one, I would be so happy. And if you do leave a review, if you could use my pronouns—they/them—oh, be still my beating heart. I would absolutely love that. The joy I get when people refer to me as they/them instead of she/her is just... it really feels like you see me. It's so, so nice. And then when I see she/her, it's almost like someone getting your name wrong or something. Anyway, thank you if you're able to do that. I appreciate you.

So, I realised I've been doing this work for 10 years. Can you believe it? Time flies way too quickly. I'm almost dead. Well... who knows? Maybe I'm not almost dead. Maybe I'm going to die tomorrow. Or in the next 10 minutes. Who knows?

But I thought, you know, there have been such huge changes in the way I view things compared to 10 years ago, and in who I was as a person back then. I've learned so much about fat liberation, anti-diet work, and all of that along the way. So I thought you might be interested in hearing my 10 biggest lessons. Maybe. I don't know. Is that interesting to you?

I recently read someone else's post that was something like, "Three years after being diagnosed as autistic, here's what I've learned," and I found it really interesting. So I thought I'd do something similar.

Ten years ago—well, let's say July 2014. Hang on... that's more than 10 years. That's 12 years. July 2014 was when I first started doing online business stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I moved into fat liberation maybe a year later. So... yeah, let's call it 10 years. It's been more than 10 years, but you get the drift.

Back then, I wasn't even called Vinnie. I was still using my deadname.

Vinnie 10-plus years ago—or let's say 15 years ago—was deeply ashamed. I carried so much shame, and I felt incredibly isolated by it. I genuinely believed no one else felt the way I did, and it was such a lonely experience.

I had this searing longing for thinness because I believed thinness equalled all these magical things: love, acceptance, happiness. And yes, being thin can sometimes provide more acceptance, potentially more love, potentially more happiness—but not because thinness inherently makes you more lovable or happier. It's because of bias. Maybe experiencing less bias makes people happier. But I believed thinness itself was the answer.

I felt like I was capable in so many areas of my life. I considered myself a high achiever. But I just could not get thin. I was convinced there was something wrong with my brain.

I'd even gone to a freaking hypnotist.

This was one of the final cries of diet culture in my life. I'd gone to a hypnotist to make me stop eating a snack that I really liked.

I was such a people pleaser that... I wasn't actually hypnotised, but I faked it.

Oh, Vinnie.

So I went into the room, sat on the couch, and she did the whole thing where you visualise yourself walking down some stairs, counting backwards from 10. When she got to the bottom, she lifted my arm to see if I was hypnotised, and I think I just let it flop back down.

I was like, "I'm such a high achiever. I must succeed at this therapy."

Basically, she kept telling me, "That snack is disgusting. Even the smell of it makes me sick."

She really did a number on shaming me even more.

I did temporarily stop wanting that snack—not because of hypnosis, but because I was so ashamed, and because I'd paid money to see this hypnotist. I think I even went a couple of times. So I was like, "It worked! I'm hypnotised into not being a fat loser anymore."

Even today, though, there are still little ghosts of her messaging in my brain sometimes when I eat that snack.

And I still love that snack.

Actually... I should embrace it. That's a really good point.

One of the big themes I'm working on in therapy at the moment is becoming a troublemaker.

If I'm struggling with something, my therapist will ask, "Okay, why do you feel like that? What's underneath that?"

A lot of what's underneath my fears and worries is the belief that I'm a bad person because I'm "making trouble"—which, in reality, usually just means asking for my needs to be met. Somehow, my brain interprets that as being a troublemaker.

If I ever got a tattoo, maybe I'd get one that says Troublemaker to reclaim that identity.

Maybe Fat Troublemaker.

Maybe Fat Lesbian Troublemaker.

Yeah... that would be pretty cool.

And maybe I'd include this snack too. Maybe it'd be a fat person eating the snack that I really like.

The reason I'm not telling you what the snack is, by the way, is because I don't want anyone listening who also likes that snack to suddenly feel weird about it.

Around 10 to 15 years ago, I was also in a long-term relationship with my boyfriend at the time. He told me he was less attracted to me because I'd gained a few pounds.

Oh... that memory is just seared into my brain.

We were at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. The lake had frozen over, and we were throwing chunks of ice onto it, trying to break it up. That was when he confessed this terrible secret—that I'd done something wrong by having a human body.

Now I look back and think, "I'd put on a fucking few pounds."

I don't even think I was fat. Maybe I was a small fat person. Maybe I was a size 16.

Now I just roll my eyes.

But at the time, I took it as, "Okay. This is it. I have to do better."

That conversation was what led me into my final-ever diet.

Now I know the real response to that situation was that he needed therapy to work through why he found a long-term partner less attractive because they'd gained weight.

How can you expect to be with someone long term and expect their body to never change? It's not even possible.

I've actually made a whole podcast episode about that—when your partner says they don't find you attractive anymore. So if that's something you've experienced, definitely give that episode a listen.

At the time, I was also working in corporate recruitment.

Which I fucking hated with a passion.

The only reason I was in recruitment was because it kind of fell into my lap. I worked in recruitment for eight years. Before that, I was working in a call centre, which I hated. Recruitment was an ever-so-slightly better job, but the call centre was horrific. Recruitment paid maybe a little bit more and was maybe very horrific versus extremely horrific. I just hated it so much. And I would work in jobs I hated because I just thought that was what labour was. I always saw my mum working jobs that she hated, and my dad didn't work. Now we know it's because he was autistic and struggled to do that sort of thing. He also had substance use issues with alcohol. Anyway, anyway, so what I took from that was that my dad couldn't work because work was so awful, and my mum worked in jobs where she was sexually assaulted, abused, and paid minimum wage. So if you weren't experiencing those things and you were paid a little bit more than minimum wage, then that was a good job.

Basically, a lot of my life was accepting less than I deserved and hoping that if I could get thin, then my life would get better. I actually went to therapy with the idea that I was going to fix my brain—to work out what the barrier was. Why couldn't I get thin? I could do lots of other hard things. I'd spent many, many, many hours and dollars—well, pounds—trying to lose weight. So what was going on? I was like, "We're going to get to the psychology behind why I'm a piece of shit."

Okay, next lesson: there will always be cycles of a miracle cure and heroin chic, then maybe a little touch of body positivity, and then back to miracle cures and heroin chic. Heroin chic was the thing in the '90s with, what's her name, the model Kate Moss, where people were idolising extremely thin bodies. I guess people were taking heroin? Question mark? They just had very small bodies, and that was what was seen as chic.

I've done an episode on all of the fad diets and trends throughout the years. Most recently, Episode 185, Oprah Leaves the WeightWatchers Board After Using Weight Loss Drugs. In it, I'm chronicling all the diets Oprah has promoted as the next revolutionary, game-changing thing. Starting in the 1980s, it was the Optifast diet, which was supposedly the best thing ever. Then in the 1990s, it was The Best Life Diet, the last diet you were ever going to need. Then in the 2000s, it was veganism that was the next big thing for Oprah. Then in the 2010s, it was WeightWatchers. And then in 2024, she had that big show about weight loss injections, although it hadn't yet been disclosed which one she was taking. I think it was Wegovy or Ozempic.

Aside from Oprah, there's always been something that's supposedly going to change the world. Like Fen-Phen, which was a huge weight loss drug in the '90s. It was basically speed. It killed loads of people and caused serious heart problems—that's the mechanism of death, from the top of my head—but it was prescribed en masse because it was going to cure this terrible affliction of fatness.

Even more recently, there was a thing called AspireAssist, which was this horrific, horrific device where—trigger warning if you don't want to hear about eating disorder-type behaviours, skip ahead a few minutes—they would insert a tube connected to your stomach so that after you ate, you could literally open the valve and empty the contents of your stomach into the toilet. AspireAssist was the name of it. Just horrific. I watched a documentary where this guy was saying, "Oh, I'm so thin now!" and then going into the toilet with the documentary maker and emptying the contents of his stomach. It was dystopian.

Or the thing that came from New Zealand. New Zealand is really not great when it comes to anti-fat stuff. They came up with the new jaw-wiring device, except instead of wires it used really strong magnets. That was only a few years ago. Neither of those last two became as popular as the GLP-1 drugs, but Fen-Phen certainly did.

Anyway, there's always going to be a miracle cure, right? That's why I think a lot of fat activists, when they hear about GLP-1 drugs and people are absolutely losing their minds with excitement—"We've done it! We've cured fatness!"—are like, "Eh... have you? Or are loads of people going to die, and then they'll take it off the market and say, 'Oopsie, we just killed loads of fat people. LOL. Well, you know... they were fat.'" I'm not saying GLP-1 drugs are going to be taken off the market, but they are definitely the current hype.

If you've got friends taking GLP-1s and you're feeling so much pressure because everyone around you is doing it, I just want to remind you that it's likely to be another fad in many people's lives. If you can hold on, if that feels possible—and you might not want to, or you might want to try GLP-1s, and that's your choice. It's your body. Do whatever you want. But because I've been looking at this stuff for over a decade, you just see the same pattern again and again. You think, "Okay, let's wait and see what happens."

Then you start seeing that people can't sustain staying on the drugs, people regain the weight, and it wasn't a miracle cure after all. It was the same in the '90s and 2000s with stomach amputation surgery and stomach-shrinking surgery. I remember being young and thinking, "I hope when I grow up I can have that surgery," because that was the thing. Then 10 or 20 years later, we're like, "Oh... it wasn't so great," and people are finally talking about the awful things that can happen afterwards.

So if you're able to, remember history. Remember these cycles of people going into a frenzy over the latest thing that's supposedly going to make fat people disappear, with everyone celebrating thinness aggressively. Then it dies down. And then something else comes along.

So, next lesson, number three: anger, shaming, and self-righteousness can't be my driving force. But they are an important part of the stages of fat identity.

In Episode 205, I talked about the stages of fat identity and the signs you're thriving or trapped. These are the stages we can move through with any identity. It starts with conformity, where you're conforming to thin ideals. Then comes dissonance, where you're thinking, "Hang on... this isn't sounding right to me. Things aren't adding up. The data isn't matching what I've been told." Next comes resistance and immersion, where you're resisting anti-fatness and diet culture while immersing yourself in fat liberation.

Next is introspection, and so looking at it a little bit more, a little deeper. And then the final stage is integrative awareness, and so having a really robust understanding about who you are as a fat person, and how you fit in with other identities of your own and alongside other people who have different identities.

Yeah, and so when you're earlier in the stages, like you're at stage two, dissonance, or you're just getting into fat liberation, you can be—not everyone, but I was—self-righteous. Oh, I was so self-righteous and angry. And rightly so, right? Because holy shit, I spent 30 years trying to make my body small, and then realizing it was a con. And looking down on other people who hadn't got there yet. So if someone was like, "Oh, I'm gonna do this new diet," I'm like, "Oh my God, they don't get it. There's something wrong with them," or whatever, and getting self-esteem because I'd got out of it. Me being able to get out of anti-fatness and diet culture, a lot of it is to do with privilege, right? I had the ability to go to therapy. Now, I started going to free therapy because I couldn't afford paid therapy, but I did then, and have for the last decade, gone to therapy consistently and had time to educate myself around these topics. And not everyone has that, right? Or not everyone wants to. It's a privilege that I—and anyone—is able to unlearn this type of stuff, right? And so, of course, people who are in this stuff, sometimes they are very privileged, but it doesn't make me necessarily a better person because I am no longer aligned and colluding with anti-fatness. And me looking down on other people to feed the delicious feeling of self-righteousness, long term, is not sustainable. Because a lot of that is when we're shaming other people, we're shaming ourselves because we were at that stage at some point in our life. And we're at that stage with different things right now where we're not educated on something because we just don't know. So being self-righteous and shaming cannot be my driving force. And when I see myself slipping into that, then being more curious about that—what's going on? What needs are not being met for myself?—and kind of laughing about it with others, being like, "Oh, I was such a dickhead today."

Do you know where I'm the biggest dickhead in life? It's when I'm driving. Oh. (laughs) Oh my God, I suddenly think that I'm the best driver in the world. Everyone is going too slow. Everyone needs to go back to driving school because they're doing it wrong. I'm doing it right, though. (laughs) It's so funny. No, it's not true. (laughs) Although sometimes I do think it's true. And then I get angry at people on the street. If we were on the street, we would never—sorry—I would never be like, "What the fuck?" Not that I'm shouting at people when I'm driving, but thinking in my head, "You need to learn how to walk again, you stupid idiot," or whatever. So anyway, the car protects me and lets me be a dickhead. And by the way, I'm not shouting or doing road rage. I'm just sitting there smugly, deciding that I'm a better driver with no data. Mm, yeah. Well, maybe a little bit of data that I've never... No, that's not true. I was gonna say I've never been in a car crash. That is not true. I have been in a car crash, like, 20 years ago. Anyway. Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway.

So next one, number four. People who struggle with anti-fatness almost always have parents, caretakers, or other adults who shamed them as a kid or put them on a diet. I can't remember many people that I've spoken to over this last decade who haven't said that their parents—or the adults in their life—were a major, capital-M Major, influence on their dislike of their body. The stories I've heard—jaw wide open. I can't believe the cruelty that so many of us experienced as kids around our bodies. It's just... you know, shaking my head, being like, "What the fuck?" No wonder we're struggling with anti-fatness, diet culture, and body image. How the fuck could we not be when, you know, your mum told you that you should never eat this, and if you do, you're never gonna get a boyfriend. You're never gonna get married because you're too big. And being sent to diet camps or Weight Watchers as young people. Just really, really awful things. Really awful things.

So yeah, which makes me mad, but also gives me hope that people who are bringing up kids now might not fuck up their kids as much as we were fucked up. Maybe. Maybe? Question mark? Maybe they're gonna be fucked up in different ways. Maybe there's a new thing, a new way that we're gonna be fucked up. Not we—the kids. Like a new pressure. Not that the kids are definitely still being fucked up with anti-fatness and diet culture, but in 20 years, you know, when I'm a therapist, am I gonna be hearing people say, "Oh no, my parents had a really good relationship with their body"? I've never heard that. I've never heard that from the people I'm talking to, though, right? Who have body image issues. So it could be the data is skewed because if their parents didn't shame them, then they're just living their life. They're not struggling with eating disorders or body image issues or all of that stuff. But anyway, the people that I'm seeing who do struggle with those things, it is very, very rare for them not to mention really shitty experiences with adults talking to them about their body, about their weight, or about food when they were kids.

Okay, number five lesson. People underestimate the power of media, anti-fat messaging, relationships, and boundaries. My perception is that a lot of people feel like they can push through all of the different messaging that we get about, "You're wrong. Your body is wrong. You should be thin," et cetera. That they can be swimming in those waters and it's not gonna have an effect, or not gonna have that much of an effect. And for many people—most people, I think—it has a dramatic effect. If you're being bombarded from the moment you open your phone and you're seeing images of only straight-sized, white, non-disabled people, and then you're seeing ads for weight loss, and then you're talking to your friend and she's like, "Oh my God, I'm very fat," and she's not. And then you open a magazine and you see an advert for a weight loss tea that makes you shit yourself. And then you talk to your mum and your mum's like, "Have you gone on a diet yet? Because you are a fat piece of shit." Like, people think, from my perception, that they should be able to survive that and have a good relationship with their body. And they think, a lot of the time, that it's not that powerful in regards to influencing how they feel.

Listen, I've been doing this work for over a decade, as we've established, and I still am so precious about what goes into my brain because I notice that my brain is so smart, right, that it picks up these messages of, "Vinny, this is how you fit in. Oh, Vinny, have you seen all those bodies on that bikini babes dating show that you've been watching? You should look like that." My brain is doing the work out there to try and keep me safe, right? And so what I put into my brain, I have to be very cognizant of. And not saying that I should never watch bikini babes on the beach dating shows because I might really enjoy it, right? It might give me joy in some ways. But also recognizing, "Aha, okay, this could be influential." And also recognizing that the people around me... it's not safe for me to be around people who hate fat bodies. It's not aligned with my values. And hearing people that love me telling me that my body is wrong or what I'm eating is wrong or bad is very powerful.

I don't have relationships with people who love me that do that, right? Again, that's a level of privilege and shows where I am in regards to my social position in life. Like, I live in a different country from my family, and I have a job, and I live on my own, et cetera, right? So I was able to do those things, and I had gone to therapy, right? But it took time. It took time. They're so impactful. So if you're like, "Ah, is it a big deal that my mum's constantly saying that I should lose weight?" It probably is a really big deal. And maybe it's not. Maybe your brain is different, and your brain is impervious to these bullets being thrown at you. But for most people, what I see is when they start looking at their life and looking at those influences and start making changes, it has a really big impact. A really big impact on making them feel better.

Okay, so number six lesson is it's really hard for people to let go of healthism. Even well-meaning people who really want to unlearn anti-fatness and they're working hard on it, healthism, I feel like, is the last part of unlearning anti-fatness alongside ableism. It's like the thing that's really sticky about anti-fatness is the healthism-ableism part. And I think that's because of a couple of things.

Being, quote-unquote, "attractive," people are able to see how that's more frivolous. So attracting some skeezy Brad or Chad who says he doesn't want to fuck fat girls, you know, it's easier to be like, "I don't want to attract Brad anyway because he's not the type. He's not a great person," right? But these messages about, "If you eat this, then you're gonna get diabetes, and if you get diabetes you're gonna die, and if you do ABC you're going to die," that stuff is really, really tricky because the consequence is not that just Chad's not gonna fuck you. Or Brad. Maybe they're brothers. You're not gonna have a three-way with Chad or Brad, and you're like, "I can live with not having a three-way with Chad or Brad, but I can't live with not being alive," right?

The stakes are a lot higher, and it's a lot more acceptable to say, "I wanna lose weight for health," versus, "I wanna lose weight to be fuckable." So it's like big-stakes stuff. And so that is really... if you're feeling like, "Why can't I quite get there?" looking at healthism and ableism could be a really powerful area for you to explore.

And by the way, feeling all of this is normal. It's normal. You have a human brain, right? You don't wanna... well, most people don't wanna just die and be like, "You know what? I'm just gonna become really unhealthy and unattractive and make my life bad," you know? Which is what our brain is telling us, but it's not necessarily reality and is based in biased beliefs.

Okay, so number seven: fat celebs will disappoint us. It's always gonna happen. Your new favorite fat celeb that you're like, "Oh my God, they are amazing," and they're like, "Yes, fat people, you're fucking amazing," they're probably gonna disappoint you.

It's so sad. I've done a couple of episodes on this for the show. Episode number 99: Did Rebel Wilson Gain Weight to Become Famous? That's the episode. Episode 99. We're on episode 200 or whatever, so 100 episodes ago we were already talking about this. So 100 episodes ago, the blurb was something like, "Notice how all the fat celebrities are losing weight?" And that was, you know, multiple years ago. It's still a thing.

And then just a few episodes ago, number 203: New York Times: Confessions of a Former Body Positive Influencer, which is, you know, a famous fat person losing weight and saying that body positivity or fat liberation is bad because it wants you to be unhealthy, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. And people being upset because, "Oh my goodness, a fat celeb has disappointed me."

It's just gonna happen because of many different reasons. They're humans. We're living in an anti-fat world. A lot of the time, the fat celebs that people look up to, they're fat, but they're not politically fat, right? And when I say that, I mean they're not like, "I believe that fat people should have equal access rights, and I don't think that dieting works, and I don't think that we should erase fat people from the planet."

If a fat celeb is not like, "Hey, I believe in fat liberation," in my mind, I'm not putting trust in them that they are gonna be aligned with my values. I think, yeah, great, love it that they are out there and doing great things for fat bodies, hopefully, and visibility and all that stuff. And I want fat people to be celebrated, but I'm not gonna be looking to them as a source of inspiration. Maybe I might be inspired by their clothes. That's not true. But I mean, like, thought inspiration maybe.

So yeah, and I think I mentioned in that episode, unless someone explicitly says, "Hey, I'm fat positive," we're gonna be disappointed if they say, "I've lost weight now, and fuck all the fat people because they're disgusting. I used to be so greedy and horrible when I was fat." Ugh. Because we know the worst anti-fat people, a lot of the time, are the people who were formerly fat, which is sad.

I remember when I was formerly fat, I was so, ugh, horrible to people because I'm like, "Oh my God..." I don't know why I suddenly had an American accent. Hiya. Do you know? I was like, "Oh my God, do you know that that packet of crisps has like 12 calories? And so if you eat it, you're gonna be so fat. Not like me. I'm so fucking thin," for the two months I was thin.

Like, "Oh my God, you haven't exercised 17 hours today? Not like me. I exercised until I broke my legs, and then I crawled home and did some more exercises 'cause I'm such a good thin person." I wasn't even thin, by the way. I just wasn't fat. I was like on the borderline of... ugh.

And I'd always be like to my friends, "Let's compare sizes. Am I thinner than..." I remember saying, "Am I thinner than Alex?" and standing next to my friend Alex, and Alex is probably like, "What the fuck?" And my other friend being like, "No, Alex is thinner than you." And being like, "What? No, look again. I'm thinner than Alex, aren't I?" "No, you're not thinner than Alex." Oh, devastated. I am, I am so devastated. I wasn't thinner than Alex. I was just hoping. That was my goal. Ugh. Anyway.

Or being on a night out, being like, "I'm not gonna get a kebab," you know, even though I'm shit-faced drunk. "I'm just so controlled, not like those greedy motherfuckers who are eating a kebab." Honestly, I should have had the fucking kebab.

All right, so number eight lesson: unlearning anti-fatness was the beginning of unlearning so much for me. Oh, it was opening the door to Narnia. It was the gateway, the gateway drug to deviance.

Yes, I feel like my identity as a fat person was cloaked in so, so much shame. You know, the idea of when you're at the place that if someone calls you fat, it's the absolutely most devastating thing that someone could call you because I was so ashamed of being fat.

I would do so many things to try and hide my fatness or, you know, disguise being fat so that people would... I was hoping people would look at me and their eyeballs would malfunction, and they'd be like, "Oh my God, look at that person over there who's like a size two," just because I wore a black T-shirt or I didn't wear horizontal stripes. Like, "Oh, maybe if I do this, then, you know, they're gonna have a short circuit in their brain." But I don't know.

It was such silly things too. I'd be like, "Well, if I eat with a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon, it will make me look thinner because I'm taking such small amounts, and the spoon will look so dainty in my hand. And people will... it'll be like a magic illusion. Oh, look at that. Look at that thin person over there eating from a bowl with that tiny spoon. They're so small."

But logically it doesn't make sense. Shouldn't I be using a giant spoon? Because then it would make my hand and body look smaller in proportion. It doesn't make sense.

I think the big thing there was like, "I'm not greedy. I'm not greedy. I'm not so greedy that I'm gonna use the appropriate size spoon." Honestly.

Or I would think that wearing shoes that were larger... So when I was a teenager, I'd buy shoes that were two sizes too large. I'd be clomping around like clown shoes, thinking, again, visual illusion. The giant feet would detract from my fat body, and people would be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Magic. There's a thin person with large feet." Or not even large feet. Like, "That's just a thin person because the shoes balance out the body."

It doesn't make sense. It really just drew more attention to me because I was clomping around in size 12 Reebok Classics. So size 12 US. So it'd be size 10 UK. I'm a size 8 UK, size 10 Canadian/US. Oy, oy, oy.

Or buying clothes in sizes that were too small just so there might be the off chance that the size label would stick out, and someone would see it and be like, "Oh my God, are you wearing a size medium? I didn't know that you were a medium. Oh my God, you're so thin."

And I'd be like, suffocating. My circulation would be cut off. You know, I would barely be able to breathe. But what if there's the chance someone could see a label that says "medium" or something? And then again, magic, magic. They'd be like, "Wow. Yes, Vinnie? Yeah, I'd describe them as, like, a really thin person."

Of course, you know, the thing that many, many, many people do is if I did have to buy something that was actually my size, you know, cutting that label off. Fucking burying it. Nuclear destruction of a label that had my actual size on it because the shame. Oh, oh.

I was thinking about this the other day. We were going to an underage disco. I'd made some new friends, and they were a lot cooler than me. And I don't know how, but I'd got some money to buy some clothes or trousers to go to the disco.

My new friends were all thin, and so we went after school one day. We went downtown to buy me trousers, and then the disco was that night. And I was so ashamed of having to buy, I think it was maybe like a size 16 or 18 at the time. I couldn't even pick up the size I needed from the rack. I would be going and picking up a size 10 or whatever. These are UK sizes.

And then taking them into the dressing room, standing there for a few minutes, not trying them on because I knew that they wouldn't fit, and then coming out being like, "No, I didn't like it."

And they were getting so mad, and we'd go into stores that didn't even have plus sizes, and they'd be like, "What's wrong with this one? Just take this one."

We were there for a long time. And eventually there was... I found some pedal pushers that had stretch in them, but the band at the top was jean material. So the band at the top was not stretchy.

And so I bought them because I could get them around my legs, but I couldn't button the top at all.

Then I bought them and went home. I managed to get back to my friend's house. I must've got scissors or something, and I tried to cut the top of the waistband. But I realized that if I cut the whole thing, the trousers would fall down because then there'd be nothing holding them up.

So I had them slightly cut, so I maybe got an extra centimetre. But then we buttoned them up, and literally my body was cut in half, like a figure eight, by this band.

And I knew that everyone could see. I was maybe 14 at this time. I knew everyone could see there was something... what's going on? Like, there's something around their waist making it really tight. And I was trying to... I think I had a hoodie hiding it.

I remember showing them, you know, the mums being like, "Come on then, show us your new trousers." And then going downstairs and showing them the trousers. And they were kind of looking at me like, "Something's wrong. Do we tell them that we can see that the trousers are cutting them in half?"

Yeah.

And then I went to the disco. I don't remember what happened at the disco, but those pedal pushers have just stayed in my mind. I can visualize them perfectly. They were from Miss Selfridge, for the people in the UK. So they were probably mad expensive, and they didn't fit. I never wore them again, obviously, because I had trouble breathing and digesting food.

But imagine... I couldn't even be like, "Listen, can we go to New Look," which is a different clothes store, "and pick out a size that fits me?"

I remember them looking at the sizes I was picking out. I remember they... yeah, they would look at the sizes. And I think one time I picked out a bigger size, like a size 14 or something. I remember them noticing it and it being a negative thing. So I think there was something extra about that.

Oh, Polly.

Anyway, that was a long, long thing. And I bet a lot of people listening are like, "Same. Same type of story. I've experienced it."

So because I had so much shame around fatness, when I, quote, "came out" as fat and said, "Hey, I'm fat," I was then able to be like, "What else? What else am I believing and doing and behaving because of shame? Because I don't think I deserve more?"

So, you know, that boyfriend that I was with, he was the last long-term boyfriend that I had. I came out as non-binary. I came out with new pronouns and a new name. My name, Vinny, actually is a name that I had when I was a kid.

So when I left the UK, like 17 years ago, everyone called me Vinny. And then when I came to Canada, no one would say to me, "What do you like to be called?" They would just call me by my legal name.

And by the way, I'm in the process of legally changing my name. It's going to take about a year, but yeah, I'm excited about it.

So then I came out as non-binary. Then I came out as queer. Then I learned that I was ADHD and autistic. And I feel like, you know, just even questioning the fat stuff, it just makes your brain be like, "But why? Why am I doing this? Why am I behaving like this? Why am I thinking this? What do I actually want? What do I like? What serves me? What is aligned with my values?"

And it's just so wonderful because I feel like just a big old weirdo, which is great. Before, I felt like a big old weirdo for the wrong reasons—that I was wrong. Now I'm like, "I'm a big, big, big weirdo for the right reasons," that, you know, I have all these different identities. And we all have different identities, right?

But I had never had the ability to look at them because I was so busy trying to become thin, spending all my energy on shame and thinking about how shit I was versus thinking about, "What do I want?"

And I'm just really excited about this because I don't know what's next. I don't know what's next. And I just know that I have so much more to unlearn. And who the fuck knows?

You know, the thing that I'm thinking about a lot is polyamory. And I'm like, "But I just want one partner. I just want one partner. I don't feel like I'm into polyamory."

And then I'm like, "Oh, but I feel like a loser piece of shit because I'm not into polyamory."

On the dating apps, on the lesbian dating apps, like all the quote, "cool people," I'm so, so funny... all the quote, "cool people," they're all like, "Open relationship. Polyamory." And I'm like, "Oh, I feel like such a nerd because that's just not me."

Currently. I don't know. You know, I don't know. And is that because I've learned problematic ideals about ownership of people? And yes, yes is probably the answer.

And also, you know, it's absolutely fine to be monogamous. It's not uncool to be monogamous as well. But this is the shame that, you know, will come up when you're different from others, that you're like, "There's something wrong with me."

Yeah. I bet lots of people will hear me saying that I'm a loser because I'm not poly and be like, "Yeah, I feel like that too." So I don't think I'm alone in that experience.

But anyway, I'm saying that because I don't know where I will be in 10 years. Who knows? Maybe I'll be like, "Yeah, monogamy is good for me." Or maybe I'll be like, "I have 17 girlfriends." Who knows? And that's really fun. That's really fun to think about for me.

Yeah. So number nine lesson: some people don't want to unlearn anti-fatness and are content and happy in diet culture. And trying to get them to care about these things can actually be counterproductive.

So if that's people in your life, set boundaries with them and be ready if or when they are open to this stuff.

And this goes back to the stages of identity. At the beginning, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm going to tell everyone about how fucked up diet culture is and anti-fatness, and they're just going to be like, 'Oh my God, Vinny, thank you so much for telling me that. My life is now changed. I am never going to go on another diet. I love my fat body,' or 'I love fat people.'"

You know, I was so excited.

And then when that didn't happen... I'm sure maybe some people did hear me say that and go, "Oh, that's cool," and they did. But probably many people were like, "Uh, no thanks."

And then I got angry because I was like, "How can you keep believing this when I've just told you that you're wrong?"

Honestly, who loves being told that they're wrong?

It's almost like... so in therapy, a lot of times you can... therapy can be directive or non-directive, which means that a therapist can tell you what to do or not tell you what to do.

A directive approach might be appropriate in certain circumstances. Say you're only going to have one session, and it's like, "Oh, I want to solve a problem and meet a goal." So a therapist might be like, "Oh, have you thought about doing ABC?"

Whereas non-directive is probably where most therapists lean. Therapists that you might go and see for longer-term therapy, or the types of therapy where the client is positioned as the expert on their experience and on their body and whatnot, is more non-directive, where you're kind of letting them come to the answer on their own.

Because that can be really powerful, right? When you work it out on your own and then receive guidance.

And it can be very disempowering when someone comes and says, "Okay, I know the answer to all your problems. All you need to do is read this one book, or do this one thing, or change everything that you've been thinking and doing because I know better than you."

This is going to turn off most people, unless it's a very specific set of circumstances.

The very specific set of circumstances is when someone's searching for the information and they're like, "Tell me. Tell me, what is it?" And then you find the book or you find the podcast, and then they say the thing that you've maybe been contemplating, and you're like, "Yes, that's it."

But it's kind of like you've discovered it, right? You did it on your own. You've come to the conclusion on your own, even though maybe in a book or a podcast someone's saying, "Hey, this is what I did, and maybe you should do it," or whatever.

So, so, so, so all of that to say is that 10 years ago, I was really telling people, "You should do this because your life will improve."

Now I'm like, "No, no, no."

You know, if someone asks me, "Well, what do you think?" Even then I'd probably be like, "Well, what do you think?"

But say if I was being interviewed on a podcast and someone asked, "What do you think?" in that situation, I'd be like, "Well, this is what I think. And also, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Also, this might not be the right time for you."

My intro to fat liberation was Reagan Chastain and her blog, which was called, at the time, Dances with Fat. That's still the name of her blog, but she's on Substack now.

If I had been introduced to Reagan's blog a few months before, a year before, or five years before, it wouldn't have had the same effect. And who I was then—or previously, or whatever—I might not have been ready. It might not have stuck.

Maybe I'd already been exposed to fat liberation concepts previously, and I poo-pooed them. I don't know.

Sometimes it's not the right time. It's not the right situation. It's not the right place.

And so I, I think, you know, whatever people are doing, if they're dieting, if they're on GLP-1s, or whatever they're doing, if they feel like, uh, you know, it doesn't matter what I think about what they're doing. Um, if they, if, you know, if they, uh, that's working for them, then I think we're great. If someone is committed to dieting and, um, they're like, you know, you know, this is, this is great for me, cool. I'm so pleased that, that you have something that feels good for you.

Um, because if I said at that moment, "You're wrong. You don't know how wrong you are. You should listen to me," what are the chances that they, you know, one day, uh, well, even right in that moment, they're going to be like, "Thank you, Vinnie. You are so wise and amazing." Um, or, you know, is it going to push them further into that? And what are the chances that they're going to come to me, or someone like me, when they are maybe more, more ready, when they had a, you know, an experience where I was being self-righteous, pushy?

And yeah, so I just, now, now, uh, you know, now it's kind of, I, I just accept some people are not into this, and that's okay. And I'm not going to be angry about it because they're living in the world and trying to survive just as much as I am. So yeah, that was a, that was a big learning lesson for me. So some people just are not into this stuff. Yeah. I really thought that, I thought I was like, I dunno, like Jesus or something. "Hear the word, people." Like, "Whoa, baby, you saved my life." Oh yeah.

Okay, number 10, final one. The lessons I've learned is we are isolated by our shame, and we don't realize that most of us have the exact same fears and issues.

What I did not know, like I said at the beginning, I was so isolated with shame. I just thought I was so unique in my, my experience that no one else would know what I was going through.

Like, my big thing, my big thing that I felt shame around, outside of being fat, was having saggy tits. And it was this such a shameful thing for me to, like... And the reason is, is that, well, we all know. We know we live in a society where only certain types of, of, of tits are on the TV. And, you know, actors who, who have saggy tits are going to be like, "No, I'm not really into the whole show my tits on TV thing." Um, you know, we're seeing a certain type of, of, of breast in the world.

One time, by the way, someone messaged me and said, "I don't like that you say the word tits, so you should stop saying tits." No. I like the word tits. It's a British thing. I think it's a good word anyway.

So, um, yeah, so, so, so, um, my tits sprang out of my chest when I started growing them, and they sprang out like two sausages, right? Like just cylinders going down. Um, and you know, that is just what happened. That's just what, how my tits are.

And then my first boyfriend said to me, "Why do you, why do you, why do you look like that? What's wrong with your chest?" Like, basically, "You're deformed."

By the way, my tits are fucking great. They are, they are sexy as hell. Um, and you know, I was... And this is the guy that I dated at the time. I was 17. He was 30. Creep alert. He was abusive. Horrible, horrible. Um, I did a whole, a whole, I think, two-part podcast on him, uh, many, many episodes ago. He, he, he abused me in every way that you could.

And so, but this, this him being like... Oh, it makes me so sick. This creepy 30-year-old guy dating me, this is my first boyfriend, and then saying to me, "What's wrong with your body?" Can you believe this motherfucker?

And I was like, "Yeah, you're right." But I think even at the time I was like, "Oh, that wasn't very nice." Like, and being so vulnerable. I was, I was homeless at the time, and my mum had left the country. I was alone. And then I had this man, this adult man, telling me that my teenager body was, was unattractive, um, deformed, flawed. I'm actually so mad.

And so I, I, I think even if that hadn't happened, I would have brought that with me. But, um, yeah, I'd always be like, "Oh my God," this big shame of having saggy tits. And, you know, you know, men would be like, "Oh, you've got big tits." And I'd be like, "Oh yeah." But then I'd think, "Oh yeah, but if you saw them without my bra on, then you'd be like, 'Eww, gross.'"

They weren't. They weren't.

Tits are great, whether they're, they're, if they're long or if they're round or if they're little or if they're huge or, you know. And you know what's great about saggy tits? Is that they, like, hang down like kind of pendulums, right? And then you can go onto a body and, like, dip them onto it, onto someone's chest or back or whatever. That's really fucking cool. And you can go banging, bumping, waving around. And, you know, you see people on TikTok doing dances with their, with their, with their saggy tits or going around in their T-shirt like, "Wild saggy tits are great."

Anyway, so, but I thought, I don't know why the fuck I thought this, but I thought that I was the only one. It doesn't make sense. Like, it's so... These things are not logical. Like, I was the only one.

'Cause I thought... Do you know what I thought? Is that no one had saggy tits until they were older and they had had children. I think that's what my theory was. Yeah. So that's what my theory was, that I was a young person, and therefore my tits shouldn't be saggy.

I didn't know that... This is my theory. My theory is that most people have saggy tits. That's my theory. Sprouting out of their... Sprouting out saggy. I think I want to get some data on this. I think the majority of people have saggy tits.

Now, I haven't seen enough tits to be able to tell you, you know. In my lesbian dating experience, maybe in 10 years I'll be able to tell you the reality. Um, but because we're not seeing these, you know, the average tits... You know, growing up with Page Three in the UK. Page Three, for people who are not from the UK, was on newspapers. The third page in, so not the cover page, but, you know, page one, two, yeah, well, you know, the third page. Page Three always had a topless person there.

How many of those would have saggy tits? Probably none, right? Uh, so really my view on, on what was a normal body was completely skewed. Um, and also thinking that saggy tits were somehow inferior.

Um, I also have another theory that they have an evolutionary benefit. I have a theory that saggy tits are better for feeding babies. This is totally... This is... I don't have children, so I'm, I'm... I've never breastfed. Well, yeah, I was gonna say obviously because I don't have kids, but, you know, who knows? I might've just decided to breastfeed a goat or something.

Um, but, you know, the baby's there. And then, like, if you have a saggy tit, then you can just put your, you know, shove your tit in the baby's face. Whereas if you, if your nipples are high up because you don't have saggy tits, you're probably having to hold the baby higher, right? And it's going to hurt your arms. That's my theory. I'm completely... I might be completely wrong about this. People who are, who have breastfed or chest-fed, you could tell me, "Vinnie, you're talking out your ass."

But yeah, anyway, all of this to say is I bet you a lot of you listening will be like, "Oh my God, yeah, me too, Vinnie." Um, and because, you know, running groups and stuff, uh, I'm like, "How are you, how, how are you feeling about these things?" And people will say, "I'm feeling ABC." And I'm like, how the fuck is it, time and time and time and time again, our fears are universal?

Um, I'm too much. I'm not enough. Um, am I lovable? Are people judging me? People aren't judging me. Uh, should I make myself smaller? Uh, uh, should I diminish myself to make them like me? I, uh, I feel scared because I was vulnerable. I'm too scared to be vulnerable. Um, I don't want to set boundaries because I, I'm worried that the person's going to shout at me and I will lose their relationship. Um, I'm worried that I'm a failure. I'm, I'm worried that I'm a, I'm a loser. I'm a piece of shit. That I'm a, I'm, I'm a nerd. And I'm worried that I'm, uh, I'm not doing things right and I should do ABC.

Like, the, this is like, this stuff is so universal. And we're not going to feel all of these things at all the same time. And maybe you don't feel any of those things, or you've never felt any of those things, but, um, shame cannot survive the light.

And if you're feeling isolated by the shame of this thing that you're keeping secret... You know, I think the thing that I kept secret for years, that I was like, "I can't let anybody find this out," is I had a verruca on my foot. Um, what's it called in, in, um... Uh, a wart, you know? You know? Do you know? You get it from the swimming pool. What percentage of people have them? Like, a lot. But I was so ashamed because I had it for years. I would be hiding my feet. I would not be taking my socks off. I was so fucking ashamed. Like, like having a verruca on my foot was... I don't know, like I was a secret murderer or something. Like I couldn't ever, ever... I never let any partner find out that I had a verruca on my foot. The thing was fucking tiny.

Um, it eventually went away because sometimes they just go away, you know? I'd had treatment for it, and it wouldn't go away. You like... I'm like, now I'm like, "What the hell? Why was I so ashamed about that one thing?" Like, really, really.

And you know, even, you know, just saying... I've never told anyone this whole verruca thing because, you know, it's been a... Whatever. It's just... But it's just, I feel like it's, you know, these universal experiences that as soon as you talk about it, you're like, "Oh, okay. Ooh, hang on. So many other people feel the same thing."

And it might not be saggy tits or a verruca or, or a fat body, but it's something else that, when you hear about it, you're like, "What are you worried about that for?" You know, I don't care that you have saggy tits or a verruca or a fat body or, or that you speak in a way that's a bit strange or that you have missing hair from here or, or whatever it is.

Um, but unless we speak it out to other people, it can be so pleasing to us... So... Um, yeah, that's my final lesson. We're isolated by shame, but we all... Not all of us. Many of us experience the exact same feelings. And the only way to overcome that shame is to bring it to the light because shame cannot survive the light.

And that's easier said than done because that means being vulnerable. Being vulnerable is inherently scary. Um, and a little tip, if you do want to share what you feel shameful about, do it with someone that you know is safe. Because a lot of us might have had that experience of, of being vulnerable with someone and it not being reciprocated with the care that it should be. You know, like me being 17 with a creepy guy who says that there's something wrong with me when there wasn't. You know, I was being vulnerable, and he did something really cruel with that vulnerability, which teaches us to hide our shame even more, right?

But then when we find people who we can build safety with and share this stuff... Oh, it's so wonderful. It's so wonderful. If you've not done it, I recommend... You know, and you know who's really good for stuff? Is a therapist, right? 'Cause that's what they train for. Hopefully they're not going to be like, "Oh, you've got a fucking verruca. Ugh, you're gross." Can you imagine?

So anyway, sending you oodles of compassion and, and love. And here's to another 10 plus... 12 years, whatever, of me doing this stuff.

Um, do you know what? So I was doing a list of podcasts in this world, in this, you know, fat liberation world. And I've done this a few times, uh, lists of podcasts. Um, and so I had a list from a few years ago that was 117 long. So it might be like dietitians talking about diet culture stuff, but, um, you know, all sorts of different things talking about this type of topic.

Out of that list of 117, only 25% were still making podcasts. So this is just from a few years ago. I've been making this show since 2019. That's seven years. So just a big pat on my back for being able to do it for so long. Um, it's, it's hard. It's hard doing a podcast because you have to be really consistent. You have to be really, um... What's the word? Uh, disciplined maybe, I guess.

Um, I guess for me, I don't, I don't really, I don't really care about things like, "Oh, how many, how many people are listening?" or "How many followers I have?" That type of thing. So maybe that helps with me doing it because I don't, I guess I'm not, um, I'm not seeing metrics as a sign of success, maybe. And others are.

Maybe, maybe I... Maybe I'm not smart. Maybe all of those people who stopped doing it, they stopped doing it because they were like, "Oh, uh, only X amount of people listen, so why am I still doing this? So I should stop because it's not worth the effort."

I've never done that. I guess because, you know, to be honest, when I look at my... I do look at my stats from time to time. I know that hundreds and thousands... Not hundreds of thousands. Hundreds and thousands of people each listen to each episode. So I know that it's not... I know it's not a waste of time. And I know people will say, "Oh, I listened to that episode." And I'm like, "What? You listened to this episode?"

Um, yeah. So, so anyway, uh, I don't know why I was going on that tangent. Um, oh yeah, me just saying I'm proud of myself.

And, um, if you enjoy this content... Oh, could you leave me a review? Oh, I'm going to be so happy if I see that there's a review out on, on one of the things. I'm going to, I'm going to check. You don't have to, though. I'm not the boss of you, okay? I'm not trying to be directive here. You do you if you want to.

And if you're feeling extra, "Oh, give some love to Vinnie," you can do... Uh, you can go to Ko-fi and buy me a coffee. You can, you can do like a dollar or whatever. Or not. Whatever. You can do nothing. You can say, "Well, that was good," and then just go and have a nice poo or something. Whatever. Do you. Do you?

Okay. Um, I'd mentioned a number of posts or old episodes. I'm going to put those in the show notes so you can... If you're like, "I wanted to listen to that one, that thing, that whatever," then you can do that.

All right. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today. Remember, you were worthy. You always were. You always will be.

Stay Fierce Fatty. Goodbye!