Episode 6 Transcript

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

You're listening to episode six of the Fierce Fatty Podcast, and today we're talking about how to deal with dieting friends. Let's get into it.

So by the time this episode comes out, it's going to be about six weeks until the winter holiday season, the day and around this time we tend to spend a lot of time with family or people we don't see that often. And so this podcast episode is going to be super beneficial because we're talking about how to deal with people when they're talking about diets when they're talking about, Oh my God, I just started this new Keto thing and I've lost 7,000 pounds in 12 minutes and it's amazing. You should do it because you're so fat and things like that. Hopefully, you don't have relatives or friends who say those exact things to you, but you never know. So this podcast is all based on a question that I got from a listener. And so the question is, what can I say to my thin or thinner than me friends when I feel offended or annoyed by their negative food talk or when they blame moods on sugar? So that is from Elisa and we're going to get deep into what to do when that happens because it's a big one, right? When we've decided that we don't want to diets, we don't want to be around people who were talking about that shit. 

Before we get into that, I want to remind you to subscribe to this podcast on whatever podcast provider you're listening to and to leave a review because if you leave a review, if you send me a screenshot of the review before you submit it and email it to me, victoria@fiercefatty.com. I'm going to send you an audio and digital version of my best selling book, which is called Fierce Fatty: Love your Body and Live like the Queen you Already Are. And that is what every single human being that leaves a review. So yeah, do that. You can leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts and I'm gonna send you the juiciness, which is my best selling book as a thank you for sharing the love and bonus, bonus points. If you share on social media that you are listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast and tag me if you have a public profile, then I'll be able to see that tag. If you don't, then I won't be able to see that tag, but tag me and I will put you in the draw for a Fierce Fatty mug. So you can declare to the world that you are a fierce fatty. You don't give a fuck what they think about your body, so do that and we've got a download that goes along with this episode and that is at fiercefatty.com/006, fiercefatty.com/006 for the show notes and you can also go there and there'll be a button for you to ask a question.

This podcast is brought to you by Fierce Fatty Academy. Fierce Fatty Academy is my incredible and life-changing e-course, which is only available to enroll in sporadically throughout the year. Fierce Fatty Academy is all about stepping into your power and knowing for certain that you are a fierce, strong, worthy human in all your body's glory. I will teach you my secrets, but changing your limiting negative self-beliefs about your fat body and empower you to finally feel in control around food knowing you'll never diet again. Fierce Fatty Academy is open for enrollment on November the 5th, 2019, but for a matter of days only. For more details and to get on the waitlist, go to www.fiercefatty.com/academy. That's www.fiercefatty.com/academy. 

So this question from Elisa is a really great question. I get asked this a lot and it is very difficult. I gotta tell you this was one of the last things that I was able to do was to respond in a way that felt good when people were talking about their diet. But since I started doing that, it's been a lot easier and is actually one of the cornerstones of me having higher self-esteem of me having a deep sense of self-worth. And so the answer, in short, we can do this all at this whole episode with one word. Let me just read the question again and I'm going to give you the one-word answer and then I'm going to explain better than just one word. The question again is, what can I say to my thin or thinner than my friends when I feel offended or annoyed by their negative food talk or when they blame moods on sugar from Elisa? 

So the one-word response is boundaries. Boundaries. I have you said to me if I asked this question years ago and someone said, boundaries, I've let blah, nope. Boundaries. Aah outta here, no thanks. What is this? Nope, not setting boundaries. No, cause I used to think about boundaries as they were these horrific conversations where you'd have to be like," Duh, this is how I'm feeling". And then the person would be like, fuck you, you piece of shit. How dare you say something to me? And then I would be like, oh, I'm so sorry. And it would just go terribly and there was no point. And you know, I was too scared to even speak up and say, how was thinking of feeding. Anyway, that was my thoughts on boundaries. But let me share what, what boundaries actually are. So personal boundaries are guidelines, rules, or limits that a person creates to identify reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave towards them and how they will respond when someone passes those limits.

So that is from Wikipedia, defining what personal boundaries are. And so in super simple layman's terms, it's like, say if you live in a house or an apartment, the walls of your abode of where you live, they are literal walls that say to people, this is my space. And so imagine if you were just hanging out in your living room watching a TV show and someone just walked in and they're like, alright, as it goes and I'm just gonna make myself a cup of tea. You are like, what the fuck? Who are you? Get out of here. You'll probably be like, Oh my God, are they going to rob me? Or whatever. But in this ridiculous example, let's pretend you knew they were and they'll just say, I'm just going to make a cup of tea. Oh, I'm gonna make myself a sandwich as well and get cozy on the sofa with you.

And this is not someone that you want in your house, you would most likely say to them, "Get out. Go to your own house and make your own sandwich." I'm watching TV on my own. Thank you. And it'd be really easy for you to usher them out of the house and lock the door and be like more fucking, what the heck! What happened there? But in our normal day to day life, we have these boundaries that are invisible limits where we feel like it's okay for people to go and for the things that they say and people cross them. And instead of reacting in a way to keep ourselves safe, which is lots of different ways that you could do that, we instead do the equivalent of a random stranger walking into our house says, Oh, I'm just going to make a cup of tea and make myself a sandwich. Put my feet up. Can you give me a foot rub? And what a lot of the time we do is we just say, Oh, okay. But secretly inside we're like, who the fuck is this motherfucker? What do you mean foot rub? Does he think that I'm a slave? Am I a servant? But, you know outside our attitude is, Oh yeah. Yeah, I don't mind. I used to do this all the time, so people used to cross my boundaries all the time and I would never say anything to them. And you might be thinking, well, what's wrong with that? 

So let me read you a little bit from positivepsychology.com, our boundaries might be rigid, loose, somewhere in between, or even non-existent. A complete lack of boundaries may indicate that we don't have a strong identity or are enmeshed with someone else. Healthy boundaries can serve to establish one's identity. Specifically, healthy boundaries can help people define their individuality and can help people indicate what they will or will not hold themselves responsible for.

So that's from positivepsychology.com and so healthy boundaries are good for us as humans. If you don't have healthy boundaries, you will have unhealthy and unfulfilling relationships and you'll struggle to make deep connections. You carry resentment and anger and you'll just be quietly pissed off with people who you probably like or you love and they love you. But you are seeding inside because they said that thing and they keep saying that thing. And why do they keep doing it? So annoying. But have you ever told them that it's inappropriate or annoying or upsetting to you or makes you mad? Have you, maybe you have. And if you have, then we're going to talk about that as well in this episode. The way that I see it now is that boundaries, setting boundaries really are a gift. Really, truly. Now what I mean about that, what I mean with that is that I would, like I said, keep people, you know, not tell them how I was really feeling. And then I'd go back and talk to another friend about them being like, Oh, can you believe they did this? And said that, Oh, what a bitch. And would never say how I was really feeling. And so, therefore, that person could never get close to me, truly get close to me because I had put up this wall of not communicating what I really thought and felt and say, if this person genuinely wants to be my friend, they're dude and they can never really be close to me. And so by saying to them, Hey, that thing that you said really made me feel like X, Y, Z, you're allowing them to get to know the real you, to love you, to build connection and trust. And it's also the opportunity to work out who is not right to be in your life, depending on how they respond.

And so for me, boundaries in the past have been very, very scary. And still, it can be scary for me to set boundaries because you don't know how the other person's gonna react. Now, in my experience, most people react like average human beings. And if you say, Hey, that thing is upsetting me. They say, Oh, I didn't know. Okay, well I'll stop saying it, or whatever it is they say. So I will go into what to say exactly as well. So don't worry, I'm not just going to be like, just tell them. I'm going to give you some, some things to say. So how you react to a situation like this, your friends talking about dieting and sugar and all that sort of bullshit is completely up to you. It's your decision and how you react. Okay? Brene Brown said the most compassionate people are also the most boundaried. 

So the way that you react is totally up to you but recognize there's going to be a way that you can react that is gonna serve you better in the long term than other ways that you could react. So when you're having negative feelings, when you're around someone, it's probably because they are encroaching on your personal values. All right? So we all have values. You might not know your values to say them out. Like my values are this, this this. But you have, we all have values. You know about how we want to behave, what we value in ourselves, what we value in others. And everyone's values are different, right? And so your friends talking about their diets, it's probably pushing on one of your values or some or many of your values. And that is why it's making you have a negative reaction. 

So for example, if someone started talking about dieting, a friend talking around about dieting around me, it would encroach on my personal values of authenticity and curiosity. And so these are two of my values. So authenticity is it's important for me to be authentic. And so in that moment, if a friend was talking about their diet and I didn't say something, it would not be authentic of me unless the situation is, it's, you know, it's just around a person that I'm like, Oh, diet, I'd just be like, whatever, see you later. But if it was someone I cared about and I wanted to establish a good relationship, my authentic reaction would be like, mm, no thanks. I'm not into of dieting. And as well, curiosity, so it's important for me to be curious and it's important for those around me who I prefer to surround myself with people who are curious, who are interested in learning about about society and being the best person they can be. And for me, I see dieting is really old fashioned. Like, Oh, it doesn't feel it. This is the world I'm in now, right? I've just find it so bizarre that when someone says that they're going on a diet, I'm just like, aren't we in 2019 now? Like it's almost 2020 and we over diet. Doesn't everyone know they don't work? And so it would be encroaching on my curiosity because they wouldn't have necessarily displayed curiosity to understand about diet, culture, bullshit and things like that. And so that's why it might feel bad for me. It might feel bad for you for other reasons, but understand it's encroaching on something that is core about you as a person. 

And so it's important. It's really, really alluminating. Something important and you're having a reaction because it's a part of your identity of who you are. And so you can do a few things, so here are your options. There's many, many, many options. You could do anything you want. But here in a nutshell, here are the things that you can do. So what are the options you could do is do nothing. Listen to your friends. Talk about their, you know, we're eating worms that we found in the garden die and rubbing poo onto our faces and that's our new diet. And it's great and we've lost 50,000 pounds in the last 12 seconds and you can go, yeah, great. Oh, sounds interesting. Yeah. And in your brain, you're like, you, you fuck, I can't fucking believe this. You're eating worms. You put poo on your face. What? What are you doing? Don't you know this won't work? Don't you know the diet is a bullshit or God want you to stop talking about this rubbish. It's so boring. So that is what your brain is saying, but your mouth is saying nothing and your head is maybe nodding or your mouth is saying, Oh yeah, maybe I'll try that or whatever. And so that is an option, that's an absolutely viable option. And you might choose to do that because it's not safe to say anything because you don't give a shit about the person. So for example, here is an example of me not doing anything. Oh actually kind of doing something but then choosing not to do anything about a boundary that had been crossed. So here's an story about how not doing something worked for me. And so not doing something is a good option.

Okay. So one time it was Christmas and we went round a friend's house, me and my then boyfriend and we decorated gingerbread houses and it was all very Christmasy and then people started, more, people started coming around and people were drinking and stuff and we started playing a card game and we're all sat around in the living room playing this card game, having the best time. And one of the guests, there was other guests there. I had said, I've got this card and it had read something about someone bitch slapping someone and being a Brit, I didn't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe Brits do know. But I said, what does bitch slapping mean? And immediately this person, she jumped out of a seat, she straddled me and I'm sitting on my seat and slapped me across the face. And I was like, what the fuck?

I'm not one for, you know, be will touching me, you know, slapping me like I'm not into, I don't think anyone is really but it was really a personal boundary. Like, bro, like alarms are going off physically. She's in my space. She sat on my lap and then she just slapped me and she was like, that is what a bitch slap is. And then she started laughing and immediately I said, don't ever touch me again. And you could see everyone was like, Oh my God, I can't believe she just did that. And I can't remember what happened next, but I think we carried on with the game. And my friend who was sat next to me was like, wow, you responded so well to that. And I just felt uncomfortable with this whole situation. And so I said to my partner at the time, I said, let's leave and so we left. A few weeks or months later, we bumped into this person with her partner and I was like, Oh fuck now, cause she wasn't a friend of mine. She's like friends or friends. And she was like, Hey, how are you doing? And I kind of made small talk but I had already decided that at that point I was not going to pursue any type of relationship with her and also wouldn't go to any events that she was at also because I didn't want anything like that happening again. And we kind of made small talk and then we left and as we left she turned around and slapped me on the bum and like see I get like sometimes playful pats on the bum, you know, between friends it would be fine, although my friends don't hit me on the bum, she probably slapped me on the bum and even if it was soft. I had previously told her don't ever touch me again. And I decided at that moment instead of being like taking it to the next level and the next level would be to use more of my voice to say, Hey, I've told you do not touch me. Okay. So that would be the next level. Cause you know, the previous level was me saying do not touch me in a strong voice. And at that moment, I decided, you know what, I'm not interested in reasserting my boundary with her. I will never see her again. Hopefully, I don't bump into her in the street. And if I do, I decided I will not talk to her at all. Like, oh, I'm not going to make small talk with her. And so at that moment, I decided to do nothing, just walk on and be like to my partner, can you believe it?

She just smacked my bum, what the hell? So she had poor personal boundaries herself because she thought it was okay to get into someone else's personal. We didn't really know each other. We may maybe meet a couple of times before that party. So that's an example of doing nothing. Now say if I wanted to be friends with her doing nothing at that moment or following on like we could have had a conversation and I could have been like, listen, you snapped me in the face. Why I'd want to be friends with something like this. I wouldn't, but you slap me in the face, you hit my bottom. I know that you were trying to be playful and funny or whatever you were trying to do, but that is not okay with me and I would establish a boundary moving forward. But because I didn't want to be friends with her, because clearly, her boundaries were not well established and in place of knowing that was not appropriate, I decided to let it go and just be like, wow, that was a person with bad boundaries that I met.

So there's kind of good and bad on doing nothing. You have to work out. Do you want to be friends with that person moving forward? If you do, then you're gonna wanna set a boundary. If you don't, you can just let it go and be like, Whoa, don't want to be friends on that person. If you aren't going to be friends with them and you don't set a boundary, it's going to build resentment. You're going to get angry and it's going to damage your mental health. And we don't want friendships that damage our mental health. Sometimes shit happens, right? But overall we want to have friendships. It goes both ways of being joyful and filled with love and all that type of juicy stuff. Okay? 

So the next thing that you can do is remove yourself from the situation. And so this could also be something where you're not actually saying anything, but you remove yourself physically from the room. And so say you're in the living room talking with your family and they're like, oh, I'm gonna just do this new diet. You can be like, I'm just going to pop to the toilet. You're going to pop to the washroom or just walk away and just situate yourself somewhere else. That is another thing that you can do. You can also remove yourself in regards to removing yourself from the friendship, from the relationship. So cutting the relationship off and so you're removing yourself from their life, that is another option. But if, say in the family example where you're just going to walk away, you will have had to decide, is that the right thing for me in regards to my own mental health? Am I actually going to be seeding afterwards and be like, I can't believe it. They ruined Christmas by talking about this.

Would it be better for you to actually say something or is it, you know, weird aren't Doris and there's no point in saying anything to her. So you don't want any drama. You just gonna walk and it's not going to affect you that much because you've not told, you know your weird aren't. But you know, putting cabbage up your bum is not actually something that's going to help you lose weight. So that is another option. 

Another option is to set a boundary casually. And so you can be playful with boundaries. It doesn't always have to be serious. And sitting down and being like, you hurt my feelings. Although it can be, and that is also beneficial. But you could do something like if your friends are talking about diet bullshit, you can do something like, Hey, you lot don't remember diet talk is so 2016, can we not? And kind of make a joke out of it and being like, Oh my God, diet talk is so boring. Oh yeah. Something that my sister does to me and it's hilarious sometimes. Say if I'm talking about something boring, she'll just start snoring and close her eyes and make a head not off and its so funny. So I'll be halfway through a sentence being like, Oh, did you know blah, blah blah. And then she would just go and we would just burst, burst out laughing. And it's kind of a nice way to say like, shut up, you've bored me now. And it's, it's nice, right? Because we're both, you know, neither one of us is offended if I sometimes I'll do that to her. If I can remember to try and be funny but it's not an aggressive, like, stop doing that. You're making me feel sad or mad or whatever. Not that you would a lot of the times be doing that anyway when you're setting a boundary. 

So is there anything that you can come up with which might be more lighthearted to navigate their behavior and you could say, Hey, this is so like, Oh my God, this is so 2016 like hello and they might not listen to you and they might ignore you. And at that point you might decide that you want to set a clear boundary, as I saying something like, Oh, Hey, diey talk is so 2016 is not really a very clear boundary, but you're kind of throwing it out there that you're not okay with this, but it's not explicit, right. And so a clear boundary would be something like, here is a story that I want to share you, share with you. About a boundary that I set, so I was working at this company maybe, I don't know, six years ago. And I was brought in as a talent acquisition manager and it was a startup company. And so you know those desks everywhere, you didn't have your own office. And so I was opposite, this guy who was in a different department and he wasn't a manager. From the very first day that I came into this company, he was like sussing me out. And like from the day one he was like, manager, huh? Well how did you get that job? And I was like, in my head I was like, what motherfucker? What'd you mean? How do I get this job? Because I'm a fucking badass bitches, why? But you know, first day at a new company you don't want to be like throat punching people. And so I would just let it go and he was just a massive balland basically he would be rude to everyone and make them feel really uncomfortable.

He was very domineering and we were out in an open plan environment. He would just be always speaking up and telling people, you know, being a dick and one time and I be going home and saying to my then boyfriend, I can't believe this guy. He said this to me today and he said that to me today. Oh my God, this is blah blah blah blah. And then one day he said to me, you should be ashamed of yourself. I can't remember what it was about, but I just remember that line. You should be ashamed of yourself for something. And, I was like, no, I'm done. And so I had a conversation with my therapist and I was like, I'm done. What do I do? Oh my God. I just say, Hey, this guy, I want to like have a fist fight with him.

And we decided, okay, we need to set a boundary. And so the next day at work or whenever it was, the next day after the therapist appointment, I just can't you through it through the day. I said to him, Hey do you mind if we go to the back? The back was like the only private place, like literally some corridor. Do you want me to go to the back for a quick chat? And in front of the whole room, he was like, Ihhhhh, Victoria wants to take me to the back for a quick chat. She's probably going to try and have sex with me. This guy was such a knob, but just even that, you know, he was a knob. And I was just like, Oh, fucking. And so he's like, okay, we'll go to the back. And so we went to the back. And so what I did was I shared with him my story. And so I wanted to share with him a little bit about my story. So he understood where I was coming from and I wanted to make this about me and not about him. Because if I made it about him, I thought that it would not be the right strategy. And so I said, Hey, I just wanted to share something with you about me that you might not know. And so in my, you know, I was homeless and I was abused and you know, my dad was an alcoholic and blah, blah, blah. All of the the story which you can hear in episode two if you're curious and you haven't heard it. And then I said, and so when you say things to me like this, XYZ, you should be ashamed of yourself or whatever. 

It's very difficult for me to hear and it reminds me of being in those situations, which were not good for me. So do you think that you could avoid saying those types of things to me in the future? He was like, Oh my God, I am so sorry. I didn't know, I won't do that anymore. Can we hug it out? How to hug? And we kind of ended on a happy note, went back to the office. He was like, Oh, she didn't try and have sex with me, idiot. And I'm never more, not once ever did he say anything to me ever again. That was rude. In fact, he was very pleasant to me. I wouldn't say he was nice because he was a knob. He was a complete knob to everyone else but not to me because I told him in a nice way, listen up here motherfucker. I'm standing for your fucking bullshit.

Now, I didn't have to give him any kind of backstory. I could just say, can you stop saying that thing? But because we'd been working together for probably a few months and understanding his personality I thought that was the best way to do it. And so it doesn't have to be a big sit down thing. You can just say, say if your friends are talking about their diet, you can just say, Hey I don't know if you know this, but I've actually started on this journey of repairing my relationship with food and healing myself because we live in this diet culture and it's really damaged the way that I relate to food. And something that I would like to do is remove all of the diet talk out of my life and I was curious if you could help me with this. And your friend would probably say, yes, I'd love to help you.

And you'd say, great. The way that you could help me is when you're around me. Can you not mention about diets or food or sugar or any type of moralizing around food and I really appreciate it. I really appreciate you. This is so helpful for me. If you could do that, thank you so much and your friend will probably be like, yeah, this is great. I'm going to help you. And hopefully because there are good friends, they do want to help you and it's true. This is what's happening. You are repairing your relationship and hearing that type of stuff is difficult. Even now, like if I hear stuff like that, I'm just like, Oh God, no, it is damaging towards my mental health. And so you're allowing your friend to help you continue with your journey and help you grow.

Now your friend could be like, what? What's your problem? I'm not doing that. And you know, that is, that is beautiful if they say that because it means they're not the type of friend that you want in your life unless you want to continue working on this and I don't know what you could do. If a friend doesn't want to respect a boundary, then no friend really, really they know friend and the same goes for family. Even, you know, people very close to you, even your parents, if they can't accept a boundary, then you know that you're going to have boundaries because they have poor boundaries and they are not the type of person that you want in your life. So you're gonna do this first thing and it's going to be scary or it might not. You're going to say to your friends, friend, friends you're going to set a boundary in some way if that's what you decided to do.

Okay. And you don't have to. They 99, 90, who knows? I'm making up percentages. Chances are they are gonna break that boundary, especially if it's something that they've been doing for a long time and it's something less in their life and it's something that has been okay around you in the past, like talking about diets. Before you might have engaged in diet talk. I know when I was dieting, I was like the first one in there being like, Oh my God, did you know the air has 17 calories? And so we should stop breathing so much because then we won't be fat. And I God, right, I'd be the one. And so it would be absolutely normal and okay for my friends to be like, Oh my God, did you hear about this? And I would normally previously have loved that conversation. And so if I all of a sudden came out of the blue and said, Hey, I'm not cool with that anymore, they would probably forget or not take me seriously.

Okay. And so this is where the hard work comes in. I know that conversation was hard, but what you need to do is when they slip up, and they probably will because they're a human being and they're not slipping up, most likely than not slipping up to be a dick. Sometimes they might be but generally it's just part of their brain. It's their normal way to speak and if they need help in remembering what your boundary is. And so you have to say, Hey, remember on Wednesday we spoke about X, Y,Z , and just make it lie. You don't have to be like, you, motherfucker, you went over my boundary and I hate you when this have a fist fight outside. Just like, Oh Hey, you remember that? And they'll be like, they'll probably be like, Oh shit. Yeah, sorry. And you were like, yeah, no problem.

Anyway. Did you see that new Netflix show? Or they might react in a negative way. Oh, he's still going on about this. And what is that? That is a gift. It's telling you something about them as a person. Do you want a person like this in your life who cannot respect your boundaries? No, you do not. Of course you can work on that stuff. Right? And this might go on, depending on the relationship, it may go on for a long time. So as an example, my mum, used to be, used to talk about kind of weight stuff a lot, and many years ago I said, Hey, I'm not down with talking about this anymore. Can you not talk about fat as a negative? Yes, no problem. I won't do that. Now, up until that point, it would been literally decades of us having the relationship where it was okay to talk about that stuff and because I wanted and want a relationship going on with my mum when she would slip up and she wasn't doing it because she was like, I know I was going to rip fuck call Victoria today when I talk about this person's diet, this already gala.

And so when she did, I would say, Hey, remember? And she'd be like, Oh, Oh yeah, I'm so sorry. And the incidences would go from quite often to less and less and less. And now this still might be something, but she catches herself and she'll say, Oh, not that. That's good. Like I'm dancing, what is it called? That dancing show that's on BBC. If you're in the UK dancing, dancing, dancing with celebrities, I don't know. You can let me know. Come dance with me? Come dance with me, come dance with us? Come dance with me? Anyway. And she said, Oh, what are the sniper easiest lost like loads of weight since the start of the show because he's been so much dancing. And I was like, hmmmm and she was, and she could tell she's like, Oh yeah, that was a weight thing.

And I was like, Oh, he must, he must be really hungry or whatever. And so it's less and less now to the point where it's not really even an issue. Now. Someone else who was behaving like that, if I wasn't necessarily wanting a relationship with them, I might have decided that that was not okay for me. And whatever you decide is best for you is absolutely fine. It's okay to call off relationships with people who we've been told is not okay to cut off relationships with like close family members, parents. It's not your job to be in a toxic relationship, that's not okay. And so now the way that I express boundaries can be, can really vary from day to day. So on Instagram, I have a boundary of, I don't let O words, obese and overweight beyond my Instagram cause it's a fat positive place and those words are slurs.

And so when someone uses an O word on my Instagram and my comments, I will, what I'll normally do is if they're, if I can clearly see that they're not a troll and they something like, if they say something, Oh my God yeah, blah, blah, blah, obesity or whatever, I'll message them and comment back and be like, yeah, absolutely blah, blah blah. By the way, we don't use O words in a fat positive space like this because they're slurs and maybe a heart or something to show that I'm not angry and that is me setting a boundary. I don't want to see those words come up in my feed or my page. That is my boundary. Now sometimes people say, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize. Yeah, that's fine. Someone said to me yesterday, why are they slurs? And for me that kind of pushed my boundary a bit too much because they were asking me to educate them for free emotional labor.

And it's okay if you want to but you don't have to and at that time I was like, nah, I don't want to educate this person. So I just said, Google can tell you, which is true. Literally cuckoo can tell you like, I'm not here to educate you, although sometimes I might want to educate you because sometimes I do want to you know, continue that conversation. But yesterday I wasn't in the mood and especially because they were a thin person or their profile suggested that they were a thin person, I kinda thought, you know, they don't seem to be valuing my labor in this exchange because they weren't like, Oh my God, I didn't realize I'm so sorry. Like, could you maybe explain a bit more about that then I probably feel more inclined to explain to them my point of view about them.

So I could also decide to just delete the comment. If someone just used the word, I could just be like, you know what? They've crossed a boundary and my response is to delete the comment. It's my choice. It's my page, right? And so when someone does cross your boundary and you've clearly stated your boundaries and they've done it, and they could just do it once and you could say, you know what, that's enough. I'm done. Or they could do it a few times and you can be like, okay, that's it. I'm done. You need to do something. When they cross your boundary, you can't just be like, Oh wow. Because it's a pointless boundary. If you do not, there's no consequence. You know, think about kids when you like, Hey, don't do that thing. If you do, then this thing's going to happen. Something negative is going to happen if you, you know, don't bite your baby brother. And then they bite their baby brother and you're like, I told you not to bite your baby brother, and you did. And they're like, hmmm, there's no, you know, reason why they wouldn't want to do it again. Baby brother tastes nice or whatever it is they're doing. You know, there has to be a consequence and then they can learn that behavior is unwanted and adults are just the same. And so the consequence could be that you just like, do you know what? I'm going to leave actually you know, I'm not mad, but I'm just not into this conversation, you know, so I'll check you out next time. So you could just leave you could just go into a different room. Say if you're with your family or you can say, Hey, I'm going to take some space for you because you've broken that boundary again.

And I'm not feeling good about this. And so I'm going to take some space for you and you can decide I'm not going to talk to them for a week or whatever. Take whatever space you need from them. Or you can say, you know what, this relationship is not for me and you can end the relationship. So the decision is yours but you need to have something in place when they do cross your boundary. Because if you don't say anything, you might as well have never had that boundary conversation to begin with. It would have been a waste of your breath. And it's actually a negative thing if you might as well definitely not have said anything because they know, okay, when when this person says, Hey, this is really serious for me, this is important that you're not really being serious and it means that they can disrespect you even more.

And we want to have relationships where, you know, we're mutual respect and kindness and all that type of stuff. And so with boundaries, I used to always think, Oh my God, people are going to explode in my face because of my past and being abused. That was my reality of people exploding if I ever asked for anything reasonable. And so I had to practice this. I had to start small and say, Hey, do you think that you could, you know, I'd be like, what do you think? Maybe you could, and it'd be something tiny like, Oh, could you maybe not wear your shoes in my house? Maybe all of them, sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't hate me. And practice and then move up to the bigger stuff and the scary stuff. And honestly, it feels so fucking good to say, Oh, Hey, we don't do that.

Or we don't say that or, you know, I'm not into that. And you know, or make a joke about something to say, Hey, I'm not cool with that. Or some comment to show that, you know, this is not okay with me. It really does build yourself esteem because then you start to realize you are so powerful. You really are. And think about the people who you know in your life who have good but good boundaries. They're probably a lot more competent and you probably respect them more versus the people who have terrible boundaries and who say yes to everything who talk about people behind their back because they're so mad with them because they don't ever stand up to them or set a boundary, right. So that is my answer. You got the short answer boundaries and then the long answer, which is, woooohh, boundaries.

So at least I hope that helped and I hope that it helped others who are tuning in to today's episode. And I want to end each episode with a little fact about me so you can get to know me a little better. So today's fact is about my favorite music. My favorite artist. So currently, my favorite is Beyonce. I love Beyoncé's music and I just, I think Beyonce is just badass and amazing. I love the Coachella she had fat dancers. She is pushing ideas which are more forward thinking which I love. I hope she goes to the extreme with fat acceptance and really goes full out versus having small fats as dancers. And she does something like what Miley Cyrus has done in her recent video. She had a model on the who is an infinifat and it's amazing. I'll link to that in the show notes. You can see that video and it's like three seconds of glorious super fat, naked Shane Long fan. Her name is Angelina and she is an angel. I am telling you. So I hope Beyonce does something like that gets really even more political with our fat positivity. And I don't think she's actually fat positive because I watched a documentary about her run up to Coachella and how she was like, I need to lose weight and she was eating like nothing and these intense workouts all day long, she'd be working out and then she'd be going and dancing and doing the routines. And I just thought, Oh my God, Beyonce. I wish that you realize that your body is just incredible for what it does for you and you don't need to also be eating nothing.

She was eating, I can't remember what it was but you know, hardly anything. So that's my current favorite and I grew up listening to Destiny's child on my cassette, cassette. One of my favorite cassette, first cassettes was a writing's on the wall, Destiny's child. And I would listen to that in my Walkman and fall asleep and then the batteries are drained. But as a kid also if you're British, you know this band, I loved East 17 and Brian Harvey. You know what I love East 17 cause they were the bad boys. And then they take that which was the other band, they were like the good boys. And I was always like, nah man, I'm a bad, I'm a bad girl. Like as a ten year old, so bad. I like this boy band. And yeah, Brian Harvey was my favorite and I would like make out with the poster in my room of Brian. Years later actually Brian Harvey ran himself over with his own car. So. Well, yeah. How fun googling that fact. Very strange. Yeah, so there's my little fact about me. 

Reminder, go and write a review on wherever you can on Apple music or Stitcher. Take a screenshot of that review before you send it off for approval cause it takes time for them to go through and send that screenshot to me, victoria@fiercefatty.com and you will get an audio version and a ebook version of my best selling book as a thank you and share on social media that you're listening to this episode. And I'll put you for a draw to win a Fierce Fatty mug and we've got a download that goes along with this episode and that is at fiercefatty.com/006, fiercefatty.com/006 for the show notes and you can also go there and there'll be a button for you to ask a question.

So if you have a question that you want me to answer on the show, and I think it's something that others will benefit from me asking which your questions are always great. And it's something related to fat positivity, to anti diets, to intuitive eating, changing your negative thoughts, all that type of stuff. Don't ask me, you know, how to create an umbrella or something cause I don't know the answer to that. So if it's something that's I can contribute on, I will definitely include it in an episode. So go to the show notes, fiercefatty.com/006 because it's episode six and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. Have an incredible day. My fierce fatty. See you soon.

This podcast is brought to you by Fierce Fatty Academy. Fierce Fatty Academy is my incredible and life changing e-course, which is only available to enroll in sporadically throughout the year. Fierce Fatty Academy is all about stepping into your power and knowing for certain that you are a fierce, strong, worthy human in all your body's glory. I will teach you my secrets, but changing your limiting negative self-beliefs about your fat body and empower you to finally feel in control around food knowing you'll never diet again. Fierce Fatty Academy is open for enrollment on November the 5th, 2019, but for a matter of days only. For more details and to get on the wait list, go to www.fiercefatty.com/academy. That's www.fiercefatty.com/academy.