Episode 9 Transcript

Welcome to episode nine of the Fierce Fatty podcast. I am your host Victoria Welsby and today we're talking about the five reasons why you still hate your fat body.


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.


Hey, did you know, did you know that if you leave me a review for this podcast on Stitcher or Apple podcasts and screenshot the review before you submit it and then email that to me at victoria@fiercefatty.com. I'm going to send you an audio and digital copy of my best selling book also called Fierce Fatty as a massive thank you. And even if you have the book already, why not write a review just to spread the good love so that more people can find out about how to be a fierce fatty and how to stop dieting and how to realize that their fat body is just amazing just as it is, right? Because we want to spread that message, wouldn't you? I would love to have had that message. Imagine when I was like any age before I've discovered it. And someone, when someone told me it's okay to be fat. I know because when someone told me it was okay to be fat, I was like, what the fuck? What do you mean it's okay to be fat? You're out your mind. Yeah.


So let me review and bonus points. If you share on social media that you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to enter you to win a Fierce Fatty cup. And what a better way to tell the world I'm fat. I don't give a fuck what you think about it. I'm fierce, right? So do it. And also check out the show notes because this episode we have a download that goes alongside so that you can get the absolute most learning and impact from it. Go to fiercefatty.com/009 for the show notes and you're going to find the Fierce Fatty Confidence Makeover. Okay, so go to the show notes fiercefatty.com/009 cause it's episode nine. And look for the link for the Fierce Fatty Confidence Makeover. Absolutely free. Yeah, it's gonna go along with today's episode.


Now we're talking about the reasons why you still hate your fat body. And a lot of people come to me and they say, I've done this, I've done that and I've listened to this and read that and done this and I still hate my fat body. I don't know what, why, what the heck? Now there's some, some really for me because I do this, you know, I teach people to love their fat body. There's some real obvious things and I want to share them with you to see, to make sure that if you're in that place where you don't love your fat body, you've got these things covered so that you can move forward with thinking that, you know, not even love thinking that your body's all right thinking that your body deserves love and respect and attention or whatever you know.


So the first one reason why you still hate your fat body is the media that you can shoot the people that you follow on social media. Now we are being brainwashed to think that thinner bodies are more attractive. We are aggressively being told this message through advertisements, through the, through media that we consume. It's just been drilled into our head aggressively to the point where we don't even realize it. We're watching certain TV shows and we don't notice that every single person who is an actor on the show is, has certain look, they're all quote unquote traditionally what you would say is beautiful according to society or documentaries. Like is it all one type of person, one type of body or anything? What body types are you consuming? So one thing that I noticed this summer, it's November now, nearly December, but this summer being in the UK area is UK media.


So fucking fat phobic. It is just eye rolling. Oh my God, it's so bad. It's so bad. Like the morning like chat show things and radio shows and everything. Even from places that you think is more liberal, it's so sensationalized. fatphobia is just exhausting. But the big shows that are on, they don't often have any type of diverse body sizes on there. So a big one is a love Island. So if you're in the UK, you'll know this love Island. Basically it's a reality TV show. I don't actually know much about it cause I've watched like half of one episode, but it's a reality TV show where traditionally attractive men and women go somewhere hot and they hook up with each other, try and fall in love. I don't know, something with love, but they're in their bikinis. They're in their swimming shorts and Speedos and all that type of stuff.


And the reason why I've only watched half an episode is when I was actually in the BBC the TV show that was filming is, it started I think, yeah, it started or it was on and some of the house watched it. And I sat down and I was like, what's the big fuss about the show? And I started watching it and I was like, Oh no, Nope, Nope, Nope. This is going to change my neuropathways for the worse because it was just the same body over and over and over thin women and muscular men. And I was like, nope, this show is bad for my mental health. And so I was like, you know, hung out in the room for a bit, wasn't that you're watching the show but then didn't watch it again. I bet you I would have loved it. I bet you would have been so entertaining and addictive and you know who's hook, who could not with who and blah blah blah. But even though I know I would've probably liked it because I like trashy shit like that, I knew that also it would have affected my mental health and it's really easy for me to spot something that is going to negatively affect my mental health and what I see as attractive or acceptable or worthy or lovable is I would just start, something will come up in my head of, Oh, maybe you should, why don't you lose weight Victoria? And I'll be like, what the fuck? Where's that coming from? And it was like okay. Yeah, I was watching the show about this. Yeah. And it could be something which is innocent, right? It could be, you know, just like a property show and, but the presenters are very attractive and thin and buff and stuff like that.


And the people they're selling houses for are traditionally attractive. And think about as well, your social media, where are you spending your time in a day? And if you're like me or like most humans on that, you're on social media. At least for, I don't know, an hour a day or a few hours. I shudder to think 27 hours every day I'm on Instagram and I'm more like 26. And so what type of people are you looking at? Even if it's your friends, your friends on Facebook. Are you friends with only thin people? Only people who you feel jealous of their body. And so they could just be like going around life being like, here's a picture of me and my kids and that picture could trigger you so you don't need to unfriend them. You can just maybe pour, seeing their photos, seeing their feed for 30 days. And if you want to go check it out, you can just go and look them up and look, right. And just see how about, helps with your self esteem. Is someone in your friend group, so sharing lows of like, Oh my God, look at this before and after picture or Oh my God, I'm on a diet and now alarm, bullshit like that. Then you need to put them on, I was a word, you know, hide them or put them on pause. So these are not the right words, but you know what I mean, on Facebook. Hide them from your newsfeed. Yeah. It's hiding. I don't hide them. Yeah. Or if you want to go to the you know, you could also unfriend them if you want, you know, do what you want. But I a lot of time hide people, especially.


So some I get a lot of friend requests and I really like it. When I'm getting friend requests from fat activists and body positive people because I know they're share good shit. But if I ever get a new friend, you know, cause they connected for someone, I think they probably know who I am and then they share anything which is even slightly triggering from me. I would just hide them for 30 days and then if it comes up again, then I'll hide them, you know, after 30 days and they sharing some other stuff that don't like, then I've just permanently hide them. My mental health is too important to me to let their views of the world hurt me know, especially if it's not someone I know, I would just unfriend them, right. I am on following people on Instagram all the time.


Anyone shares anything remotely you know, not fat positive. I'm just I've got time for that shit like if you spend any time on my social media, you come away feeling better not worse, which is on times what social media does. So do you have someone who is sharing recipes for diet meals or fitness inspiration accounts or accounts that promote movement? But the pictures are all like of a thin athletes, no fat athletes. Then this is a big reason why you don't like your fat body. Okay? So that's number one, following thin people on social media and consuming media that only has straight sized people there. Okay.


So number two is spending time with fat haters and dieters. Now where do you work? What people do you work with? Who do you spend the most time with? Who are you chatting with on the daily basis? Are all your colleagues like, Oh my God, I need to try this new diet. I just eat bird droppings and balls of yarn and I'm going to lay a 7,000 pounds. You should try it. At the dinner table or the lunch table at work and people like, Oh, I shouldn't eat that because then blah, blah blah. Or Oh, it's Sally's birthday, but I'm not gonna have any cake cause I'm going to be good. All they like talking about their diets and are they talking about how they're disordered with food. Not saying how they were recovering from it, but how you should be disordered with food too and try this new diet and Oh my God, I look so fat today. I feel so bloated. It's a day, things like that. We spent so much time at work, right? So much time. And a lot of times we want to tell our colleagues to suck a dick, right? We want to say, Hey, you motherfucker, you just eat my fucking tits because Keto is bullshit. You're going to lose weight, but then you're going to put on more weight and it's fucking rubbish. I just want you to die, Karen. Okay, Karen just die. We want to say that, but we can't because we want to keep our jobs. But do you have to spend your lunch with Karen? Do you have to engage? When Susan starts talking about her bird dropping diet, do you have to be like hmmmm or can you say to Susan. Susan, this is a really fucking boring or Susan, isn't that a lovely day? Did you notice? Susan what are you doing this weekend? You know? Oh, Hey Susan I'm recovering from disordered eating. So when you talk about disordered eating, it's really difficult for me or I don't know, put some headphones in or move desks or hide under your desk crying and rocking.


What can you do? What can you do? There's so many different like strategies you could try and employ to avoid as much as possible. And sometimes it might not be possible, right? And you can't control that but the people that you're surrounding yourself with at work are very influential. The people you're spending time with the most time with your friends are very influential on how you think and believe and it makes things normal, right? Like, if anyone started talking to me about a diet now, I would be, it'd be so strange. I'd be like, what? What, what diet? What is that? It'd be very, very strange for me. But 10 years ago it'd be very, very strange if someone said, Hey, let's not talk about the layers because I found it so interesting telling people like, Oh, by the way, that packet of crisps has 17 more calories in this packet of crisps.


That was really interesting information for me. I don't know if you can hear in the background, but Dougal, my dog has decided to start scratching the carpet. I've told him off. I've told him, listen Dougal, we'd make an a podcast here so we don't want you scratch and so sorry about that little bit of scratching. Also, I get a lot of messages from people on Instagram and they will send me screenshots of messages that they get from their friends and their friends are being outrageous, fat phobes and I'm like, what the fuck? This is abuse. This is straight up abuse. And and their friends are gaslighting them saying, no, I'm not being mean. I'm just, you know, it's cause I love you. That's I love you. That's why I'm telling you about this new diet. That's why I'm telling you that you're fat piece of shit or that's why I'm telling you whatever abuse that they've got.


If you tell your friends, Hey, or people around you, Hey, don't talk about this stuff and they don't respect your boundaries, go back to episode seven. Yeah, seven where I teach about how to set boundaries. The name no friend of yours, okay. No friend is going to be sending you fat phobic messages or you know, telling you saying nasty shit about your body. Like, Oh my God, I call you. I'm telling you now, if you are my friend, I'm never going to be saying anything like that. I'm going to be sending you, sending just lovely, sweet messages to you. No, you need to get these people out of your life or you need to put in boundaries because your happiness and mental health are important. Okay?


Next your family of origin. Now, this is number three, family of origin, your family, your family, the people that you spend time with who brought you up. You properly learn a lot of fatphobia from them. Probably a lot of my clients and people I talk to most have a story about, you know, many stories about their mom said this or did this adapted this or said that their uncle did this and did this sister brother, people being awful human beings to them. And it's certainly my story that growing up I knew I learned that fat was bad, that thin was good, that dieting was a way of redemption, et cetera, et cetera. And because I grew up around that and a lot of us do, it's such, I think it's quite rare that we don't, that you know, that someone doesn't have that experience. It's no wonder, it's no wonder that you don't like your body when you go home on the weekend or you go and see your family at Christmas or whatever and they're like, Oh, you've got fat.


Oh, did you see Aunt Marilyn? She put on 12 stone or whatever bullshit they're talking about. That affects you because you want to be loved and accepted by your family. You don't want to be rejected by your family, even if you really fucking hate them and they're really annoying and then you don't want to actually spend time with them. Deep down we all want to be loved and respected and it feels unsafe to know that our family are judging us because of our size. You know, we could be kicked out of our, you know, community if you go back into our brains of, you know, traditionally when we would have lived in communities and being rejected by our community, by our family was dangerous because humans, we don't survive well on our own we're community type beings. And so your family of origin, perpetuating fatphobia and diet culture is very influential on your own self esteem. Your mom looking at her body saying, Oh God, look at my bingo wings. Oh look, I'm so fat and mm and she's smaller than you or has the same body as you. She might as well be saying that about you. And so if you don't address that behavior in whatever way you want to address it, go back to episode seven about boundaries. And so it could be spending less time with them. It could be saying, do not talk about your body like that. It could be, I'm only talking to them on the phone for five minutes instead of 10 minutes. It could be loads of different things that work for you, but if you do nothing about this, then there's no wonder that you don't like your body because you are being bombarded with these messages left, right, and center that you're not okay.


It's a miracle that you even think that maybe you could like your body like seriously. It's a massive, massive, massive achievement to get to the point where you think maybe diets don't work. Maybe fat bodies are okay. Most people don't get there because of the aggressive programming we get in this society.


Okay, next point number four. Number four reason why you still hate your fat body is you don't challenge your internalized fat phobia. Now we're all fat phobic. All of us, even me, I'm fat phobic. I just haven't discovered the different layers of fatphobia that I still have, right? Like, I think, yeah, fat people are great and straight sized people are great and it's okay to be fat and all of this stuff. But there's still some fat phobia like it in my brain that I haven't discovered yet. And there probably will be till the day I die. We're all fat phobic. We're all bigoted in some way. But the levels of bigotry that we carry should be as small as possible, right? And so just acknowledge your fat phobic. If you live in this society and you've, you know, you live in this society, you live in our society, then you fat phobic cause we brought up in a fat phobic society. Now if you can say certain things about, you know, or some fat people are beautiful but not me. I'm not, there's still fat phobia. It's internalized fatphobia. It's internalized hate for yourself and discussed for yourself and your own fat body. So you have to work on that. You have to break it down. You have to say, why? Why do I say that their fat body is okay and those fat people are attractive but these fat people, me, I'm not attractive.


Why is complicated, but it's stems down to what it is? Its fat phobia, right? It's your internalized fat phobia. And so think about certain things it could be as well, but notice yourself judging others. And so look at pictures of fat people and see if you have any reaction like, Oh yeah, that fat person looks okay, but that fat person isn't okay because XYZ and break it down and find out, you know, where is this XYZ coming from? What's going on here? Is this based in reality or is this bigotry? Am I being a bigot right now? Do I want to be a bigot? Do I? You might say, yes, I love being a bigot, but me personally, I don't enjoy being a bigot and I try my best to try and not be a bigot. And you know, it's a process, right?


You know, because we live in this society that's so aggressively anti-fat. So if you don't challenge your internalized fatphobia, you're not going to be able to move forward. If you're constantly thinking, Oh, you know, my body is just disgusting, but fat bodies are just not attractive, but fat bodies are just not healthy, but fat bodies are X, Y, Z. How will you're not going to be able to love your own, right?


Okay. Point number five. Point five reasons why you still hate our fat body. You've not made the decision to change and taken steps to change. Okay? So you have to decide, I am done with this shit. I'm done with this shit. Fuck this. I've spent my whole life dieting. I've spent my whole life hating my body. I am done. Then you have to do something about it, right? You have to take action and you might not be done and that's fine.


You might not be at that place. You might be like, you know, I just want to try this last diet. I just want to try this last tea that makes me shit my pants. That means I have to wear a diaper and nappy. I'm not quite sure if I can give up on my dream of being thin. That's a big one is having to give up on that dream of being thin and what comes with that dream. It's devastating, right? Just devastating to give up on the idea that one day we'll be thin and we'll have that fairy tale ending. Oh my God. It's really sad. It's really sad. I just knew if only I lost X amount of pounds. If only, Oh, they're not, then I'd love myself. Then I'd love myself. I'd have a body that people would envy versus, well, maybe if I stay the same way and I just try working on it, maybe I will love my body.


Then when you're in diet culture, that doesn't seem really like a viable choice because you've tried loving your body the way it is now when you don't love your body, but you have to decide, I'm giving up diets, I'm going to work on accepting my fat body, loving my fat body, getting to a neutral place with my fat body. And you have to then do things versus just being like, I wish, I hope one day something's going to happen to make me like myself. You're the only person who is responsible for how you feel, right? And you're the only person really can take the action to do those things and whatever that might look for you. It could be going to therapy. It could be reading books. It could be listening to this podcast. It could be doing things like taking Fierce Fatty Academy, which is my e-course. It could be exploring things in many different ways. Like there's no right or wrong way to do it, but you have to take action. You can't just hope that you know something's magically going to change. You have to decide and then you have to take action, right?


So they are the five points. Let me go over them again and remember there's a download that goes along with with this episode which is called the Fierce Fatty Confident Makeover and that is at fiercefatty.com/009 cause it's episode nine.


So the five reasons why you still hate your fat body, number one is you follow thin people on social media. You follow diet people, you are consuming media that only has straight sized people only perpetuates fat phobic ideas. So it's media you're consuming, the social media, the movies, the TVs, the radios, everything.


Number two, spending time with fat haters and dieters and think about where you spend most of your time in your life is that work? So Susan at work, sorry if you're a Susan and you're listening and you're like fucking Susan and Karen always get it. What the hell Susan at work is jabbering on about her bullshit diet all day long and that is a big reason why you don't like your fat body.


Next. Number three, your family of origin and the people who raised you. The people that you spend time with who are your family units. There love and acceptance are important to you and if you know that they will love you more if you're thinner, that's a problem. That is something that needs to be worked on.


Number four, you don't challenge your internalized fat phobia and we all have fat phobia. It's just to what degree you have already explored your fat phobia or not and it's an ongoing journey. Honestly, I've been doing this stuff for years and still something will come up where I'm like, Oh, yep, I just had a fat phobic fall about that person, about myself or what's going on there and you to explore that one, Victoria, what the hell? You know, there's not, it's not a destination that you can arrive at and you've got to like, all right, done and dusted. I no longer have bigoted thoughts. Unfortunately, it'd be good to be get that right and good if we could become perfect humans, but you know, it's not gonna happen.


Okay. And number five, finally you've not made the decision to change and taken the steps to change something to attack onto that is that is absolutely okay if you you haven't made that decision to change and you don't want to take the steps to change where you are in your journey is absolutely perfect, okay. You do you, right. You know what's best for you and if you're not ready, then you're not ready, right. Don't force yourself, don't be like, well, you know, I already do actually want to explore more diets. And I just think it's one diet that I've heard about is actually gonna work for me. And then, you know, if you think that was what's best for you, do the diet, then you know, when the diet fails, we're sorry, it's probably going to fail. Then you can come back with more confidence and be like, do you know what? Fuck this shit. Whereas now you might be like, fuck this shit question mark and you might be more resolve to really do this. Whereas right now you might be like, eh, somewhere in the middle, right. So you might not be at that motivated stage and that's fine, right? You, do you, you know what's best for you.


Yeah. So, and then a fact about me in the last episode I mentioned that I went to university, paid for by the British government and I have an Irish mum and so the Irish government gave me money to live. Ah, don't you know if these systems is amazing. So I went to university, but I want you to tell you what I studied. I studied illustration. Illustration means to illuminate. And so I loved art all my life growing up and I loved painting and it was my favorite subject in school. I studied it at GCSE and A levels obviously and then I did a diploma in our design and photography and then eventually did this more specialized degrees. So it took longer in illustration. But I had such low confidence that there was no way in a million years I was ever at that stage going to be able to become a professional illustrator because I was just wrecked with self doubt. I just be like, my work is awful and it's terrible. I look back and I'm like, what? You are so talented? Oh my God, to come good you you're able to draw what? This is a really good. But at the time I just thought I was awful and I afterwards I was just like, Oh, I can't do it. And I just went and worked in a call center and so I'm a very creative person. I love singing and dancing and being creative in whatever way that comes. And you know, things like doing this podcast is, it's creative for me.


And so I'm a very creative person. And nowadays, like with my illustration, I loved painting. That was my medium that I most enjoyed and so I have really big appreciation for anyone who is able to be creative and put their artwork out there because I know how difficult that is. Oh my God. To have people criticize and judge your creations. I personally at that time couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle it and was just embarrassed and ashamed the whole time and being like, Oh my God, you know, this is so rubbish. And, so if you do that then high five to you, it's pretty badass. And yeah, so creative person, not into the sciences and maths and that type of stuff. Not my personality type at all. So that was my fact about me today and I went to university of Darby. If you're a North American, you'd pronounce it Derby, but you're wrong. It's Dhabi spelled D E. R. B. Y. yeah. I know you want to say Derby, but it's not.


Anyway. Okay. So leave a review, send me a screenshot of your review and I'll send you my book. Share on social media, share the love and there's get this message out that it's okay to be fat than it is possible to change your reality and change your belief systems around fat bodies and live a happier life. Not constantly having to look at the scales and judge yourself on, Oh my God, it's so fucking boring and exhausting and Ooh, no, thank you. And I just want it to say as well a massive thank you for your support and your love and your messages about the podcast. I really, really appreciate it really more than you can know. And I'm thinking of when I'm recording these podcasts, I'm thinking about who's listening and you, I'm thinking about you, you right now listening, thinking are they enjoying it? Is this content something they appreciate and I hope that I'm serving you and bringing you good stuff. And on that note as well on the show notes page, there's also a place where you can ask questions. And so I have another question coming up in a future podcast episode, but if you have a question you want me to answer, go to the show notes, which is fiercefatty.com/009. And you're going to find a thing to submit a question and as long as it's about this stuff, right? Fat bodies dieting, intuitive eating, all that type of stuff, don't ask me the best way to run a skate backwards. I never mastered that. I can only run a skate forwards. So make sure it's about this, not something else. Okay. because I probably won't be able to answer you if you asked me how to cook an anomaly. I don't know. So yeah.


Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for being here. It means a lot and I appreciate you and yeah, you are changing the world by listening to this stuff and spreading the message. You're literally changing the world, so you're pretty fucking badass. It's one thing. All right? Okay. All right. So I will see you on the next episode of the Fierce Fatty podcast. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Have a wonderful day. Dougal didn't make any more noise, so he's asleep right now. I'm going to go give him his dinner. But yeah. All right, I'll see you next time. Goodbye, fierce fatty.