EP40 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And in today's episode, we're talking about: Will no one ever find me attractive because I'm fat? Let's do it

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast Let's begin.

In today's episode, I'm talking about feeling unattractive because you're fat. And if it's true, that it's harder to find a partner if you're fat, and whether you're destined to be single, and alone forever, or even worse, destined to date someone who was a complete loser or it's totally suitable for you because they're, quote unquote, kind enough to overlook your fat body. But before we get into that, I want to answer a listener question. Now, if you have a question that you would like me to answer for you, then go to the shownotes first fatty.com, forward slash 040, episode 40. Oh, my good. And there's a link there so that you can answer it, ask ask a question anonymously. You can always email me, send me a DM, whatever you want. And Allah, answer it on the podcast. And also, while you're on the show notes, show notes, they're a reminder to grab your first fatty body love roadmap, and that is absolutely free. I've made it for you. It's amazing. And it's the roadmap of how to get from meek and mild to courageous and confident loving your body and not having these fears of no one's ever gonna love me or no one's ever gonna find me attractive because of my body because life's too short. Let's not worry about that shit, right? So go to the show notes to get that first fatty body love a roadmap. And if you want to ask a question, do it. So question from Destiny, who has done exactly what I mentioned destiny? So felt filled out this form. So what destiny says is, this is destinies question. I live with my uncle. And we are really close. But he thinks I can lose weight just by having more portion control because I eat a lot. What's something that I could say to him? Also, he's taking a different approach to get me to exercise so that I can increase my ability to walk long distances. But in the back of my mind, even though I want this, I think about how his previous conversations on on weight loss, and it takes the joy out of it. How can I deal with this? So a great question from Destiny. And I picked to to answer this one because a lot of people message me and say how can I deal with with family members? It's mostly family members who are like I'm concerned for your health. I'm worried that you might spontaneously combust because you're so fat. Oh, variations of that. And this one is kind of unique because it's it's got the movement in there as well. So the answer is, I wonder if you know what I'm going to say? Boundaries. Oh, boundaries? Yes, boundaries. So, boundaries are like boundaries. Other words like why do we have to be trying to become better human beings? Why do we have to communicate with variable oops, I went away. But boundaries really are an act of love. And so I Uh, your uncle, he thinks that you can lose weight by having portion control, aka, eating less food.

And the fact is, tell him that there has not once ever, in the history of the world, how has a study study be been published to show that any method of reducing your body size through a diet works and works? Anything more than temporarily? Okay, there's no, there's no, isn't this mind blowing? There is not one single study ever and the considering that the diet industry is worth what is it now $72 billion a year that it wouldn't be backed by science. And it's not there's not one not one study to show diets work. And they can reduce your body size, long term. Yes, you can temporarily eat less food and temporarily become a smaller body size, but your body is so freakin smart. It's going to be like, What the fuck are you doing to me, we are starving, we are dying, dying, you need to eat more food and it's going to do everything it can to make sure that you you hold on to the food that you're eating, that you obsess over food, that you are not able to continue on this starvation routine, and your body is then probably most likely going to go to a higher weight in response to this deprivation. So your uncle's advice of just eat less is not going to work. I think that you know that already. But this is the kind of information that you need to know in the core of you that there is no, there's no way to really lose weight if you also want to live life. And I presume that we want to live live, right. So that's, that's that's that first thing. But the the exercise thing, so I totally get this. And I have been around people who have taken the joy out of movement more than a few times in my life. And I have reacted in different ways, especially when you when you're recovering from what a lot of people's experiences with exercise, it being this awful fit thing. And even the word exercise is horrible. And I tend to use the word movement, because it takes that exercise, you know evilness out of it. And so there's, there's a lot of trauma around moving your body for a lot of people and for a lot of fat people, because we have been punished with exercise and we have been made to with all the joys taken out of it, right? And so when you're doing something that is you're trying to have fun with it, and then someone says something, even not in the moment, like what your uncle did about losing weight, you're thinking, is he thinking in the back of his mind? Oh, well, if she keeps doing this, she's going to lose weight. You know, if she goes, you know, this far, then maybe she will burn X amount of calories. And is the person that you're doing the exercise or the movement with thinking like that, when you're just thinking, Oh, it's nice to go for a nice stroll, you know, you're you don't have necessarily those disordered thoughts. So you're trying to not have those disordered thoughts. And so it can be really complicated. Now. So a couple of examples in my life, one of my friends, we built a relationship on movement. Now we met at yoga, and we struck up a friendship and whenever we would meet, we would always meet, grab a coffee and then go for a walk. And these walks, she was in a small body, these walks started to become more disordered. Like they started to become, oh, well, you know, let's go out for two hours like her suggesting that. Oh, well. I've been walking all day long and I could really use use another walk and I haven't walked enough today and I could see that this walking thing wasn't coming from a place of it's fun to walk and it's nice to have a street All in the neighborhood. And, you know, it feels good to move our bodies a little bit and, and so I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. You know, not the whole walking thing like I want wanting to continue walking, but I didn't want to do it with her.

And so I stopped doing it. And instead, I would say, let's sit down and have a coffee. Now another example is another friend enjoying riding bikes together. And now this one friend wanted to keep going further and faster. And again, I could see it was coming from a place that wasn't it wasn't joy, right? It was, it wasn't about me losing weight, it was about them losing weight, right. And so, you know, it wasn't projected onto me. And the last example wasn't being projected onto me either. But it just didn't, it began to not feel good. And so what I would do, because I still wanted to ride my bike and have fun is, I would set boundaries in my mind and be like, okay, so what do I actually want to do? Do I want to do this three hour bike ride? Or do I want to do a 30 minute bike ride? And is that what I want? Is that where I think I might get some joy? And so you know, when we're in the bike ride, we're not when I've got to a place where I'm like, Yeah, you know, I felt like, this isn't enough. And this is as much as I want to do. Just doing that. And just being like, that's me. That's where my, you know, Joy ends, and I've had enough and it was good. And, you know, it's, it's not gonna be fun. If I continue. It's like, imagine if someone was like, Oh, I've bought you a cake. And you're like, cool a cake. And they were like, eat the whole thing immediately. You were like, well, it was nice before you're trying to force me to eat everything immediately. Can I just have a slice? And so that's what I felt like it was this pushing was someone taking something that could be joyful, and could be nice and was joyful for me? And being like, do it all? And then do it all was taking the joy out of it? And so can you set boundaries in your brain or verbally with your uncle or not go walking with your uncle doing it alone? So there are some options. But in regards to what to say, because that is your question, what do I say? What I would do is, I would sit down with your uncle. And I'd say, Hey, uncle, I was wondering if you could help me with something? Your uncle would say, of course, because when people love us, of course, they want to help, you know. And it sounds like your uncle's trying to quote unquote, fix you anyway. So I was wondering if you could help me with something. I am learning to love my fat body, and unlearn diet culture. And I've discovered that when people say, you know, fat is negative when people say, dieting will make you lose weight when people do this, I find it triggering, I find it derails my journey. And so with that in mind, I was wondering, could you not talk about fat being negative? Could you not talk about how I should eat less food? Could you not talk about whatever it is that you want him to not talk about? Now, he can respond in any way that he wants? He may say, Yes, he may say, I have some questions about that. He may say, but I'm just worried about you. I'm just worried about your health. And this is where you back it up with your knowledge around how stigma around weight actively harms the physical and mental health of fat people. And straight sides. We've all anyone. And so say, Yeah, I understand that your concern, but this is my body. And any type of shame and stigma directly hurts me and harms my mental and physical health. I hear you I hear your concerns. And I know that you feel concerned that you love me. But you have to let me do what I want with my body.

And, you know, he might say no, no, I'm gonna continue talking about diets or Well, you can't control how we respond to what you can do is then control how you respond to that. And so chances are, the browser boundary will at some point be broken just because you know, maybe this is a new thing. And they're not Want to be malicious or whatever not, I don't know, maybe they could be trying to be malicious. And this is when you do the really important work of saying, hey, remember we had that conversation about not talking about weight ups, and not making it a big deal. And if they keep doing it, then taking some more actions. So, Destiny, I hope that helped. And I know a lot of people have the exact same question. And with as well with movement, is there a way that you want to move that can be outside of something that you do with your uncle, and just stop doing that stuff with your uncle, or say to your uncle as well. And what you can say to your uncle is, hey, I know that you think that I should weigh less. And so when we go out for a walk, I feel like I might be being pressured to do it to lose weight versus pressure to do it to increase my stamina, or do it because it's just fun, or whatever. And it kind of takes a bit of the joy out of it. Right. And see what happens. So boring communication. Oh, well, do we have to be better communicators? Oh, so annoying. Yeah, so these conversations, they're difficult, right? Especially when it comes to stuff around fatness? Because it's kind of like, well, everyone knows that fat people are gonna die and you suck. And well, everyone knows that if you just eat less, then you'll lose weight. And the fact the thing is that, you know, everyone knows that, but it's not based in reality, it's not based in science. It's not based. In fact, you ready yet? Okay. So it's kind of like, it's harder than it's harder to set boundaries around this, because as well, you might be new on your journey, and you might not be resolute about that. And you might be thinking, Well, yeah, I could, you know, I am unhealthy and feel unsure about what, how to do that. But, you know, learning more about this stuff, and feeling confident in the fact that this doesn't feel good. Like, if that's the only thing you take away from it, does this make you feel good? No, no, well, then the other person needs to stop doing that, if it's not making you feel good. And it's not like you're asking them to, like, you know, do something outrageous, just don't be a bigger, you know? Okay, so I moving on, I, I'm gonna look at my phone for a second. Because I'm so bored talking to you know, because I, I love doing polls on my Instagram, right? Because I love trying to understand your brain and people's brain. And how you're thinking and what you're believing and any limiting beliefs that you have, so that I can try and help you overcome them. Because I'm confident now, right? And I used to not be confident. And now that I'm confident, you kind of forget what it's, you know, the, the, the pain of it all dissolves, and the immediate feelings of oh my gosh, you know, I can remember, absolutely, I can remember, but then sometimes, you know, talking to you a lot and, and really getting into it again, really helps me understand where you're at, currently. Anyway, and so I want to share these poll results with you. And then we're going to talk about the thing image again, the loving and blah, blah, blah, which is connected to this. Okay. Okay, so I asked a question, when it comes to loving and accepting your fat body? How anxious or scared? Are you? of.dot.so when it comes to loving and accepting your fat body, how anxious or scared are you have? And so the first one, how anxious or scared are you? Are you have other people's opinions? Family, friends, strangers, judging you negatively? So 86% said a lot, and 14% said, Not that much. Next question, how anxious or scared Do you have the idea that if you love your fat body, then your quote unquote giving up and super close to your life falling apart because of that? 65% said so much and 35% said Not really.

How anxious are you about your health failing and having to deal with quote unquote, inevitable health consequences? 67 said a lot and 33% said not that much. So how anxious are you about the idea that you are not able to be confident and will fail. 77% said so much and 23% said not a lot. How anxious Are you that you will put on weight 81% said, so scared 19% said not scared that you have particularly deep fat phobia and won't be able to stop your negative thoughts. And so 77% said, very much so much. And 23% said, not really. The next one, that it means accepting, never being loved fully by romantic partners or family, etc. So 60% said, totally, and 40% said now and two more the actual reality of living in a fat phobic world that hates fat people, and especially happy fat people. So how much is that causing your anxiety? 84% surge so much, and 16% said, not really. And another one that you'll be destined to be single, or date unsuitable people, as no one will find you attractive, or your current partner doesn't find you attractive. And 70% said so much. And 30% said, nah. So I asked, as well, like, is there anything that I've missed anything that you're anxious about? And so here are the fear responses, anxious about other people's opinions, but no one will ever find me attractive because of my flabby body having a hard time with that. My health failing health, I have anxiety of body changes, whether it's shrinking or growing, that I will experience more stigma that I'm taking the easy way out, like instead of quote unquote, changing myself, that I won't ever feel that I look as good as I did when I weighed less. I'm angry about doctors not helping me It equals real issues not being treated equals dying of quote, unquote, being fat, and not being seen as an attractive partner and not being loved, slash lovable. So a good few of those were about health and were about not being found attractive. And so I've talked about health quite a lot. And not sure if I've done an episode of being attractive, or might have were 40 episodes in who knows? I mean, I do keep track of it. Off the top of my head. I haven't spoken about it in a while. So obviously I need to talk about it again. So does being fat mean that no one is going to find you attractive? Well, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Well, let's look at the well, first off, first off this fear. Oh, my God. Yes. Yes, of course. Why wouldn't you be afraid that no one ever is isn't ever going to find you attractive? The representation of fat bodies as people that are romantic interests without being the butt of a joke or without their weight being a thing that is not really represented. And we're told over and over again, that thin bodies are the ones that are sexy, and that if you if you fancy a fat person, it's because you're deviant. There's something wrong with you, you you're fetishizing them. And yeah, just fat bodies are better, right? Obviously, everything that our man like everything that we see it's thin bodies in romantic situations. Just oh my god, someone like a you know, a bit of trashy TV. I've been watching them Married at First Sight. We've not watched that show. Oh my gosh, basically, people get married at first sight. clues in the title. So quite good. Experts match them up on their personality. And they literally, you know, the bride walks down the aisle and they get legally married. And yeah, and of course everyone is you know, then pretty much everyone's why that I was watching the Australian version. I was like, What the? There's like, What the Everyone is why I think there was one person who was you know, might have been, but pretty much everyone was why everyone was you know, stereotypically what we have decided to the world beautiful and so you don't you just don't get to see fat stories being told right? As often is like 99.9% You know, finish stories. Anyway. So if you think that then well, you Yeah, of course. I'm not surprised.

But there is another way to look at it. So let's look at the actual facts. Now, how many fat people are there in the world? Well, how not? Are those fat people? Or single? No. Can you think of any fat person in your life? That is in a relationship? Any fat person, or any fat person that you know? You know, like a celebrity that's ever been in a relationship? Yeah, yep. Yep, yep. Many examples. So in the States, 67% of women are plus size. So 67% of women are plus size. That means that they're all single. Right? All they're all dating, you know, people who are unsuitable and secretly think that they're disgusting. Is that do you think that's accurate? Probably not. Obviously, we don't know for sure. Probably not. But let's look at some other stats. So I've got some data, which is straight size data, sorry, but 25% of straight size of straight people said that they would date a fat person. Okay. 25% of straight people said that they would date the fat person, men and women. So that is 7.8 billion people on the planet. Let's round it up. Just to make the math CZ. 8 billion. Okay. A billion people. So very basic math says that 2 billion people on the planet, regardless of the gender would theoretically date you would date a fat person to Billy and be able to find fat people attractive. That's a lot. That adds a lot. I mean, come on now. Now you might be thinking, Okay, well, 2 billion, that's the world. Okay, that's a well, but what if my local area, and you know, not everyone in that 2 billion is going to be the right age, or they're going to be single or whatever. So let's break it down a little bit more. So I normally live in Vancouver. So in Vancouver in Canada, the population as of 2017, is 675,000. Okay, so in Vancouver, so let's split them in half 50% Are men fear, you know, this is very, like basic math. So 50% are men. So that means 337,000? Are men in Vancouver? This is you know, for me if I was going to date because I want to. Yeah, so, of that 337,000 men in Vancouver, which is where I normally live, 25% of them theoretically would data fatty. Okay, so 25% of 337 is 84,000. And so let's presume out of 84,010% of those men are straight, are single are available in my age range that I'm what I'm looking for. So you know, conservative, 10 person. That means that in my local area, there are 8442 men that in theory, would love a date with me 1442 men, so that is a lot of deck, a lot of deck. I mean, I love me someday, but I'm not sure I'm able to get through 8000 of them in the next year. I mean, I'll give it a go, really. But that's a lot of choice. It can feel like there's eight, you know, when you're on the dating apps, and you just like offer flex like, and in reality, you know, this is really crude math and not taking into different gender identities and different situations and all that type of stuff. But what I'm trying to illustrate is that, theoretically, statistically, you've got a lot of choice, and you could be living in a small area. So currently, I am in Ireland in a rural place, the the population is a few 100. So right now, I probably couldn't go into the local town and find someone to have sex with.

Probably could there'll be some old farmers that would want to want to have a go, but that I would want to have sex with. So in that instance, I would have to broaden my search. And so when I've been on the dating apps in Ireland, I've been broadening my search to about four hours in my local area because I know that I have to to expand that, because statistics, right? So is it statistically true that no one wants to date you because you're fat? No, the answer is no, very clearly no, that's not true. And you can say, well, I'm, I'm really ugly, or, but I am a super fat person, or but I have other marginalized identities. And yes, that will make it harder. Absolutely. But out of 8 billion people, you think that there's not a single one? 8 billion is like a lot. That's like, a lot. There's a lot of people. So it's just not true. That no one wants to date you. And I know, that might be hyperbole when says no one wants to date me. Because you might be thinking, well, I know, people do want to date me, but they're all losers are all they're all whatever. But they're also lots of incredible people that want to date you who are good. You know, there'll be excellent partners. And I'm not looking at your body as as, like it's something negative or bad. So yes, I just want to acknowledge Yes, there are more people that would want to date you if you were thin. Dating would be so much easier. If you had a smaller body. Dating would be so much easier. If you had all of these things about you that you can't change. I can't change, right? You know, if I would happen to be a millionaire than dating probably easier. Or if I happened to look like a model, then dating would be easier, right? But the things we can't change. So, you know, recognizing that, yes, there are people that don't want to date you. But do you want to date them? Here's what I mean. Do you want to date them? Do you want to date someone who is like, fat, a body all that fat? Or even someone's just like now I'm just not interested in fat people? No, no, you do not? No, no, thank you. Not for me. Anyway, I don't want to date someone who is I don't want to date someone who is about any identity. I want to date someone who is emotionally mature, and understands that human bodies come in all sorts of shapes and forms and expressions, etc. Right? And so, imagine if you weren't in marching, if you magically got that body where, you know, every person on the internet would be like, Oh, my God, I want to date with you. You imagine? You could just date theoretically, anyone. Okay. And you started dating someone? Imagine if you then put on weight and then discovered that they were a raging fat phobe? That would fucking suck would net? Right? Imagine if I didn't know something happened in your life and your body changed. And they were like, Oh, God didn't know that your body could change my thank you. I'm out of here. Like, do you want to be with someone like that? Do you want to be with a bigot? Probably not. Right. So the way that I see is that my body is a bigot detector. It's like a screening mechanism mechanism. So when I'm on the dating apps, or wherever, if someone looks at my body and says, Well, no, thanks. Great. I'm so pleased that they were able to reject me before we got into relationship and then I found out they were a bigot. So I'm thankful that my body can screen out bigots in some ways, right? I might end up with someone who's bigoted in another way someone might see my white skin and be like, oh, yeah, my closet racist and then date me and then you know, I found out they're a racist afterwards and other like alpha fucks. Like, you know, but my body is able to screen out people who were size bigots, right. And think people don't have that they don't know how they don't have that. So, you know, the poor straight size people are going out and they're dating people who were beggars and they don't even realize and it only happens you know, if they happen to put on weight that they realize and then like, oh shit, you know, I'm dating someone who only wants to be with me because of my body size, which is really fucking weird. And by the way, fat phobia is not a sexual preference. Bigotry is not a sexual preference.

The same way any other form of bigotry is not a sexual check sexual preference. So we live in such a fat phobic society that it's harder to spot to spot this that is problematic. You know, if someone says oh, I'd never date a fat person or I prefer people who are thin and athletic. It that is actually super fucked up. Really it is. And people are like, well, you know, because they're just attracted to thin people. Imagine if anyone if people said that about other marginalized identities and they do, like, for example, people say, Oh, I would never date a trans person all the time. And that's fucked up to like, saying that you won't date someone because of their marginalized identity. Is Wrong is wrong, right? It's wrong. And we fetishize thin bodies in our society, we really do we fetishize them. But the moment someone says, oh, yeah, I date fat people, then we're like, oh, my gosh, they've got a thing. For fatties. Maybe there's something wrong with them. Maybe they're, they're, they're, they're a chubby chaser or, or whatever. But if someone said, I have a thing for thin bodies, you just be like, Oh, doesn't everyone. We make people who are attracted to fat people into people who have, I don't know, a mental health problem, or some weird kink, because being attracted to fat people is clearly like, really outwear you know, it's not I'm being sarcastic. It's not. You know, maybe people who date fat people, maybe they're just not bigots. Maybe they've worked through fat phobia. Maybe they never let society tell them how to who to find attractive. Maybe they are just interested in dating people of all body sizes, and they know that all bodies are cool, like straight size bodies, or call fat bodies or call disabled bodies or call, you know, just people a call and they just, they're just not a bigot. You know? And of course, there are people who fetishize fat bodies. And but, you know, the amount of people who fetishize thin bodies in comparison is like, you know, a million to one. And we say, oh, for a certain thing, bodies is okay, but fetishizing fat bodies is not okay. And, you know, is and it's okay, to fetishize it's okay, to fetishize, you know, as long as everyone's in agreeance, and there's consent then fetishize away, you know, if you're not hurting anyone, seriously. So with all of these confusing and harmful messages about fat bodies, then it's no, no one, that we worry that no one will want to date us. And if they do there, something wrong with them, or, you know, they're secretly hating your fat body, and they're dating you because you've got such a great personality. No. So, you know, it's no wonder. I met recently, I was at a conference recently, in the last year or two, I met someone and we had some really great discussions about fat phobia. And she was really interested in it. And a question she asked me was, so do you only date fat people then? And I've never had that question before. And I was like, Oh, well, no. I date, I currently date all different body types. Like it doesn't even factor into my attraction to someone I'm really, I'm really attracted to people because of their personality and who they are as a human. And, and then when I get that attraction, then I am then attracted to their body. And, you know, whatever that body is. So I said, Oh, no. And then it made me think like, in the past when I was fat phobic who would I date? And I, at that time, obviously, when I was fat phobic I was you know, 100% believed that fat bodies were not as worthy as straight size bodies. And so I would intentionally date people who were by society standards, attractive, but had ship personalities. So I would always think, okay, I'd think they bring the looks because Because Because, because clearly, I'm fat. So I'm hideous. And then I bring the personality because they have a ship personality.

I was bringing the looks and the personality, baby. But yeah, so I wanted to do that. So I could prove to the world look, I can date a gorgeous person. So I have more value because of the person that I'm dating, which is all kinds of fucked up. I mean, no. And, you know, they were honestly I would date dickheads that didn't deserve to be with me and treated me really badly. But I would always be like, Oh, they're so charitable for being with me. You know, because of my body or, and I would think about, you know, when they would see me naked, that they would be like, Oh, God, disgusting. I had no evidence to support this theory, like in regards to the personal relationships. But yeah, I wouldn't want to date fat people, because I felt like it would draw attention to us as a couple. And people would make more judgments about me. So I wanted to be in the proximity of thinness and so that the positive things that straight size people get would be then transferred on to me. And so I thought that if I was with a fat person, then people would be like, well, look at you too fat people, no wonder you're fat, because you're both fat. Where as if I was with someone who was straight size, I could maybe I could flow under the radar. And maybe people would not notice that I was fat. That was my thinking. Now, I know a lot of people actually do the opposite. And so they wouldn't want to be with someone who was straight size, because they wouldn't want the, the difference to be obvious. But it's all none of it is, you know, legit, like none of it is. And I really, it comes from a place of fear, right? And all of it like any other preferences that I used to have a big one would be height, like, I'm five, seven. And I would only ever want to date guys who were taller. And it wasn't because I necessarily had a preference for guys who were taller. It was because I had a deep insecurity about my height and my size. And I thought if that guy was taller, it would make me look thinner and smaller. And it would make me feel more feminine. And so that had nothing to do with the masculinity of the guy or, you know, the fact that I was attracted to, you know, someone's hyping like, oh my god, yeah. I just, you know, someone who's six, six foot, oh, my God, I'm just gonna, you know, have a wank over it, like, all that high. You know, you might do that. But you know, that wasn't me. It was, for me, it was all, you know, deep insecurity about who I was. It was all about me. Same. I wouldn't date any guy who had any type of feminine, that I decided were feminine characteristics, like someone who didn't have very short hair, very short nails. Someone who was sensitive or and you know, anything, which is not that that stereotypical hyper masculine, I'd be like, no, no, no, thank you. And it has nothing to do with what I was attracted to. And everything to do with what I was insecure about. Yeah, so um, interesting, right. Now being fat positive, like I mentioned, like, you know, I, literally, am so open to who I find attractive I am, I'm so open and open on what genders I find attractive, and, you know, weigh bodies come in the world. I'm just, it's just, it's not about that anymore. For me. And that feels like freedom. For me. Really, it feels like freedom, because I'm not so in my head, about my own body. And what that is what it means to other people, like, yeah, other people are going to judge my body and they're going to judge other fat people's body. But that's their problem, right? They're missing out. You know, imagine all of the great people that I would have missed out on before because I was like, No, their hair is like three inches long, disgusting. Oh, I wouldn't date someone like that. Ooh, gross, you know, and they could have been a great person. And that was my loss. You know, it wasn't their loss. They could have dated someone who was a knob. If they don't need me because I was a, I was a novice at that time and probably still am a knob in lots of ways. So in conclusion, is it true that no one date you because you're fat? New, new. Not true. Is it harder to in the romantic world? Yes, absolutely. It's harder.

Is the fact that you get to screen bigots out because of the size of your body or with the way that your body your looks, express yourself with your body. Is that something that straight size people don't have the luck to have? Yeah, straight size people don't Get that we have a superpower with our fat bodies. We our biggest screeners, were able to screen out the size bigots. And if you have any other identities, you're able to screen out, you know, other bigots just with your body without even saying a word. It's a magic trick, right? So, you know, there's positives to it. And also acknowledging, yes, it's hard. And, yes, it's, it's difficult because you're constantly being reminded that you're, your body's not okay. And so even if you're in a relationship, and your partner is like, you're fucking gorgeous, you can hear those words of your fucking gorgeous and be like, Oh, they're just saying it's been ice. And that's because of the fat phobic society we live in and the, you know, still believing those things that your body isn't good enough, because society says, and where did this preference come from? It came from racism. It came from whites supremacy, it came from religious, oppressive religious attitudes, it came from people wanting to make money from your body. It came from patriarchy. It came from transphobia. It came from like, it came from all of these systems that you don't want to buy into, that we don't want to buy into. And so if you if you are genuinely feeling like fat, thin bodies are better. You're agreeing with oppressive ideologies. You know, it's like, going on to Donald Trump's Twitter account and him saying his normal, bigoted stuff, and you liking the thing you like in his thing, or retweeting it, by continually having these thoughts that your body is not okay, you're basically retweeting Trump tweets, that's what you're doing. That is what you're doing. But these tweets are invisible, right, these tweets that you're supporting, or these ideologies, they're invisible. And, you know, it's not on the internet, where you're forwarding, you know, or re sharing this tweet, but you're really sharing these ideas by letting them play out on your brain and re sharing them, when you have your own preferences that might be not cool. And you're re sharing them when you you know, voice them to other people or say, oh, maybe if I lost weight, then I'd get my boyfriend or whatever, whatever it is. And let's just stop, like, let's just work on why we believe these things and, and stop playing into the idea that it is a fact that thin bodies are better, is not it's an opinion, an opinion that came from someone just like Donald Trump, and fuck that, you know, we don't support that. Right. And another thing that I totally forgot that I've touched that haven't touched on, is we're also buying into the idea that being attractive is something that is valuable. And it's, it's not right like in regards to our worth as human beings we are worthy whether we are quote unquote attractive or not. We are worthy if we are you know, identify as the ugliest motherfucker on in on the on the planet, you still worthy, you know, I'm still worthy, whether some guy, some random person on the street is like, Oh, she's ugly. I'm still worthy. If someone is like, she's the most sexy thing that I've ever seen in my life. It has nothing to do with my value as a human being and, and this desire to be seen as attractive is also playing into these ideas. And we just don't need to work. We just don't need to worry about it. Like who cares if you are an attractive? Like, if you've decided, yeah, I'm an attractive, like, what is attractiveness? You know, it's just so complicated. And, and, yeah, because I see a lot of times people will say, Oh, well. Confidence is the sexiest thing people can wear, a woman can wear. And I'm just like, yeah, confidence is sexy, but we're still pandering to other people.

You know, by saying confidence is sexy. Who the fuck cares if other people think that you're sexy? If you feel sexy, great. If you're don't feel sexy, that's fine. Like if you're, if that's your thing, like if you're asexual, cool, whatever, but make it about you and not how others are perceiving you like a lot of people. Yeah, like a lot of people want to become confident so that they can be sexy. They know that it can't change their size, but they're like if I'm confident then I will be sexy and I'm And, and that is is to is problematic. So how about just feeling confident just because it feels good or, you know, you're able to relate to your body better body better and maybe you know, you'll feel sexy yourself but fuck that like doing shit for other people all the time so that they can consume you like you're not a you're not an object. You're you and your balance, right? Hey, so I'm wearing this t shirt, it says nothing but blue skies, and I love this t shirt. And the quote, nothing but Blue Skies is is this idea that even if it's a rainy day, so I'm looking out from my office window today, it's really foggy and rainy. And we're in the middle of summer, but I'm in Ireland.

So what do you expect we had our one day of sun, so we're done for the season. Anyway, so it's rainy and foggy. But if I got an aeroplane or in a rocket or whatever, and I went above the clouds, clouds up, there would be blue sky. And so I really liked this phrase, nothing but blue sky, or another version of it is blue sky ahead, a blue blue sky above. And it's saying that, even if it's a really shit day, the blue sky is always there. But it's just like temporary, the clouds are covering it. And so I like wearing this t shirt, because if I ever feel down, then I can like, you know, things will change, it will get better. There's there is always hope. And there's always blue sky up there somewhere. And it might be really difficult to get there. It might be ages before you get there. It might you might happen tomorrow that the sun is shining. But there is always that blue sky there that hope there for you. Yeah, so if you want to watch a, you can watch me doing these videos, these videos, these podcast recordings over YouTube, and you can see my face and see my T shirt when I'm doing it. And if you notice in the background, if you're on YouTube, a beautiful cross stitch that I did, I'm going to share I'm going to share a picture on Instagram. And a cross stitch is the words fuck. With leopard print, it's pretty good took me like 100 hours. A regular cross stitcher would have been like that would take me two hours.

Anyway, so if you do want to watch the video, then videos for all of the podcasts are on the YouTubes. And a reminder to go to the show notes. First funny.com forward slash 040 for Episode 40, or they will be in your show notes the thing on your phone oh my god was a hard and to get that body love roadmap. And so inside the roadmap, you get the three easy steps to follow it to increase your body confidence. The three massive mistakes that everyone makes when it comes to learning to love their body and how you can avoid them. And an invitation to join my family friends community and you're gonna get body love training to your inbox. stuff straight from my heart to yours. So and how much is that? You say Victoria? How much is that? It's free. It's free for you. Okay, so go check it out. And any questions go there. Still, if you want to leave a review a nice juicy five-star review. Take a screenshot of that. Send it to me and I'll send you a free copy of my best-selling book or did you digital an audio version? So okay, thank you for hanging out with me today. It's been amazing. Can you tell my voice is starting to go? Yeah, so it's time for me to go. So I will bid you adieu and say in a while alligator. See you later. Crocodile Have a wonderful day, fatty. Okay, bad.

EP39 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast, episode 39. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And today we are sharing Susie's story from ashamed and obsessed to certified fierce, fatty. Let's do it.

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast Let's begin.

Welcome to this episode, I have a special one for you today, because I have a guest and the guest is someone who is enrolled and completed my E course first fatty Academy. I don't know why I don't I don't tell you about I don't tell you about things keep everything secret. But I don't often talk about first fatty Academy it is my the only way that you can work with me it is my my E course. And more often than not, it's not available to buy. So when you're listening to this episode, you're probably not going to be able to enroll in it. But if you want to be notified of when it's available, then go to the waitlist. So first va t.com forward slash waitlist or I'm going to put the link in the shout outs. Yeah, so you can find it. Can you hear those crows squawking outside? I've put I've opened the window because I'm so fucking hot. Yeah, so hopefully you know tractor goes by but I've already recorded the the episode that's coming with with sue the sous Susie and she is great. And some of the things that she achieved after enrolling in first party Academy is bananas. Like when she shared them like I knew about them before this episode, but I was just like, what, who are you? Who are you? And her transformation was so quick, like, because a lot of people they get to a place where like, fuck this I am so done with this bullshit of hating my body and dieting. And those people are the ones that are the most successful doing this work because they're like, I've had it I've done like they've hit the you know, the final straw or or rock bottom or whatever. And they work to get the results because they are fucking tired of the bullshit. And I know a lot of people listening are tired of hating themselves and thinking that's your diet. So yeah, we've got a Suzy story today. And I think that you're going to resonate with a lot of things that Susie experienced and felt about her body. And hearing about her transformation is really inspiring. It's made me feel really good and inspired and excited. And thinking about all the positive in the world. That the impact that anyone who does this work can make is amazing. It's so good. So here we go. Enjoy Susie's story. And if you want to know when face value Academy is opened, go to first fatty.com forward slash waitlist or click the link in the show notes. So welcome, Susie, I'm so pleased you're here today on the first party podcast. Thank you for having me. Why I wanted you on the show is because you have gone you had an incredible journey. Mind blowing like this some of the stuff that you've done. And so but you weren't always like that. And I think it's really important to show how you went from where you were to where you are now and that it is possible and share someone else's story apart from mine because you know, it's not always about me. You're now a certified fears factory but you weren't always so Let's start at the beginning of your story and your childhood and, and how you felt about yourself then.

Yeah, so I was a tall child, I was one of the tallest in my school. But that didn't seem too bad. You know, I also had big feet still have big feet and had to get a special shop for my shoes, but my feet were long and narrow. So that was okay. So the first memory I have knowing that there was something wrong in inverted commas with my body was when I was about 10. I think it was I was still at junior school. And I heard my teacher talking to another teacher walking in the corridor behind me and they said that Suzy is really hippy isn't she? And I knew at that age that that wasn't a compliment. And it's so scary. I have never, I'm 46. And I have not forgotten that I can take myself back to that moment. And I can hear the words, I knew exactly the words that were said. And that really left a mark on me. So say I was 10. And about that time as well, I was aware I had this favorite gray striped skirt, long skirt with a split up the back. That was the fashion 80s My favorite skirt, but I was aware that it was the same clothes size as my auntie was wearing an adult and I was 10. So yeah, it started from there, really, and the shame, gradually built about my body. And I quickly learned that being big as a girl was not a good thing. And that it wasn't feminine to be good. You know, I was just too big. And it was confirmed, you know, most things that I did, I did a lot of dancing. And I was one of the biggest girls there. I did a gang show, you know, where Scouts and Guides get together and do a show with singing and dancing. And I knew that I was looking at the top end sizing for the costumes. So I learned quickly that getting clothes to fit me was going to be hard. You know, I couldn't just go, oh, like for fancy dress or something. I'd like to wear that, you know, it was an issue with the clothes. So that was it. Really, you know, from that experience age 10 Where someone planted the seed that my body wasn't right. I then quickly received loads of other messages as well, that I literally I was too big as a girl.

So is horrifying, saying you're too hippie. And you you're like, what that? What are these people thinking? Like when they make comments about anyone's bodies, but then about children's bodies.

I know, I'm from a teacher, you know, my teacher, someone you trust, and I could hear them. So clearly, they were just behind me. I don't know, you know how they thought I wasn't gonna hear them. But you say probably didn't think about what they're saying. But that, that has left a mark on me. And that, you know, I'll always remember that I have, you know, sort of different feelings about it. And we're dealing with it, but I won't forget that those words.

No, no, no doubt. I wouldn't. Absolutely. And so how was you know, you had that one? That that comment? And then you started hearing other things too? And so your your family environment? Were they neutral around body? Were they fat phobic or diet country? Or what was what was that? Like?

Yeah, I'm basically wonderful, if not the biggest, I'm the biggest female. But one of the biggest people in my family in terms of build. But I don't remember there being much negativity particularly towards my, my body from my family. My you know, my mum wasn't wasn't as far as I'm aware. She wasn't dieting or anything, you know, at that stage. And she was quite happy in her body. But she's in a very different body to me. But most of my messaging came from television, films, magazines, you know, in those days, I can remember because of my scale, the size of my frame, I can remember when I was watching neighbors, and I just wanted to be like Kylie Minogue neighbors because she was so like, dainty and petite. And she could just wear anything she wanted. And, you know, life just seemed so much easier for her. And, you know, that, you know, we're literally extremes. Yeah, I just thought life seemed so much easier for her, to be honest, you know, in terms of clothes and things. Mm hmm. And so what about food and the way that you were you related to food as a young person? Was it? Do you think that that was a quote unquote, normal relationship with food at that point?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I really enjoyed food. You know, it was comforting. It was fun. I do remember I've always been able to eat quite a lot of food and drink a lot of liquid. I remember my there's a photograph of me. When I'm about to remember my mom telling me I could drink like pints of orange squash. You know, when I was a young child, I've always consumed a lot of liquid and I've always been able to eat a lot of fun You'd and I've enjoyed food, but again, I, I learnt very, you know, young that that wasn't a good thing either. That's not feminine, you know, to do that, to want to have an appetite like that and to want to eat. So I had those messages swirling around as well. And I learned, you know, like most people, what are good foods and what were bad foods. But you know, you pick those up? Yeah.

Yeah. Isn't it so interesting how, as a child, like, so I have a nibbling who is three years old. And he, you know, if he's got a big appetite, or if he doesn't, it's just kind of like, Oh, if he has a big appetite, it's like, wow, cool. You eat all the food and you drink stuff. And oh, you must be thirsty stay or whatever. Not that I comment on what he's eating. But you know, this is what we think about children. But then, at what stage? Does it become like? Oh, look at Suzy drinking pints of orange juice, too. Oh, look at Suzy drinking pints of orange juice. Like, at what point did we decide? Oh, we're going to shame our children. Not necessarily saying that your family does. But you know, the society in general. Where does that that switch happen? It's just bizarre. Really? Yeah. And I think it's often associated with if your body is again, vertical as a problem, you know, then people start to, like, examine your behaviors, don't they? And think that must be the cause of that, you know?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's, the whole thing is, um, you know, seeing a straight size person on the internet saying, Oh, I'm going to eat 20 burgers and people being like, Oh, my God, you know, I want her to be my girlfriend and stuff. But then if a fat person did that, then you're like, Oh, my God, well, that's why you're fat or whatever. So. So, age 10, things started kind of you started thinking about your body, because people were talking about it very rudely. How did things progress for you in your teenage years?

Yeah, so I was aware, I was big, basically bigger than other people. And I think, as is natural, and as is the point during puberty, puberty, I put weight on, you know, as my body developed, and I wasn't an early developer, I'm talking about age 1516 here. And so I gradually, you know, didn't want to show my body and I say, getting clothes that I felt okay, in out of the choice of the shops, you know, that I was going to, you know, it was hard. So it was a challenge to dress, you know, challenge to feel good. So I started covering up my body and things. And I was worried what people thought about my body, you know, what people thought about me? So yeah, that that shame really just built over those teenage years? And I wasn't happy with my body. Yeah. And so when did you first start to try to manipulate the size of yourself?

I was 18. So, couple of years later, basically, I just took it upon myself, I didn't follow a special, you know, diet or formulation from anybody else. I just basically restricted my feed. I knew I, it's, you know, you think how did I know that, but I must have seen somewhere. I restricted my food. And I basically, I'd always been quite active, but I did a really strict exercise regime. So the two together, but there was a lot of restricting with the food. And basically, obviously, my body changed. I also had my hair cut short at that stage. So I looked slightly different, but it was like a different image. And I got all the compliments. You know, people were very quick to say, oh, you know, you look so good, or you've done so well. And good for you. You know that one? So yeah, you know, I got the attention. And that felt good, obviously, particularly at that age.

Yeah, no doubt, like especially if you all have your, you know, all of those years, like eight years from the time you start to do to notice your body and feel bad about it to do something and then seem to turn it off, turn everything around, quote unquote, and get all that love and praise. And so you became smaller. Obviously, it didn't last because diets don't work. So what happened then?

Yeah, so I I was brilliant Dieter I have been. I mean, I've yo yo dieted for 26 years started then went up to age 44. And so yeah, brilliant Dieter, so much willpower. You know, I'm all for it can keep on until I can't, because my body wins. You know, it's like wanting to be fed. I was so hungry, so deprived of food, and so yeah, my body would win over and because of all the restriction, I would completely go the other way and I would binge because, you know, I was so hungry and I hadn't allowed Have myself to eat loads of things. And I just Yeah, I just did that for so many years. And I really didn't think you know that there was another way of being I was sort of torn between the control, I liked the control of the food because it felt like, you know, my life was in control, and my body was in control. And it's quite addictive that feeling, you know, isn't it, uh, you know, knowing what you're eating and knowing that you're getting smaller, you know, that sort of kind of addictive side to it. So, yeah, and I could go into clothes, shops and buy clothes, most closed shops. I'm at the top end, though, by the way, then. And I was, you know, that that stage, I was one of the thinnest I've ever been. I've been back there many times. But yeah, I could go into closed shops. So that felt good. But my life was so restricted. I was following such a strict regime, I was obsessed. There was no fun, no joy in my life, I was so serious, and so self obsessed as well. Because all I could really think about was my myself and my body and what I was doing, it takes over your whole life. Literally, you have no energy, or you can't take in anything else.

Yes, absolutely. And so when you are your your smallest when you could go and shop in stores? What did you think of your body, then? Was it a good body? or No?

No, it was better, shall we say. So I was happier with my body in terms of, you know, what I saw and looked in the mirror. And I knew that there was an ease to the shopping and things and that felt good. But at the time, it's never enough. So it wasn't, I wasn't like, loving my body, I wasn't feeling great about my body by any means. Because you just want to keep on going further and further. And as I say, you know, psychologically, I was in the biggest clothes size, women's clothes size in some of the shops at that time. So I was still big in my mind, you know, so there must be further to go. Yeah, and I was not happy with my body. So I was going through all that. And I wasn't happy with anywhere. I certainly wasn't happy in my life because of all the restriction but I wasn't even that happy with my body.

And so what types of impact did that have on your life that kind of constantly having to monitor your your food intake and your weight and think about your body? Like, you know, you mentioned it, it takes away your life and stuff? Can you think of any things that you know you missed out on or things that you didn't do because of the way that you felt about yourself?

I pretty much did things I think that I wanted to but it was always there in the background. You know, I didn't like fully enjoy the things that I was doing, because I was worried. So you know, I may have gone on a holiday with friends, but I would be looking for the sarong was a cover up and you know, so I found a way round things so that I was able to live my life, you know, because I've done that for quite young. So yeah, I carried on living my life. But it was always there in the background, whatever my food habits were at the time, whatever my size were, it was always there. My body was always in the forefront of my mind of what ever activity was involved.

Yeah, it's like this this way. Well, literally, this on the on your shoulder just constantly, they're just making everything just a little bit shitter or a little bit more anxiety provoking or whatever.

Yeah, definitely much harder. Much harder. If you go to something with friends like group of friends when you're young. And something's like one size or something. And you don't know if it's going to work that's really hard. You know, even like tights or something, or if fancy dress and there's tight. So I'm you know, I'm tall and I got a bigger frame. They weren't going to fit me, as I always was this I just wanted to fit in these one side. I had this. I just wanted to find it easy for things to fit me. So I was trying to change to make these one size things fit me, you know, but that's the message, isn't it? You're wrong because you don't fit in these things. And I that's what I believed for a long time. What else did you believe about about people who had bigger bodies like those negative self beliefs, all those kind of secret things now you're like, oh my god, I can't believe I used to think that about fat people.

I bought into the idea that if you worked hard enough, you could change your body. I never questioned the fact that people's bodies could be so different, you know, they could be behaving in the same way somebody else and then we'd have a very different outcome. So I thought, you know, there must be a way that you just put the effort in, deprive yourself and then you know, but I know there's no thin body in me I know that now that you are encouraged to believe by, you know, culture by society that that if you work hard enough, you can, you know, you can be thin, you can have that body. So I believed it for so long. I can't believe it. It's crazy. It seems crazy now that I believe that but I did I just thought that my life was just going to be one large diet or you know, diet, not diet, not, you know, sort of yoga yo yoing all my life just constantly chasing this body that I was never going to have.

Isn't it interesting after 26 years, and you never really got a, you know, the body that you're like, Okay, now I've made it that the power of fat phobia and the power of the dream of fineness kept you going for that many years?

Yeah. And I think I've I've mentioned to you before, you know, I've done a selection of diets, but I've done serious diets vlcd for very low calorie diets, which, where I was eating no food. So I was, you know, as thin as I could maybe be in my body. And I had complications after gallstone surgery. And after that, I just, I went back to it more than once, you know, I, I mean, dieting is probably the unhealthiest thing I've ever done. The yo yo dieting, particularly. And nothing good came out of dieting. Yeah, it doesn't make you feel better. It doesn't make you feel better about your body. And you know, it's very damaging to your body.

Yeah. And so what did it feel like? Or what did you believe about yourself when you did when your willpower was stretched to breaking point, and then you stopped the diet and then began, you know, binging or eating food, just eating some food? Like, what did you think about yourself and belief about yourself?

Well, I felt like I'd failed, definitely failed, that, you know, I there was something I've done wrong, because I couldn't carry on with the diet. So and it's the shame I think, you know, the shame for me, if, because I fluctuated five clothes sizes, you know, all my life up and down, up and down. If someone saw me at one stage, and then saw me a few months later, I could look very different. And the shame of that is huge. Huge.

Unknown Speaker

Did anyone ever say anything? Like, oh, you've put on way or? No, nobody ever said that. But you I could tell I, you know, the sensitive on you to people. And I could you know, it was obvious, it was obvious that my physical appearance had drastically changed. And not just once that was the thing for me. The added shame was not that that happened once was that that happened? Time and time again.

Yeah. And so did people compliment you when you lost weight after the weight putting on? Yep, definitely. So you're doing? Yeah, yeah. So you knew that they were checking your body and they were noticing your weight, but they would only say something when it was, you know, a good thing. And you were fit?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, no one ever said it was a bad thing to diet and all the things. I mean, occasionally I'll you know, be doing something of some sort. Something was a bit silly food wise. But generally dieting was that, you know, that sort of behavior was very accepted because that disordered eating basically is accepted, isn't it? That's a it's okay to do that. Everyone's like, oh, you know, you're gonna die again. That's just normal. Why wouldn't you do that?

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And really, you know, the act of dieting is, like you mentioned is, there's so many deeply disordered things in there. And now both of us can see it. And so if we ever talk to someone who's dieting, it's kind of like, bizarre and like, why this is not good for your health and your mental your mental health, and oh my gosh, so. So no one ever said to you, oh, Susie, you're you. You're great being big or you're great. Just the way you are anything like that you were kind of encouraged?

Yeah, I mean, not I wasn't encouraged to lose weight by my family. But as I said, you know, we didn't really discuss my body and my parents at some times were a bit worried about, you know, the diets that I was doing. But generally, my message just came from, you know, the world we live in more generally, I think, because I was 18 When I first took action, you know, about my body. So I was sort of moving out of home and things then. But definitely, yeah, from the society at large. And so you got married and now have children. And so what was that? Like? What is it? What was it like being in a partnership and having children and not liking what you looked like,

when I was actually pregnant, it was great because I could, it was like, I didn't have to worry, it was definitely not a good thing to diet when you're pregnant, even in the world we live in now. So that was like almost a break. Where I didn't feel like I had to put that pressure on myself or anything, I was actually extremely sick, particularly with my first child, so I barely anything when I was pregnant. I felt awful. But yeah, after I had the baby, there's all the pressure to to lose weight and look a certain way. And that's really heavy, because having a baby is huge. You know, it's really challenging. In so many different ways, it changes your relationship with your husband, it just changes your life for the first time, a second child as well. So, but my body, yeah, obviously, my body changed, I put on weight in pregnancy. And then ticularly. In second pregnancy afterwards, I really didn't feel good about my body. I wasn't feeling good about myself, I didn't know ticularly who I who I was, and I, I completely lost control, basically, with my body because I say that time when I was pregnant, I gave myself that time off, but then I'd lost control. You know, I, I didn't know my body was doing its own thing of things I didn't know about particularly the first time. So yeah. And what was it like with your, with your husband? Like, was he like, Oh, my God, you're smoking heart? Or, you know, did you accept that he was attracted to you and wanting to be with you and all that type of stuff?

Yeah, I've never questioned that with my husband, I think he's in a body that also changes and fluctuates. And interestingly, you know, we obviously because we live together, if I'm eating a certain way that tends to affect him. I'm not sure he's never said he's unhappy with it. But you know, that's just the way it's been, you know, when I when I was dieting, so but you know, he, I never, it was more the pressure I was putting on myself than anything. He it was how I felt. And when you feel a certain way, you behave differently, don't you, you know, no matter what actual, you know, messages you're getting from anyone else if you feel a certain way. And then that obviously, affects our relationship, because I was so self conscious about my body.

And so, because you're self conscious, it would be harder for him to really experience you and get close to you and all that type of stuff.

Yeah, definitely. I was so disconnected from my body. And from myself, really, I was so you know, when I say dieting takes over your whole life, it leaves very little room for anything else. And it certainly doesn't leave room for that connection, at least not for me. Because, you know, you're so guarded about this aim that you knew, and you're very much looking to the future. So you're not interested in the now because but you know, you're not right yet. So yeah, yeah. Like, and then in the future when you're 50. And then, you know, all this magical things were gonna happen. So did you know is your kids picking up on any kind of messages around body and food at all?

No, I haven't, which I'm, I'm grateful for luckily, I, you know, when I was doing those severe diets, my children were quite young. And so I mean, they may have picked things up, but not, you know, in a very obvious way. And I've I mean, I've got a teenage daughter now she's 14. And, you know, that's a really hard age, as we know, for children. And even though I know what I know, I'm her mum, and it's just me against the world. So I'm hoping that things are all going to work out well. But it's, it's hard. And it's almost harder that I know what I know. And it breaks my heart some of the things that I know, she's taken on board, you know, really, what types of things Has she taken up? Well, now with the social media and things and all the filters, so it's not, it's not just that your body is not good enough is it? It's like in photos, you know, and all the changes and things that happen to your body, when you're a teenager, you can put the filters on and then that's the image that they see of themselves, you know, and when they print photos out with their friends, there's often a filter. So it's even more complicated. And she's definitely aware of, you know, different builds of friends and things and there's just so much pressure on the teenagers. And my son also, I think there's pressure, more pressure these days, but for girls, it's really it is really hard.

Yeah, absolutely. It just makes it Yeah, I wonder how because we're seeing like this is a you know, a new generation going through this, how it's gonna affect us, you know, children and humans in the future. Did you know that they they can have you can get a filter, which changes your face on video. And so you can be on video and your face could be completely different, literally a different face like there was, I can't remember which country I think it was China, there was a woman who was some sort of cam did gaming or something. And the face that she had on was of this stereotypically attractive person, but then it glitched. And then it turned out that it was an older woman, and then she lost all of her fans. But you know that it just, it's just really interesting. And scary how? Yeah, technology is changing the way that we view ourselves.

It's so scary, because we know, and I know, from my experience that you can't accept my yourself, if you're constantly trying to change yourself. So all the time, you've got those options to look different and be different. It's very, very hard to accept yourself as you are, isn't it? Like, and that even includes your face? Yeah. I mean, it's very scary. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So obviously, something changed. And something happened to make you think, you know, this is not working for me. And what was that?

Basically, in my 40s, in my early 40s, I began to feel really quite lonely and lost. And I was starting to ask myself, you know, is this is this my life, I was exhausted by dieting by that point. And I was just sick and tired of fighting my body. I was also fed up with chasing perfectionism, and trying to please other people, to the point that I just didn't know who I was anymore. You know, I was really feeling like, underneath all of that, you know, who am I? So I was really lost. And basically, I found my way. Because I think you have to be at that point where you can't go on these, you know, these days. And this, the way we're living with the power of all the messages and where it gets, you have to be at the point where you're like, I literally can't do this anymore. So, you know, that was the point I was at. I couldn't necessarily isolate it to my body. But I was just like, this is not the way I want to live anymore. I'm just there's just no joy. No enjoyment. So, so serious. And yeah, I just didn't want to live like that anymore. That must be so hard to recognize that and also change because your whole adult life, you've been doing this. Like, that's just Yeah, to be able to recognize it and make a change is phenomenal.

Yeah, I think I was just so ready. I was basically craving something that was real. You know, I was craving connection with myself. You know, when I say I wasn't sure who I was, I was really craving to connect to Tuesday, aside from all those other behaviors, and I was craving connection with other people as well. I just wanted something real. As sort of way I can explain it really? Yeah, absolutely.

Because I guess you were, you know, never being your authentic self, because you're constantly trying to change who you were. Yeah, definitely. And I was the perfectionism and always trying to, you know, chase something, and feeling like, you know, you have to do something else to be happy. So whether that's dieting, spending money, you know, I've done all the things. And so I was basically ready to let that go and go within myself, you know, to find find the answers. Obviously, I had to find what that looked like. Because I didn't know then. Yeah, just do that. I didn't want that anymore.

Yeah. So you obviously enrolled in first party Academy. And that is why I know you so yay, for yay for knowing you and being in first party Academy. So what made you what made you decide to do first party academy or basically because I had to find that that existed, you know, from the point that I was at. So I basically ended up finding out about the mind body spirit publisher, Hay House, and I went on the Louise Hay sort of self love journey. And I started to connect to myself. So I started to be kinder to myself. And then I enrolled in a coaching course, which is something that I've always wanted to do. And on that course I basically worked on letting go of the perfectionism and being my real self, you know, being my authentic self. And while on that course, I think it was an A body image coach or something, I googled and I ended up finding your TED talk. And I was like, what? Literally, I, I had no idea. And I loved your talk. I, I loved your energy, your confidence. And so I looked you up from your TED Talk. But your TED talk was like, you know, literally so foreign to me. I had, I just had no idea that there was another way to be, you know, other than the way that I had been living my life.

Yeah, yeah, I remember that moment to for me, it was watching. Going to Reagan chest, Dean's website dances with fat. And I was like, What? What is this magical world that I've never even know known that existed? So did you have any hesitations about joining the academy and doing doing the work?

Yes, definitely. I was, I mean, at that stage, because I think my latest diet that you know, most recently had been a gluten free vegan. And I, I thought I wasn't dieting, you know, until we discussed some of the behaviors that I still had. And you know, like my Fitbit. Yeah, my Yeah, the Restrict I was restricting my food. But I had no idea that I was doing that. And of course, for me having, you know, eaten in a very disordered way, most of my adult life that was really dangerous for me. So I, you know, I had to let all that go. But yeah, I had hesitations I had I was, at that stage, I was worried about putting on weight, I was worried about losing control. I didn't know how I could possibly like my body if I wasn't trying to change it. So I didn't know how that was even going to be possible. And to be honest, I was very scared of the word fat of labeling myself as fat. I'd never have, you know, obviously the word if particularly if you're if you don't know, if you're, you know, like lots of people and you don't have a clue about the messages that you're getting. You know, fat was a bad word, and I didn't, I've done everything I possibly could to avoid that word. So, you know, that was quite a big thing for me to enroll in a course called vs. Fat. Academy.

Yeah, yeah, that must have been like, wow, when you did it anyway, even though you were like, shitting your pants for various different reasons, which are totally legitimate.

Yeah, I just knew I felt really drawn. I think I watched one of your web your webinars, before I joined and I just knew I, I knew I had to join. I had really strong, you know, call to join. So I knew that all those other things outweighed those fears that I had.

Yeah. Amazing. So what were your experiences in first party Academy? What did you achieve?

Oh, lots of things. I mean, I, it's so it's just so hard to remember back, you know, to this, like anything, when you've been on a massive journey, it's really hard to think the things that you did. But yeah, I mean, it starts with lots of little things, doesn't it? So, you know, it's like, I chose one of my goals in the academy was choosing a swimming costume and a style that I wouldn't normally choose. So it was white, predominantly white with blue spots, but also a cut that I wouldn't normally do. Normally, where I'm wearing that to the swimming pool. And then I kind of got a taste for it, because I think it was just so opposite to all the other behaviors and it's so freeing, isn't it? You know, to let all that other stuff go is just so freeing, and you feel like really connected to yourself, which is what I was after what I was craving Yeah, and I I'm I went to self love summit event, and I ended up and I didn't even plan to do this. So I had really not great underwear. You know, normally if I'm going to do something out of my comfort zone, I'd want to prep and make myself feel as good as I could about it by putting some decent underwear on but I had, you know, like not great knickers and I think my bra wasn't in great condition. But we got invited as part of the day to go up on the stage and take your clothes off down to your underwear and sing Chesney Hawkes I am the one and only and I love that song anyway. So I was and she said at the beginning of her talk that that was what she was going to do at the end. So I I wasn't sure what I was going to do it and I just thought Yeah, I am I'm going to do this and I just I something in me just made wanted to do it and I didn't question it too much. I got up and done it. I got off and I did it. And it's just the feeling that yeah, the liberation and the power because literally I've taken my own power back what was taken away from me for so for so long. And it's it's a really great feeling.

And so now like that stuff is so bloomin incredible. Like, when you told me about getting up on stage at that self love summit in your underwear and dancing and being one of the first to get on stage, I was just like, why it's so easy to say that I was one of the first to go, I didn't know whether anyone else was gonna come and stand in front of me.

You're just doing it. I don't care about my underwear, like, who cares? Amazing. And so a lot of people will say, in that moment, Weren't you worried about people judging? You?

know, it's, it's a really strange one, actually. Because I used to be so judgmental. I was judgmental of myself, I was judgmental of other people, and therefore, you know, I expected to be judged. And even though if I stop and think about it, I'm aware that people may be judging me. I just, I just don't think that way anymore. It's so much more important to me, that I feel this good, you know, the way I do about my body and that I'm free to do these things. I have such a different approach that I yeah, I just don't think about, I just don't think about it in that same way. I'm not so obsessed with all those. You know, those thoughts? They just don't, they just don't come as often saying they never come. But yeah, because you're a human being after? Yeah. And so how do you relate to food? How many times have you dieted since since joining Fitzpatrick anime?

I haven't. So that would be almost I think it's nearly coming up for two years since I last had that very restricted. Way. So yeah, food is a source of pleasure, again, which is, is such a lovely thing. And I really like eating, you know, different foods. And I take a lot of pleasure, and it feels really good to feed myself in a way that, you know, my body's asking to be fed, because I've always denied myself, the foods, you know, that I fancied. And definitely in the quantities that I needed. So it's really nice to not have those rules. And, you know, when I'm hungry, and I think I shouldn't be hungry. You know, I think no, I'm, I'm hungry. You know, and I'm listening to my body. Because obviously, like, most dieters, I've ignored the hunger side hunger signs for, you know, a long time. And so what do you think of your body now?

I respect it, and I accept it. And I'm loved. I'm, you know, I love it, I'm on the journey to the loving it. But I, I'm proud of it, I'm proud of the things, you know, that it's done for me and the things that it allows me to do. And I'm trusting it, learning to trust it. And, you know, it's learning to trust me. So I feel like, I'm sort of in a relationship with it. Whereas before, I was constantly fighting it and distinct myself. From it, I felt like it had let me down massively, you know, I just thought I was just so disappointed with it before. So yeah, I have a very different relationship with my body.

Amazing, amazing. I love it. And so what is possible for you now that you're not spending your whole life trying to not be fat, anything, basically the things that I really want to do. So one of those was training to be a coach, and also starting my own business, which I never would have had the headspace to do before. Because, you know, dieting takes over your whole life, doesn't it? It takes you know, a lot of your resources. So your money, time, energy, I mean, I was so invested in dieting. So now I'm just freed up energy wise. And, you know, I believe in myself. So I've been able to do things that I've wanted to do, but I was too scared to do and didn't think I, you know, I could do. And generally I'd say I'm, I'm less judgmental. I'm a softer kind of person, I think I'm a lot less serious, because dieting makes you really serious. I want to have a lot more fun in my life, and I living my life. Now. You know, I'm interested in what I'm going to do later. And you know, the things that are going to make me feel good, rather than thinking that I don't deserve any of those things. And at some point in the future, I might deserve this, that and the other. I feel like I deserve those things now. Mm hmm. Oh, so good. So good. And so he's had a positive impact on your life, but I'm presuming like a side effect is there has been an impact on those around you. What type of impact have you seen with those around you?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, with my children, I'm much more laid back. Not all the time sleep. I've What's your teenagers? Yeah, but I just Yeah, I'm just trying to sort of look at a situation rather than having all these labels and judgments for things because I had so many shirts before, you know, because dieting does that to you, doesn't it not just about your body, there's so many things, you know, that the right and wrong and should do and shouldn't do. And even things like, my daughter has been asking me to dye her hair pink for a little while now. And obviously, at the moment, because of the pandemic, she's not at school. So I let her do it. And I didn't even say, I'll come with you and choose the dye. We don't try to be really controlling. And I'll do it. I, you know, we said to her friends could do it. My husband did end up having to buy a second pack. Again, a bit patchy. But yeah, I just feel like I'm much more easygoing as a person, I'm more forgiving, because I'm more forgiving of myself. I'm more forgiving, you know, of other people. And obviously, for my husband, that's, you know, had an effect as well on our relationship, because i i Because I expect less ridiculous things that you know, myself have. I don't have those ridiculous standards, I approach our relationship and him in a different way as well. And I'm much more for fun and pleasure, you know, pleasure for food, but pleasure generally. So, obviously, you know, that's a really good thing.

Yeah, yeah, good shame. Oh, my gosh. So could you have imagined, like, when you were in, you know, in your 20s and 30s, doing all that dieting, that you would be sat here today doing, you know, doing your business? We'll talk about that in a second. Was that a possibility?

No. And I'm just No, I say I just resigned myself to the fact that that was my life, I was just going to have to constantly fight. And you know, it was gonna be hard. And I was just, you know, in a body where I just have to accept that that's hard, you know, I'm not going to be able to easily buy clothes, or do things are gonna have to worry, you know, if I fit in things like those white plastic chairs, you know, just so many things, little things were just hard. And I was obviously made to think that they were extremely important. And I just, you know, wanted to blend in. So it's very hard to believe that I have found happiness and freedom, like I never, you know, thought I would, by behaving in a very, very different way.

Because you thought happiness and freedom would be would come from having a small body. Yeah, it's definitely different. Yeah. Amazing. I love it so much. And so now that you, you said, Fuck off the diet, it's you. You mentioned about your coaching, training to be a coach and now having your own business, what's the name of your business? And what do you coach about.

So my business is called shears, unapologetic, which I absolutely love. And it just sums up for me, you know, the stopping dieting, but the dropping perfectionism as well, and the people pleasing and just, you know, going for something that really means something to yourself, and, you know, finding yourself again. So basically, I'm a self love and body confidence coach. And I work with women who don't feel good enough. But I've had enough of not feeling good enough, I'd say so they've had enough of playing small hiding away. And so I help them basically to rediscover themselves and to reconnect with themselves and accept themselves, including their bodies. But so that they can be free and stand in their truth and be seen and change the world and do things you know, that like I have been able to do, because it does free you up and you can start to think about, you know, what do I actually care about, and this work means a lot to me. I've always wanted to help women in some way, improve the lives of women, I did some work out on quite a while ago now as an image consultant. And although you know, I love clothes are so fun, aren't they, you know, they can make you feel so different. And it's, it's lovely to tune into what you really like and, you know, building your outfit outfits and things but the work I was doing there was obviously, you know, the shoulds and should not woven into that, like, oh, you know, you shouldn't wear that you're with that body type. And, you know, this is how you can dress to disguise this bit of you. So you know that that's just that was the nature of the work. So I wasn't comfortable with that even at that stage. So this really feels like work. Yeah, that I was sort of born to do really, I'm I'm just so passionate about it. And I really enjoy it. It feels like the real me and I never would have dead you know don't do the training or um You know, been brave enough to launch my business, you know, to build my website myself to do all this learning, I just wouldn't have had the capacity for it either.

So exciting. And I think our story's the same of discovering this stuff and just needing to get out into the world and say to other people, so that, you know, other people can discover you and be like, Oh, that one time I read like a blog post that Susie wrote, and I was like, Oh, my God, it's okay to be fat. And then, you know, they start their journey. And he just, you know, all the good in the world is amazing. So cool. And so your website is, she's unapologetic.com. Yep, it is. And your social media is she's unapologetic.

It is on Facebook. So my Facebook pages facebook.com forward slash is unapologetic, and on Instagram, I'm Suzy Jane Bell, my name, but the links to my social medias on my website. But so people can contact me via my website as well. Amazing. Yeah. So there's another resource for you make sure you check out Susie's website. And, you know, this is an incredible. So impressive story, because you did it so quickly. Like it's two years since you joined the academy. But it wasn't two years to get for you to get to this point. You did it really, really quickly. And you just floored me which which goes to show how coachable and how ready you were for this stuff. And you just did it, you just did it, saw results. And you're announced, able to get on with your life and just be fabulous and incredible. So yeah, thank you for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. I know that the listeners will. And thanks for being on first party Academy. Actually, you know what, I realized that I forgot to ask you, because I like people getting to know other sides of, of humans as well, that and we were going to talk about this too, because another one of the things that you did was around a Michael Ball concert. So I wanted to ask you a fact about you that, you know, people might not know and so they've got a lot of people who've got to know you a little bit but share us share a fact that might involve Michael Ball.

Yeah, so I've always liked Michael Ball. I love musicals. I love Les Mis. So I you know, knew about Michael Ball A while ago. And he's got a show on BBC Radio too, as well in the UK, which I love. And he was touring last year and, and my husband got tickets to go locally. And yeah, he towards the end of his concert. We were downstairs, not that far from the front. And so he invited people out or people I don't think invited people I think people just started going up to dance. And I had been to a concert a few months earlier. And I had wanted to stand up and dance and join them but I didn't see you know, as on my journey. And this concert I thought I want to go I don't care. I was I was with my husband but he stayed in the seat. So I just left my bag. And I just went to the front and I just don't I obviously there was other people dancing but I didn't know them. And I just enjoyed myself and he sang love changes everything which I love I know all the words it's always fun singing that great there him and dancing and he did the one of the numbers from hairspray. So obviously, you know, he's he's well known for that as well. And it was just fun, you know, pure fun, and I didn't worry what I was wearing who was looking at me from behind and judging my body I just wanted to do it and I enjoyed it and I'm so glad that I did you know I walked away from there no regrets wanted to and you know had a great time.

So the love of Michael Ball just gave you even more joy. Yes, you were there dancing and I had that with Kate Nash. Do you remember Kate Nash? She was like she's been nine years ago. Yeah, she's I used to always say oh, she's fat but she's She's so lovely. ever so slightly chubby sometimes but anyway, you'd know her music anyway. So I remember when I went to see her and I was like fuck it I don't care I'm just gonna go and sing and dance and because I loved her so much so yeah, so there we go little facts for you obsessed with Michael Ball All right, well thank you for being here. Susie you're the best.

Thank you for having me and thank you so much as well for you know for FIS fatty Academy and all that I learned in there because it's changed my life forever. You know, I'm never going back. So I'm really grateful for all thanks Susie. Well, there we have it Susie. OH MY GIRL Do you think she went onstage in like some ratty old underwear? I was thinking like, would I have done that? In that moment? I don't know. A lot of times I wear like thongs and shit and like see through stuff so unless people wanted to see my flaps and my bumhole when I don't know, but you know, I do like having a dance in my bikini. So yeah, really shows what is possible. When you do this work when you have a system that you follow, to, you know, work to overcome. And how many years 26 years, Susie's was was on this roller coaster dieting, trying to change her body's 26 years. And then she just turned it around that quick. Like what? So yeah, just I wanted to illustrate how, you know, it is possible, obviously, obviously, but you know, in case you're tired about hearing about me all the time, then they're Suze I'll give you tired about hearing about me because I'm a burr are jokes digsdigs Oh my but not jokes because I am amazing. All right, so thank you for hanging out with me today. It has been amazing. And yeah, get on the waitlist and I'll let you know when face value Academy is open again. And yeah, you're the best. Okay, see you later crocodile in a while alligator by fifth, Fatty.

EP38 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And in this episode number 38, we're talking about the magical things that I thought would happen when I became thin. And also the ways in which I tried to disguise my fat body. Let's do it.

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast. Let's begin.

Hello, hello, welcome to this episode. So pleased that you're here. Hope you're feeling good. You're doing okay, and life is treating you all right, just six months left of 2020. So don't worry, we're halfway we're halfway there. We're gonna survive, it's gonna be alright. So today we're talking about, there's some like some really funny things that I used to do and used to believe. And so there's some funny things in this episode. And I wonder if you're going to relate to any of them. Before we get into it, though, I want to remind you of my free resource that I have made for you, the first fatty body love a roadmap. And you can get that by clicking the link below, go into the show notes. And it's going to teach you the steps to increase your body confidence. I'm going to share the three massive mistakes everyone makes when they're on this journey to body confidence. And you're going to be invited to my first party friends Facebook community. And I didn't stop there. Get body love trainings sent to your inbox. How much is it? You say Victoria? It's free? Oh, what's How can it be? I know, it's amazing. So check out the link below, make sure that you have that. And I keep forgetting to tell you this. But you can ask a question too, you can ask a question, and I will answer it in the show. I've got questions that I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do one for next show. So if you have a question about how to love your fat body, fat, nervous dieting, intuitive eating anything to do with that stuff, then use the link in the show notes. You can always just email me but you know, you might want to remain anonymous. And so if you want to do that, then do go and check out the show notes. And there's a link there to send me a question or just email your question. Just DM me a question. And I would be happy to answer it. Especially if I if I think that other people are in the same situation and could use the resources that I share. So yes, so let's get into it. Let's do it. At one point in my life, I was quote unquote straight size. And I got straight size after some brutal dieting, starvation, basically over exercising, abusing my body. And I lost weight and became what I would now say is thin but I didn't feel thin at the time, right? I know a lot of straight size people don't identify with that word of thin because you never really small enough to be thin, according to society, right? So anyway, I was straight sized and before I lost weight, I presumed that when I became small, all of this super cool stuff was going to happen in my life. And in some of it Now I look back and I'm like, That is so funny. Like why? Why would Did you think that and other things I'm like, oh Victoria or I understand I've, I feel for you and and it's not my fault that I believed in this magical thinking because diets, diet companies, and society as a whole hates fat bodies and makes it seem like having a thinner body or smaller body is going to get you these super cool things. So I'm going to list them out for you. And I'm curious if any of these resonate with you if you've had the same feelings. So the first thing was around men, like I thought, you know, Brad Pitt was going to suddenly contact me and find my email address and be like, Baby, I've been waiting all this time for you to lose weight. And now I'm in love with you. Obviously, not actually, Brad Pitt. Men basically would be like, Oh, my God, fall at my feet. It'd be like a movie scene, you know, like, I'd be walking down the street, and men would be so distracted by my thinness, that they'd walk into a lamppost. And I'm like,

Just another day is then me, you know, just men falling over themselves to be near me, obviously. I thought that I would become richer, like money would rain from the skies, right? I'd get an immediate pay raise. And if you this is actually true, you know, thing people do get paid more than fat people. It's true. But I thought it'd be like this really pretty quick thing. Like, my bosses would be like, Wow, she's really worked hard to lose weight, we can see what a hard worker she is. And we should give her a pay rise. And I remember in my, I was working in a call center at the time, and every, like, we'd have meetings. And we'd share, like, what was going on with our work and stuff. And I would always share how much I weighed. It's so weird. Now I'm like, why the fuck would I do that? But then, you know, I thought, you know, it was me becoming a better person. And everyone would always be like, Oh, great job. But if me if I like, Cara Victoria was in that meeting, and someone was like, I weighed this much today, and I've lost this much weight this week, I'd be like, shut the fuck up knowing God. I don't care about how much you weigh, like chill. Anyway, I also thought that I would become super confident. Now at that time, when I was looking at working in a call center, I was so shy. I was I could barely talk to people on the phone, I would do everything I could to not have to talk to another human being. I, I was just so different from what I was today. And so I thought that having less fat on my body would mean that my brain would change. And I'd be like, I've arrived now I'm competent. I thought that my boyfriend, I had been dating a guy for a while. He would be like, Oh my God, you have now this incredible version of Victoria. And I'm in love with you even more. And you're so sexy. And I presume that he would like, I know, have pictures of me in his wallet and show his colleagues work. And you know, he'd be so proud of this, you know, trophy girlfriend who was so thin. In reality actually, he was disappointed because he he was like, Oh, your tits. I've got smaller, which is problematic in itself. But he was. He wasn't that interested, really. I thought that when I would go to clothing stores that I be like, Hey, everybody, look at me. I'm wearing a size, whatever its size I was wearing like, oh my god, like I'm so proud of this size. But in reality I was I wasn't proud of the size that I was. I was more proud than when I was fatter, but I was still like, well, I could be thinner. But it was never enough. I could be thinner. You know, my my, my friend that I'm shopping with is a size smaller than me and you know, if I was her size, then I would be happy. I thought that people would treat me in wonderful and fabulous ways especially men. Like, it was a lot to do with my desirability with men, you know, they'd see me and they'd be like, rushed to open the door for me and it just be like, obsessed with me. And my life in general, I thought it would become like this, you know, magical running through fields of flowers and rainbows and sunshine all the time, and I would be happy. And my life would be just better. Because I had less adipose tissue on my body, like I thought my brain chemistry would change. And, you know, any mental health issues that I was dealing with would just dissolve away because you know, now I'm Finn's because, you know, thin people don't have problems, right? Wrong. I also thought that I would become healthy. And I would just be, I'd be an athlete, like, I would love eating only salad. And I would have no interest in quote, unquote, unhealthy food. And I'd be like, I probably be in the Olympics, probably. You know, at least I'd be, you know, like some champion marathon runner.

Not that I'd ever run a marathon before. But you know, that's what happens when you're a thin person, right? I thought that my family would love me more. And my mom would be so proud of me. And like, I would become the golden child. My mum has six children. So I'd be like, well, if I'm the finished one, then I'd be the most loved the most worthy. And as you know, what mums say like, Hey, when you're a kid, you're like, who's your favorite? Who do you love the most? And you're like, I love you all equally. And it's true, right? So I thought that I would easily be able to stay fit. And once I became thin, and I would be able to live my life forevermore as a thin, judgmental person looking on looking down on all the fatties in the world being like, well, I did it. Why couldn't you do it? Obviously, you see my body now, if that didn't happen, and I was so Oh, my God, I was such a knob when I was losing weight. I was like, This is so easy, just like don't eat anything ever. And then you'll become thin. Why did everyone do this? Like I was such a dick. And I thought that I had this immense willpower that was never gonna falter. And all the other people who didn't lose weight, were just making excuses. And they were disgusting. And you know, I could do it, why can't they do it? Another thing is, I thought that all of a sudden, I would become Uber, Uber fashionable, and wearing styles that just came off the runway. You know, even though before I hadn't been Uber fashionable, I just thought, you know, thin people are fashionable. So it's going to be part of who I am now. I'm just going to be so fashionable, I'm probably going to be you know, on runway shows, and you know, in the front row, and, you know, there with my sunglasses making notes being like, Oh, yes, I like that style, and blah, blah, just because I was thin. No, that didn't happen. No. I thought my friendships would become better. I thought that my job would suck less. Uh, basically, I thought that it would solve all problems in life, and make me extremely happy, extremely desirable to the opposite sex. And never sad again. Because how can you be sad if you have a thin body? Because isn't that what life is about? Right? Isn't that what life is about having a thin body? Well, guess what? That stuff didn't happen. None of that shit happened. I never got a call from Brad Pitt. Like what the fuck? Hello. And at the time, it would have been Brad Pitt because this is like I'd know 1012 years ago. Now it'd be like, I know Channing Tatum or well Smith or something. I'm still eating like what the hell? The truth is, the truth is that becoming straight sized. What it gave me was extreme, disordered eating habits and patterns. Terrible self esteem. I was fixated on my body in a way that I hadn't previous Sleep been like before, like, I hated my body, but I'd be constantly, you know, body checking and just thinking about food all the time thinking about calories. I was so I was so boring to be around, I actually lost friendships because all I talked about was food and judging others for what food they were eating. And so if my friend was I remember being at lunch with my colleagues, and one colleague having this packet of crisps and me saying, well, that packet, Chris has 17 calories more than this packet of crisps. So you should have eaten this packet of crisps. And she was just like, well, I like these crisps. And I just remember being like, why the fuck would you want to eat a different version of a packet of crisps, which has 17 more calories? Like what's wrong with you? And you know, she's probably just thinking, leave me the fuck alone to eat my crisps, like, chill. Oh, my God, if I was around me, at that time, I would have been like, 17 more calories, bitch, oh, it tastes oil shows and never had lunch with me ever again. I also remember I had a boyfriend at the time. I also forced him to go on a diet with me. So my boyfriend was he wasn't fat. He was straight sized.

But, you know, I wanted him to support me in this journey. And, and he lost, he lost like he lost loads of weight. And I was he got like, a certificate and shit. And I was like, super jealous. And everyone's like, Oh, he's, you know, he's so cool and handsome and stuff. And I'm like, fuck you. And, yeah, so he obviously ended up putting putting weight back on too because you know, diets don't work. I was actually less successful in my career because I was so focused on becoming thin. So focused on becoming thin, so obsessed with with it, and with food and everything that had to do with dieting, that I could not be as good as my at my job as as I could have been. Not only because of that, but also when you're dieting, your brain is so distracted, like your brain, your brain is like, please, for the love of God, I'm starving, feed me pulleys. And you're trying to go about your normal day. And so it's no wonder you're constantly thinking about food, and, you know, when you're allowed to eat, and what you're allowed to eat, and all that type of stuff. So you can't function as a normal human being because you were literally starving. I didn't love myself. I didn't think that I was quote, unquote, like straight size, or average size or whatever, I still thought I was too fat. I was still like, well, I'm still quite chubby. You know, I remember saying to my boyfriend sitting in the pub with my boyfriend, and saying to him, like, who's thinner out of me and a friend of mine. And he was like, Oh, she's she's fitter. And I remember being like, Oh, God is like so devastating. And just constantly, you know, comparing myself and thinking that I didn't measure up and thinking that I needed to lose even more weight, and not feeling like I looked better in clothes, I still thought I looked bad. Of course, what I didn't realize at the time is that there were benefits I didn't realize about and I had moved into a privileged group. So I'd moved from being a fat person into being a straight size person. And so being in that new privileged group within society did have benefits, like people presuming that I was healthy because I was thin, or being able to actually buy clothes in a store. Or knowing that I could fit on a roller coaster like the world was made for me, but I didn't I didn't understand any of those benefits or, or knew anything about that. I didn't understand privilege at that time. Also, that that dip into privilege was was temporary, obviously, because diets don't work. At my thinnest, I was my most disordered and when I got to this, this thin state this straight size body State, I was really unwell. Really mentally unwell. And I don't know about my I don't know about my physical health at that time. But I I remember about my mental health, like I was the one. So I did Weight Watchers and I was the one at Weight Watchers that weighed people. And I would see this constant struggle, you know, because I'd be like, Oh, you've lost weight, you've put on weight, you've you stayed the same or whatever. And then I'm saying, like, I don't understand, I didn't, you know, I didn't eat anything or, or I'm so ashamed. All I'm so happy. I'm a good person now and everything changing about their day, because they had lost weight or didn't lose weight. And, you know, that's kind of saying, what, what, I don't understand why this is happening or not happening. And when, like, with Weight Watchers, I was like, okay, so this is temporary, right? I'm gonna starve myself, myself.

I'm following the rules, like, you know, how they read, maybe you don't know, but they say you're allowed X amount of points a day. And it's all to do with your, your size, and I think you'll gender anyway, it's like, how many how much calories you're allowed in a day. And I thought, Oh, this is temporary, I can do this temporarily. It doesn't matter how long it takes, I'm going to follow the rules, I'm going to do everything perfectly. I had like all the accessories, like the points calculator like this before you had smartphones, right. And a book that I carry around with me that had calories of everything, like in different restaurants, different brands of food and stuff. Like I did it, according to what Weight Watchers told me to. And so I thought, Okay, this is temporary, right? I'm going to let go and I'm going to become thin, and then I'll be allowed to eat food again. And then when I did become thin, I was like, when is this going to stop and I would see people who had been in the Weight Watchers group for years, for years and years and years. And you know, my leader, she was she was a straight size woman. And she used to be fat. And she had been doing it for years. And she said, The only reason she's a leader is because it forces her to keep thin. And I was like what? So I have to do this forever. And by that point, my willpower because willpower is not something that you have, you know, an endless supply of my willpower. I was getting pretty fucking pissed off because I you know, my life had been put on hold for however long it took me I can't remember maybe I don't know, a year or something. You know, not going out. And then if I go if I went out somewhere then having to like the next morning, calculate, how much was that kebab and I had two pints of beer and how much is that? Okay, so tomorrow I can only, you know, eat one tomato or whatever. And it wasn't living and eating such a tiny amount of food. Such a tiny amount of food and exercising. With no joy at all. It was not sustainable. You know? So, I was always an overachiever and I overachieved in, in losing weight. Like, I followed all the rules, and I did it. And I almost became a leader. So I was weighing people I was selling like, you know, the bars and the accessories. And my leader was like, I want you to become a leader. And I was like, Yeah, fuck, yeah, you know, I'm gonna teach all these families how to be thin and, and as well, I was going to be featured in the magazine as a success story. And I'm so pleased that none of that ever happened. Like, I had already caused so much harm to the people in my life. By, you know, everything that I mentioned before being like 17 calories, just by dieting and being vocal about it. And you know, in my weekly meetings being like 50 pounds, or whatever, I don't really call so much hurt. And imagine the amount of hurt and pain I would have caused if I had been a leader. If I had been in the Weight Watchers magazine and being like, me so thin and amazing. And also the hurt that would have would have caused me the amount of shame that I felt after I stopped going to those weekly meetings. The amount of pain I felt when people said, Oh, you've you've put on weight was immense. And I can't ever imagine what that would have been like if I also were, you know, a leader or if I was in the magazine, it would have been even more it would have been like, oh, here look, you used to be thin and happy. And now you're so fat and horrible. Yeah, so what did you think that you'd get from dieting? What miraculous magical things did you think that was going to come into your life? And do you still kind of hold on to those things or what will happen if you lose weight, and some are of course legitimate, like moving into a more privileged group? It has benefits. Absolutely no doubt, but at what cost? At what cost? Is it sustainable? Are you able to move into a privileged group? And and stay there? And when you're there, are you actually harming your physical and mental health because you are not eating and you're over exercising and you're obsessed with your way and you can't live? Right? So you kind of like to have to balance out the ideas is a tricky one. It's a tricky one, right? And, yeah, it sucks that the diet industry makes us think that

if we lose weight, then literally we're going to be like shitting rainbows and ridiculous stuff I want to talk about now, after I left Weight Watchers, and my leader was like, I'm really worried about you. What if you put on weight, you're gonna put on weight, if you know, come to the meetings, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. I literally, I need to eat some food. Because I had not been eating food for months and months and months. But yeah, I'd be eating food. But you know, it'd be like, oh, you know, the skin of a pear and, you know, the dust of the dust of oranges that had lived in a box or, you know, like nothing. And so I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. My body was just like, Victoria, your fucking eating. And, you know, just see what happens. So I stopped. And obviously I put on weight because my body was like, thank God and we need to keep this weight. Because we don't know what you're going to do. Are you going to start to starve again, like what's going on? And so then I had to move into my old habits of disguising my fatness and disguising my body. Now I know a lot of people do this a lot of fat people and straight sides. People do this to try and disguise their body and some of the things like remembering and looking back at some of the ways I used to disguise was disguise my body. I'm like, Oh my God, that's so fucking funny. But obviously, it's still it's like very painful. The reason why but I want to share some of these things with you and see if you did any of these things.

Some of these things are so fucking weird that you're like, No, I, I have never done that. But some you might relate with so yeah, I wasn't fooling anyone with any of these things. Right? That's the thing is, the thing is like when you know, that people like, you know, or anyone we like, Okay, well, we want to wear black because it makes us look smaller. And, you know, wear a dress, it looks like this and not this shape, because it makes you look smaller. And, and in my mind, I would always be like, Okay, what time were black? Or if I were a shape like this, then it would literally be an optical illusion. And people would be like, Oh my god, are you like, oh my god, you're so like, it would disguise who I was as a person. But it didn't it was just me as a fat person wearing black, you know, I was still fat. I wasn't tricking anyone. Not that I needed to trick people. But, you know, I in my mind, it made me think that I looked thinner. But I didn't because I was fat. So one of the things I used to do was buy clothes in sizes that were too small, just in case, my label was to stick out. And someone would be like, Oh my God, she's a size medium. She must be very thin. She must be thin. When really I should have been wearing I'd know a to eggs. If I so if I did actually buy something that was the size that I actually needed. Then, as soon as I got home, I'd be cutting that label out like, you know, immediately the first thing that I'd be doing would be putting the labels in the bin because the pain of seeing the size that I was that I was on a label was just too much right and if for any reason I had a label that was smaller than my actual size and you know I might accidentally like put it out on my thing but like oh, did you see

I'm wearing Amenia also wearing clothes that were deliberately too small for me thinking that it would make me smaller. I know some people do the opposite like they were bagging up baggy clothes, but I would wear clothes that was smaller to try and kind of a I'm trick my brain into thinking that I was smaller when they were just too small for me, they were just as over me. Another thing that I would do as a teenager is that I thought that big feet, if I had big feet, it would balance out my fat body. And so I thought, the bigger the feet, the better. And so I remember buying trainers, sneakers, a pair of Reebok classics, very cool. Two sizes too big. Now I already had big fee. So UK size a US size 10. So I already had big V, and I bought like size 12 men's shoes. And I'd be walking around like a clown like flip flopping like my my feet, you know, just way too big, way too big. So that people in my mind, I thought people would look at the size of my feet. And they'd be like, Oh, those big feet really balanced out that fat body. I don't think she's actually that fat. The feet really balanced now. But then that that idea didn't last that long. Because when I got a little older, I decided that actually it was small feet. That would make me look thinner. When my best friend so my best friend was she was very short. And she had very small feet like she had the smallest feet. You know, the small, smallest shoe size you can get I don't know what that is, I don't know three or something. And I had the biggest feet and we would all always kind of compare the size of our feet. I think we she did. Like she would look be like oh look at the size of your foot so giant now but like, Oh, haha, so funny. But then secret inside, I'm like, Oh my God. My feet are so big. And I'm so big and fat and horrible. And, and so I would want to try and disguise my feet in shoes that would make my feet look smaller, and buy shoes that were too small. Like, some of the shoes that I bought was so painfully small for me. I'd be like walking, you know, hobbling and being like, oh, yeah, but I'm wearing a size seven shoes, though. I must be then. Like, I just think like, and I'm like, what, what's what were you thinking silly billy. So and something else that I used to do was, I would eat food with a teaspoon instead of a normal sized spoon. Because I thought that eating with a teaspoon would make me appear very dainty. Very, you know, all I couldn't possibly eat more than three Rice Krispies at a go. Because I'm so dainty and delicate and not fat at all. I can only eat tiny amounts of food because I'm not greedy. I don't use a big spoon. Like the rest of people in the world, I just use a tiny little teaspoon. Yeah, and I did that for years and years and years. Same when with glasses that I would drink out of like, I wouldn't want to ever drink a pint of beer. You know, like the full size beer, I would always want to have small dainty type drinks, you know, like cocktails or, or things in tall glasses, things that that would make me look more feminine and not big and you know, big and fat. Also, I would do the things like you know, not wearing stripes and wearing black and all that type of stuff and wearing clothes that would try and disguise my belly or my bum and constantly tugging it down that type of thing. Another thing is that not having short hair. So I thought if you're fat, you should have long hair because it makes you more feminine, and it also disguises your fatness. So if you are fat and have short hair, then you're kind of showing your fatness to the world. Like I don't understand. I don't understand my logic with that one. I understand like the feminine thing but of course, you know you can have short hair and be feminine, but I thought you know, this is a thing right? In the fact communities that fat people have to be ultra feminine too.

Get the same kind of feminine status as a thin person who's who is not Ultra feminine. Because then a lot of times fatness is not seen as feminine, but then sometimes it's hyper sexualized, so it's complicated, right? Yeah, so I would never have my hair the the shortness I have it right now because that would just be like, I think oh my god would everyone would notice I'm fat. If I have short hair I would also squeeze my body into Spanx and Spanx that were not the right size for me. So not Spanx that fit my body. But you know, any any type of Spanx, but you know Spanx that were too small. So it didn't matter that I couldn't meet, breathe, or move, or face imminent death from this squishing of my organs. I was like, Well, I've successfully tricked people into thinking that I was really thin. Right? faxes is a difficult one, right? Because a lot of times people like it because it smooths out their bodies. But it's it's basically something which is trying to make your body look not like what it is. So yeah. Do you remember, I don't know if you're around at this time, but when I was a teenager, grunge was really in like the rocker style. And so you remember, like a big, wide jeans that dragged on the floor and hoodies and that type of thing. So I was really into that. And one of the Styles was to have a really long belt, like a really long Canvas type belt around your waist, and then it was so long that it would dangle down like to your knees like the rest of the belt. And so like, I think that was like an American style. And it came to came to the UK. So about I could not find a belt that fit my body at all get round at all, nevermind about the dangle down. And so what I did was I got a belt. And I I put it just through two loops in my belt in my jeans, and then had the whole thing dangling down. And so that people would be like, Oh, she's so thin that she can wrap that belt around her. And it's dangling down so long, and I'd have my big jumper over and so there's no way anyone would ever see that. It's actually only in like, two belt loops. And I'd be like, Yeah, man. This belt is so around my body. And it's hanging down. And yeah. Yeah. So looking back now, I'm like, this is pretty funny. But you know, it's I also on my own poor, sweet, sweet Victoria, she was trying to bear she was doing a best and reasons why, you know, it's very painful. The reasons why we do these funny things. And, you know, we can we can laugh at ourselves and be like, oh, you know, we're funny that we, we did these silly things, but also recognizing that the reason why we do these things, is because there is a deep sense of pain behind that. And the idea of having to accept that you do have a fat body in my mind, having to accept that I had a fat body meant having to accept that my life was never going to start. My life was over. I had a life sentence of misery. And so of course, I was going to try and disguise the fact that I was fat to try and fit in because then if I fit in, then I would have the chance of getting a boyfriend or getting a job or you know, having a fairytale life. But if I was fat, I believed that that could not happen. And, you know, I can think of many times of me trying to fit in which you know, that weren't funny, or just sad. Like, I remember going it's I mean school being about 1414 years old. There are these things called nappy night. So nappy is a British word for diaper. Okay, sure. You're not British.

And so nightclubs in the city in the town would open their doors to children. And then we would go, it'd be like on a Wednesday night or Tuesday night or whatever. And I remember I had these new friends. So I got into this new group of friends who were cooler than my current group of friends. And I'm like, immediately ditched my old friends because some cooler people paid a tiny bit of interest in me, and I'm like, Cool. They're fucking losers, even though they'd been my friends for years. Like, I'll do victory. Anyway. And so I was hanging out with these new friends. So so there was three, there was four of us three new friends, and they were all thin. And so the night of so we went to school, and then we went to town to go shopping because I needed to buy an outfit for that evening. Now, they all have their outfits. And so they were going to go shopping with me and they were like, Let's go to this store. Let's go to this store. Let's go to this store. And all the stores they were suggesting were stores that didn't carry my size. And there was no way in a million years. I was going to say nothing in this store fits me because it was a more A lot of firing they, there's no way I could have said that. And, and so we'd be going to the store and they were like, do you like this? Do you like this, and I'm like, Oh, I don't know, not really my style, trying to deflect it, and they were getting frustrated with me. And so, you know, they'll be like, try this, try this. And so then I'd go into the changing room, and stand in the changing room, just, you know, waiting a few minutes, because there's no point of me even trying these clothes on because there were many sizes too small. And standing there, you know, for a suitable amount of time, and then coming out being like, oh, no, didn't really like any of them. And they were getting really pissed off with me. And, you know, our, you know, I think, you know, the time we're going on, and we're getting close, or we had to go. And eventually there were these, this pair of pedal pushers in this one store that had some elastic in them. The waist wasn't elastic, but the legs were and so they said, I said, Oh, this one, this one this, this will do. I went and tried it on, and the waist because it wasn't elastic, like, like, cut me in half. And you know, my belly was hanging out over the thing. And I just thought, you know, at least I'm gonna have something. So I bought these these pedal pushers. And it looked, it looked really bad. And and I felt so uncomfortable. And I had to draw like, I had this like little coat with me. And so I was trying to use the coat to cover what was going on. And I tried to cut the, the waistband. So that, you know, it would give me some more more room. And so the waistband was was like, totally cut it in the bathroom. And this was so painful as like a 14 or 15 year old, you know that I couldn't have the I didn't have the capability to say, Oh, actually, this is one store here that carries my size. And even if it did, like I wouldn't have gone and picked up my size for the fear that they would have seen what size I was and then being like, oh my god, she's that size. To the point where I had to then go to this this nappy night with all like boys that I fancied, you know, being so uncomfortable and wearing something that was was, you know, a little weird, because it was literally like having a rope tied around my waist as tight as possible. And then, you know, because the waistband was just absolutely cutting into me. Anyway. And so that's just like one painful experience of something pretty simple and something that a lot of fat people have experienced in life. I bet you know how many fat people have, you know, been ashamed of what close eyes they were. And so, of course, if we have these negative experiences and these these these deep, dark, painful emotions and, and things behind what being fat means, of course, we're going to do things to try and disguise our fatness, of course, we're going to think that if we lose weight, then everything will be good in the world, everything will be good and in our life. And society reinforces that like, so that's not something we've just picked out in our brains, and we just magically came up with society has told us diet companies have told us that we need to get thin because these things will happen. And if we are not fitting them, we need to disguise our bodies to make them look thin. Which makes sense. It makes sense.

So if you're doing any of these things now don't feel bad. Like, you know, I can I can look back and be like, Oh, it's so funny that I did some of these things when I was a teenager and whatnot and as an adult as well. And I believe some of these things. Because now I can see that it's not based in reality and some of the things were were silly, right? Where my clown shoes but, you know, you don't have to disguise yourself. You don't have to dye it to get to this place where you can love your body and, and have good things happen in your life and find a partner and and go on adventures and have fun and all that type of stuff. You don't you know, you don't have to do that you can get that now in the body that you currently have. Because the reality is that it's okay to be fat. In fact, I think it's fucking fabulous. I think it's a superpower of mine in my fatness. And now obviously I show my fat off any any opportunity that I have. Because, of course for me it became so tiring to hide myself but also for others so they can see that you know, a fat person a fat body living loud and proud and and so then it's more normalized. And other people can see that being fat isn't In a life sentence of misery, and how, hey, look, there's that fat person wearing a string bikini and they didn't die from shame. Which I thought that that might happen. Yeah, so let's try and stop doing things that disguise who we are especially the things that make us feel uncomfortable, that make us feel sad, that make us have to spend money and go out of our way to do things that make us feel preoccupied preoccupied. Like another thing, I just thought about it. In the in the summer, I'd be wearing hoodies all the time. Even though I was sweating my fucking tits off, and was so uncomfortable. I remember going into an exam when I was 15. Doing my exams at school, and a hot summer's day, me wearing my gap hoodie that I bought, like a so proud that I was able to afford a gap hoodie. And my might my car keys, khaki trousers anyway, and in the exam hall, it was so hot, but there was not a chance in hell that I was going to take my hoodie off to make myself feel more comfortable. So I would rather be uncomfortable and sweating and probably do worse on my exams than take my hoodie off. And people see what my body looked like under my hoodie. And that was you know, that's just one example. I do that all the time, like, you know, be uncomfortable sweating or be uncomfortable with people seeing your body like for me I'd rather than sweat. And then people will like, Oh, why don't you tell you how to find your heart? I'd like the cold actually, do you have a hat? When it's like, a million degrees out and everyone's in bikinis or whatever. Yeah, so make sure that you go and check out if you want to get to a place where you you're not doing these, these these things, and you are not having to hide and you're not having to believe that weight loss is going to make you an incredible person, get my first fatty body love roadmap. This is an incredible resource that I have made for you. And inside it, you get the three easy steps to follow to increase your body confidence, and the three massive mistakes that everyone makes, and how to avoid them when it comes to learning to love their fat body. And also, you'll be invited to join my facebook community first fatty friends and get body love trainings sent straight to your inbox. And it's free. It's free for you. So go check it out. It will be in the links below. And thank you for hanging out with me today. And I hope you resonated with some of the things that I said today. And yeah, tell me tell me some of the things that you've done or some of the things that you've believed I'd love to hear it and the the weirder, the better. Anything super weird, and yeah, I really want to hear that. So yeah, so tell me and thanks for hanging out with me today. You're incredible. I really appreciate you sticking around and being here and I hope you have an amazing day. So I'm gonna say See you later. Crocodile in a while. Alligator. Okay, bye.

EP37 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast episode 37. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby. And today we're talking about the fear of judgment. And I'm afraid people would judge me and we're going to talk about that and see if we can make you feel a little bit better. Okay, let's do it.

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast Let's begin.

Welcome, welcome fears fatty. How're you doing? I'm so pleased that you're hanging out with me today for another episode of the first fatty podcast episode 37. Oh my gosh. Can you believe it? So excited? I when I started the podcast few months ago, is it a few months ago? No. Jesus Christ like we're in June, July. What? Anyway, 37 weeks ago, so one month ago, that is seven weeks ago. i My goal was to do one podcast episode for every single week of the year. And I'm doing it I'm doing it every single week. We've got a podcast episode out to year. So I'm feeling pretty, pretty proud of myself and I make the deal. Yeah. And I gotta say a big thank you to everyone who has written a review for me. If you write me a review, and before you post it, take a screenshot of it. And so wherever you can write a review for the podcast, take a screenshot and send the screenshot to Victoria at first party.com I will send you a free copy of my book called vs fatty and earn a digital copy and an audio copy as well. So one of the most recent reviews I got was from Beth and Beth gave me five stars. And Beth said her confidence is contagious. And says I've been doing the deep work of recovering from decades of trauma and every type of eating disorder. By chance I stumbled upon Victoria's podcast recently, and it's a treasure trove of truth, wisdom, advice, encouragement and therapy. Thank you, Victoria for being so dedicated to spreading the anti diet body positive gospel. You are genuine, vulnerable and your accent is the cherry on top. Thank you Beth. It's so funny how so often people mentioned my accent I don't know. I wonder if British people think my accent is they probably don't. They're probably like, why are you talking? So North American. Anyway, so another review I got here from Tasneem who says the title of it is yes, mate. fivestars This podcast is is awesome and is one of the things that I actually look forward to listening to. I can always rely on an episode of the first value podcast to give me the extra boost of confidence and smokiness because Victoria is that cool friend who chews you all and tells you that you can do it. But with enough Sass banter and sarcasm that it's not cheesy. Also I love Victoria's mocking voice when describing ridiculous scenarios lol I think in mocking voice as in me being rude but you know when people are like, oh my god just I need some does. I think that's what Tony was talking about. So I'm like home. I'm like, don't judge me. I'm not a bad person, which is what we're talking about in today's episode is that fear of judgment and hands up if you fear that others will judge me judge you? Yes. And I hope Freudian slip there. Judge me? Yes, my hand is up. Of course I am a human being. If you didn't know. And I too have fears that people would Which mean, but I have learned to, for the most part, when I get those fears being like, tend to fuck off, you know, I'm got time for that I could die any day now who gives a shit. So in this episode, we're gonna go over that and see if we can make your gorgeous fat brain fit a little bit a little bit better around the fear of judgment. And a reminder that I have a brand new little something some invoice for you. And that is the first fatty body love roadmap. And you can get that by going to the episode show notes or going to first fatty.com forward slash 037 for episode 37. If you ever want to go to the podcast, and you've forgotten, like what episode number, you can just go first party.com forward slash podcast. And that is going to get you to the podcast. Yeah, and then you can scroll down and see whatever episode you want. And also, Hey, join my Facebook group, the one that I've been keeping secret from you. First party friends, you can just go Facebook, your friends in Facebook, just type that in or go to the link in the show notes. And yeah, you have to answer three questions to join because I want to make sure we don't have like a bunch of creeps or whatever. Because it's a good a good way to screen out people who would like you know, just want to come in and be like boobs or whatever. I don't know.

Yeah, so answer those three questions. If you don't answer those three questions, I will not be able to admit you into the first party friends, Facebook groups and make sure you do and then we'll let you join the party. Right. Okay, today, what I'm going to be covering is why we are afraid of being judged, why it's not helpful, and how to reframe fears of judgment, so that you can live your damn life and not be constantly worried about what people think about you. So that is what we are talking about today. Now, why are we afraid of judgment? Well, if you're a human being 10 is a part of your your nature, it's a part of our nature, to be afraid of judgment. The reason being that if we are judged, then the consequences could be really grave. So here's what I'm talking about. Imagine, hundreds and 1000s of years ago, we were living in our small communities. And we had to hone the skill of making judgments about other human beings to understand if they were safe, or if they were an enemy. And so if we're in a community and another human approaches, we have to be really good at judging someone quickly. And if they're safe, then we can let them in. If they're like us, if they look like us, if they behave like us, they're allowed into our community. Now, once you're in a community, we need community to survive as human beings, we're social creatures, right? If your community judges you negatively, the consequences is that you are booted out of the community, you are ostracized. And as humans, we die without that community, it makes us very hard. It makes it very hard for us to survive, especially hundreds and 1000s of years ago when we had to survive in those many of those communities to to literally live and get our food and warmth and love and all that type of stuff. Now, now in our modern day, we still have that deep fear that if we are judged the consequences are potential death. And so why would you not be afraid of being judged whereas now the the reality is that we probably won't die if we're judged. But it is useful for us as humans to keep that that fear alive, but just a little bit right we don't need to have it so activated that we fear that if we if we were a crop top then everyone's gonna be like, Oh my God, you need to be removed from the human race Oh my God, because that's not really the reality right? So everyone experiences this even if you are super confident even if you have lower self esteem everyone in some way fears being judged because it's Just part of the human experience. Now, how much that affects you, is different for every person. And a lot of times when you do have a lower self esteem or you're not happy with your body, that fear of being judged can be a lot higher, versus for someone who feels comfortable in their body, and they know that they're worthy. So why it's not helpful to be so afraid of people judging us? Well, it's a losing game right? Now, because no matter who you are, or what you do, people are always going to judge you. I don't know if that's news to you, but you're always going to be judged. And we don't want to fall into this habit or this pattern of changing ourselves, or not living our authentic life, for fear of what others think, because this is what it's like, right? Imagine if you had a child, and they come home from school, and they said, I'm being bullied because I have big ears, or whatever, for example. So I'm being bullied because I have big ears.

Now, would you say to that child, we know what child that bodies, right? Yeah, you do have big ears. And actually, do you know what, I think we should do something about it. I think that should always wear a hat. Or you should, in fact, let's get surgery to reduce your ear size or, or whatever. That is not going to be your first response when someone a child says that they are being bullied, you're going to say it's not cool that the bully is bullying someone because they are different. Now, other times, unfortunately, when it comes to having a fat body, we are told we should listen to the bully, maybe you should lose weight, then you won't get bullied versus saying the bully needs to change their behavior. You don't need to change your body body, the bully needs to change their behavior. So in some ways, we can recognize that it's not okay to pander to what a bully wants from us. But in other ways, when it comes to living in a fat body, we're like, well, I should become thin, then I won't stand out. I should conform in whatever way then I won't stand out then I won't be bullied versus people who are judging others need to fucking stop. Right? Which is what needs to happen. So what's the alternative? What really what is the alternative? Hide forever. Never be your real self. Never express yourself in ways that are authentic to you. Do you want to always be really vanilla? Really milk, you know, really milk toast? Be a smaller person in all the different ways that you could be just so someone that you went to school with on Facebook doesn't notice that you look a bit different. Do you want to be 80 years old and think? You know what? Chad never did? You know, comment that I put on weight. I'm so pleased I lived my whole life. Being smaller, not showing the world who I am doing all these things to fit in because Chad that knob that I used to go to school with all those years ago, he was never offended by my appearance. He never saw a picture of me on Facebook and said oh my god, she looks bad. I'm so pleased I lived all of my 80 years of my life or however you're gonna live not offending chat. Or, you know, whoever it is that you're worried about their judgment, fuck Chad plugin, he can suck my dangling tense. I don't care if Chad thinks that I have put on weight or if what I'm wearing is not okay. Or if my hair looks shit or whatever. I'm not going to live my life for Jad or Karen or anyone who is is judgment in that way. So what is the solution? Well, something that has brought me comfort, this might not bring you comfort. I mentioned it before, but you're always going to be judged Should Okay, positively and negatively, no matter what you do, you're always going to be judged. And there's something that someone told me, I can't remember who told me but this is this is years ago, and it's really stuck with me that in life 10% of people will love you 10% of people will hate you. And 80% are going to be somewhere in the middle. You know, they think you're right, or, oh, yeah, you are that person I met one time, you know, or just don't even think about you that much. And so no matter what you do, there's always going to be people being like, yes, you're amazing. You're awesome, you're great. And there's always going to be people like, I can't believe that you're wearing that. Oh, my God, have you put on weight? Oh, my God, there's always going to be people like that. So do you want to be judged? Knowing that you will be judged? Do you want to be judged for a fake version of you? Or do you want to be judged for an authentic version of you? So you can if you want to place more, constantly diet, try and fit in and not stand out in any way that you want? You can do that? Absolutely.

But what consequences does that have? For you for your happiness for your self esteem? What consequences does that have for those around you? What consequences does it have for the world? Do we need more people who are shrinking themselves? who are who are making themselves more palatable for consumption by others? Do we need more of that in the world? No, we don't need more of that in the world. We do not need more people who are like, Yeah, I might be a little bit different. Yeah, I might be fat, I might be a little bit fat, or a medium fatter, or a super fat person. And I'm gonna go out in the world and you know, fuck what other people think. And as well, thinking about, you know, 10% will love you. 10% and will hate you. Do you want the people who love you to be those who love you for a inauthentic version of you? Or do you want those 10% of people in the world who you come across that love you to be loving the real, radical, messy, authentic version of you. Right, I used to surround myself with people who I would be such a people pleaser, and I would pander to them. And I would be very non offensive. And, you know, if they said they didn't like something, I would change it. And those who loved me loved me for a version of me that wasn't real. Because really, I want it to be myself. And when I did become myself and was loud and proud, some of those people I lost some loved it and was like, Oh, well, you know, I love this, this, this newer version of you where you are, you know, more yourself. So and it's more, it's more, isn't it beautiful? When you know that someone loves you and cares for you and things that you call for exactly who you are, like warts and all, because none of us are perfect, perfect people, right? Yeah. So in this, think of a scenario, you're walking down the street, and someone is judging you. So imagine if you know you're walking down the street, you think, Okay, I'm going to wear a crop top for the first time, or I'm going to wear something which is really form fitting, or I'm going to do my hair in a way that is different aren't going to put on those false eyelashes or whatever it is that is making you feel a little bit self conscious. So imagine if someone judges you. So think about this, like, Do you know them? Are they going to be thinking about you a day from now? You know, are they going to be like, Oh my god, I saw a person on the street and they were wearing a crop top. And it was really inappropriate. It was really horrible or whatever day from now where they're gonna be thinking about that, or is it just a fleeting judgment? A week from now they're going to be thinking about you. And if they are, does it matter? Do you know these people? Is it going to have an impact on your life? Is them approving of you or not approving of you going to change yourself worth your inherent self worth? As a human being? Your self worth is is unchangeable, right? No matter what you do, who you are What you wear, how much you weigh, you have worth as a human being we all do. And so if that one person is judging you negatively on the street, some random stranger, Does that have an impact on your self worth as a human being? No, it can feel like it right? It can feel like if someone is like, Oh, look at you, your whatever you can feel like, you know, our worth is is diminished. But that's not actually the reality. Also, think about it this way. You presuming because we don't know what they're thinking, right? Unless they are a complete knob, and they're like, fat person, or whatever. If you think that you see someone looking at you, or looking at you in a weird way or whatever. You presume they are thinking something negative. Okay? What you're doing is passing a judgment on them. You are judging them, you are judging, you are presuming that they are they're looking at you thinking negative things about you? How do you know this?

You don't, you're making a negative judgment about them. So you're hoping you don't want other people to have negative judgments about you where you're, you're in that moment, if you're thinking presuming that they're having a negative judgment about you, you're judging them. You are doing the exact thing that you don't want others to do to you. And you're projecting your own judgment upon them. Whereas they could just be sat there being like, oh, there's a person. Oh, it's a nice day today, huh? I really need to do a poo, or whatever. Right? And, and you've projected onto them that they are like, Oh, look at that person. Oh, they're so fat, or Oh, they're so whatever. And it might not be based in reality. So notice your own judgments. And when you judge others, because we all judge all the time, even though you know, sometimes you'd like to think I'm above that, but that's not true. Notice your own judgments and how long they last. So, when you see someone different, and you make a quick judgment about them? Are you thinking about that person? Later that day? Or a week later? You know, are you telling your friends? Oh my god, I saw someone with this weird haircut in the mall two months ago, it was hilarious. No, your friends would be like, What the fuck are you talking about? You won't even be in your brain because you notice someone with a weird haircut. And you're just like, oh, there's someone with a weird haircut, not a haircut that I would have. But you know, whatever. And then it's gone from your head. Or maybe you might think about it again another time. But you know, a week or two weeks or a year later, you're not going to be like, oh, yeah, remember that one person with a weird haircut? It's just, it's useless information. Right? And so if someone is judging you, and they're like, Oh, my God, there's a fat person. You know, 10 minutes later, they're probably just like, Oh, I really fancy an ice cream or Oh, what am I gonna have for dinner? Right? So when, when I did my, my TEDx talk, if you don't know, I have a TEDx talk. It's amazing. You can check it out. When I did my TEDx talk, it was a big thing, right? So I was speaking on stage in front of 2600 people, and then it was going to be filmed. It was filmed, and then it was going to be put onto the internet. I listed out the worst case scenarios of what could go wrong, like in regards to people judging me. And so I thought, Okay, well, I could forget my words. Well, if I forget my words, can I survive that? Yeah. You know, that's okay. I've seen other people forget their words. And I know that had someone had forgotten their words. At a TED talk about same venue a couple of years before and what they did was they edited out all the bits that she forgot in the video. And then when they put it on the video online, no one could tell the people in the audience were like cheering her on and being like, you can remember and she managed to get her notes and blah, blah, blah. So 2600 people in the audience might have been like, oh, it would have been better if she had remembered her words or whatever they thought, but on the internet, which is where the The real big audience were, they had no idea. And so now my TEDx talk, I think as 140,000 views, so if I had forgotten my words, 2600 people who were in the live audience would have noticed, but the majority of people who saw my talk or see my talk 140,000 People would never have known. I didn't forget my words. But that was something that I thought, Okay, what is a bad thing that could happen? Another bad thing that could happen was, maybe I burst into tears and run off the stage. I don't know why. But, you know, that could happen. I could just run off the stage and be like, I can't do this. Could I survive that? Yes, I could survive that. I wouldn't have a TED talk. But you know, maybe I could try again, it could be a learning experience. But the absolute worst thing I could think of like, the absolute worst thing I could think of is, what if I shit myself on stage? That is the worst thing like the worst outcome that I could have thought of, for my, you know, outcome of me doing my TEDx talk. So, what if I did shit myself? Well, I would be really embarrassed. The audience would have been like, What the fuck is going on? And I would have had to, like know, shuffle off stage or pretend didn't happen or something? I don't know. But could I survive? If I shit myself on a TEDx stage? And have 2600? People watch me shitting myself? And maybe then it'd be put on the internet and have people watching me shit myself? Could I survive? Yeah, probably, I could probably survive. And what would happen is that after I got over the embarrassment, and the awful feelings and all that type of jazz, what I would be left with would be a hilarious story about that one time I tried to do a TEDx talk, TEDx talk, and then I shit my pants on stage.

It would be great, it probably be more impactful in my life, than actually doing my TEDx talk, right? It would make my life more colorful and interesting. And yes, it would be awful. But I would also receive a ton of compassion from from others and, and of course, yes, I'd get judgments. And yes, there might be pictures of me on the internet being like, lol this girl, she hit herself on stage or whatever. But I would survive, and it would be fine. In the end, it would be fine. And people would forget about him. But I didn't shit myself. The TEDx Talk went almost perfectly. So think about what you're, you're afraid of. When you're afraid of people judging you? What is the worst outcome? Like? Are you worried that you're gonna walk down the street and then like a gang of teenage boys are gonna be like, Oh my god, LOL You're so fat. Oh my god, there's a fat person look at them walking around or fat? Like is that your worst fear? No, is your worst fear that you're gonna be wearing like a crop top and short shorts. And then you fall over? And you know, a crowd of people are surrounding you and laughing at you like, is that your worst fear? So what is your worst fear? When it comes to the fear of judgement? Is it that you fear that everyone's gonna see you being a fat person and be like, Oh, my God, I can't ever talk to that fat person who are disgusting. I don't want to associate with them. Like, what is your fear? And what is your actual worst fear? And could you survive that? Is there any benefits to that? Like, could that make you stronger? Maybe not. You know, maybe it would just be a terrible experience. Not saying that, you know, every shitty thing has to be something that you grow from, but do you think you could survive? Do you think you could live? Can you balance out the pros and cons of being your authentic self and living in the world in a way that is true to you versus the risk, but that most terrible thing that you're afraid of could happen and people could judge you? Like what is more important for you to live authentically or to minimize any risks that anyone could judge you negatively? And those things could happen. Absolutely. You could, you know, fall over and then have a gang of teenage boys like being like, Oh, you're so fat and disgusting or I don't know. That could happen. It's probably not going to happen. But it could, but if it did, can you survive? Probably right. Something that Brene Brown says that I just absolutely love and it really resonates with me is that shame cannot survive the light. So self compassion dissolves shame and judgment, okay? So what is it that you're afraid of speak that out, tell people. And you know that that shame that you're feeling around how people could be judging your body, like, I'm afraid people could be looking at my legs and my arms or, you know, thinking that they that I'm horrible or whatever, just speaking that out, even just to yourself, or journaling journaling on it, and giving yourself compassion. It will dissolve a lot of that shame that you are feeling. So it was an example. So recently, maybe a month ago, I was in this group discussion. Like a group of us were talking about overcoming Coronavirus, and dealing with like the upheaval in our lives and whatnot. And we did like 12 weeks of meeting every week. Anyway. So I I'm like a, I think quickly, and I'm able to talk quite quickly, and obviously I'm not shy. And so whenever it'd be a group discussion, and it'd be like, okay, so what do people think about this one topic? Immediately, I would always know what I wanted to say. And other people would would not want to speak and would kind of hold back. And so I'd always be like, I'm ready to go. If you know, no one else, you know, I'd always hold back a little bit to see if anyone else wanted to go first. But often I'd be the first one to talk. And so, you know, after I'd speak, I'd like they all hate me. You know, I was I was, you know, thinking they all hate me.

They think that I'm bossy. They think that I'm overtaking the discussion. And it's all about me. And I'm not gracious enough to let someone go first. And I was sitting there not listening to all the other people were saying because I was thinking, Oh, my God lay or you know, they all hate me. And so at the end of it, I said, Hey, you know, because we do like wrapping up the of the discussion and whatnot. So hey, you know, I just want to share something that I'm feeling is that I had this judgment that, that I, I presumed that all of you hate me because I speak first. And as soon as I said it, I was just like, This is silly, right? This is like, really? And even before people were like, Well, no, that's not true, just by speaking it and saying that, hey, I'm worried that you're judging me, I'm judging you. judging me. I'm judging that you're judging me, but you're probably not judging me. Anyway. And a lot of people will like actually, no, we love it that you go first because it gives us time to think and we we need more time to process and things like that. Yeah, not that I always go first. But you know, I'd be one of the first. And so that fear was dissolved just by speaking it even before people reassured me and said, No, we like you, you know, speaking up just by speaking it and being vulnerable thinking oh, I think you will hate me and it kind of dissolved it. So can you speak it that fear that that that fear of judgment, what you are really afraid of to yourself to others and see if it dissolves and have faith in humanity just a little bit just because you know, sometimes we can't have faith in humanity but have faith in humanity and little bit because yes, of course there are total knobs in the world are going to be like lol a fat person. But more and more in society, we are realizing that laughing at people who are different or judging people who are different isn't cool. Really, like I used to be an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

So I'd be teaching, you know, 1920 year olds, 21 year olds, and their perspective on the world was so uplifting and incredible and inclusive. And so different from what I was like when I was at university I was just like, Boom, you know, fogging whatever. They were, you know, sensitive towards social justice issues. And so that is a world that is that is coming up. And not obviously not all of them, but so many of them that I was just like, whoa, you know, young people are cool. Like, I want them to be my friends. And even, you know, older people too. So, you know, Simon Cowell on Americans got talent, or Britain's Got Talent or whatever. Simon Cowell. He's been around, he's been doing this stuff for years, right? Do you remember you might not remember, but in his earlier days, he would be the one that when someone who came on stage who looked different, he would be smirking and laughing and being like, well, this person is going to be shit because they didn't fit the stereotype of what a pop star would look like. And then he had to eat his words many times when, actually the person who looked a bit different had an incredible talent, like one person that I'm thinking about is Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle was a, I think she was Welsh. But she was on I think Britain's Got Talent or sort of a show like that. So she she is an older woman kind of, you know, mumsy, you know, gray, perm, that type of thing. And, and her personality is more, she has autism. At the time, we didn't know that she just came across as a little bit more quirky, or shy or whatever. Anyway, and she, you know, Simon Cowell is like a famous clip of Simon Cowell being like, well, she's gonna be shit and look at her sort of thing. And given eye rolls. And then she sings, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mears. And then everyone was like, Holy shit, she can sing. And so Simon Cowell used to be like that. And I've been watching America's Got Talent recently. And he is the opposite. Every time someone comes out, and they say, you know, I can't do this, I've been told that I can't sing because I'm fat. Or I've been told that I can't do this thing. Because my body is different. Or I looked at I I'm different in some way. Simon Cowell is always says, we don't do that here. And we don't judge people by what they look like. And I've seen him say it like almost every episode, and I'm like Saima cow, you have changed your tune. And the reason is, because it's not cool to shame people for being different anymore. Now, not everyone has got that memo. Obviously, not everyone has got that memo, but a lot of people have, and so have a bit of faith in humanity that, you know, not everyone, if you walk down the street, and you look different. Not everyone is going to be like, Holy fucking shit that look at that disgusting person. You know, most people are probably not right, or probably thinking cool. It's nice to see some diversity. This is thing that I wish I could find like the original thing, but it's it's like a sentiment or, you know, a quote, that I've remembered for years, I thought was kind of funny. And I can't find the original one. So this is me butchering this, this idea. But the idea is that in your 20s, you worry about people judging you, in your 30s you don't care that people are judging you. And in your 40s, you realize that they were never really thinking about you in the first place. And I love that because it's so fucking true, right? It's so true, like, not necessarily to the timeline, but really, that people aren't necessarily thinking about us as much as we think they're thinking about us. Of course, we think that people are spending 24 hours a day thinking about, you know, what we're doing with their lives, but really, it's probably just a fleeting moment, if at all. And we're all in our own heads. So we're walking down the street and someone looks at us funny. And we're thinking, Oh, my God, what are they thinking? are they judging me? Oh, my God, do they think that I look horrible, whatever. And that same person is walking down the street and they see you and maybe you look funny at them because they happen to look funny at you. And they're thinking, Oh, my God, what is my hair looks good. today. I've got something on my face was wrong with me. And you're both, you know, both of us are just like, oh my god, does this other person think that I look awful? Do they hate me? And we're just having the same fear. And you know, most people are not even thinking about you. Sorry to break it to you. I know I can't handle it. I want people to be thinking about me all the time. But the reality is, people are not necessarily thinking about you or judging you as much as you might believe.

So a way to come over this overcome this is to personally try to stop judging as much. Now I know that's hard and being judgmental is it's a normal thing, right? It's a part of For us, as humans, we need to judge others to see if they are a part of our community. If they are safe, we have to look at someone say if you're walking down the street, and it's a dark alley, and you see someone walking towards you, you need to judge them quickly to know, are they safe, am I going to get mugged, you know, whatever, right? And so forgive yourself for the fact that you are judgmental, we're all judgmental, we have to be, but our level of judgment, we can try and tamper it down a little bit. So something that I've noticed is the most judgmental people that I've known in my life are also the ones that presume everyone is thinking awful things about them all the time. Because they're thinking bad things about others all the time. And so they're like, well, if I'm thinking shit things about people, then they must be thinking the same about me. But it doesn't work like that. Because not everyone is super judgmental. A lot of people try to work on being a better person. And if you're here, then I know that that's you, like you, obviously, are not are striving to not judge people for being in a fat body and all that type of jazz. So keep working on that and keep doing the good stuff that you're doing there to try and decrease the amount that you judge. And when you're noticing that you're judging. Trying to grab that. So if you if you're looking at someone being like, Oh, my hair look shed, or whatever it is, you're thinking, trying to catch that thought and being like, Okay, so what's going on here? Why am I having that thought? How is this this sort serving me what is going on here? And trying to show that person some compassion, of what their life could be like, and what you know, what is going on with them? And is them having a haircut that you've decided is a little bit different? Something that defines him as a person, and just explore it, right? So the next thing is to practice doing the things that you think that you're gonna get judged for. Okay, so whatever it is, you think that you're going to get judged for. The only way to overcome that is to do it, and see what happens. So the first time is going to be uncomfortable, is going to be weird, you know, say the example of wearing a crop top or whatever wearing a crop top. And then you know, even just feeling the breeze on your belly, you're like, what, this is weird. It will feel uncomfortable. And walking by someone, you're going to be thinking, what that what are they thinking, they're thinking, this is really important and appropriate, blah, blah, blah. But then the more that you're exposed to doing that, the more you'll realize that you're just walking around, and no one is really saying anything, it's not that big of a deal. And if they do, then they're a knob. So the more you do it, the more normal it's going to be. And the less that you're going to be in your head thinking, Oh my God, they're thinking this or thinking this or thinking this. So if you want to do something new in your life, like love your fat body, or stop talking about diets, and you don't, because you're worried about what your family is going to think, what your loved ones, what they're going to say and how they're judging you. I challenge you to challenge that judgment that you're making about them. A lot of times we think, Oh, yeah. All family I know what they're like, if I come in and say, Hey, can we stop talking about diets? They're gonna be like, No, I love dieting. Screw you. And they could do that. But we don't know until we try it. Right? We don't know. You know, if you went to your loved ones, and you said, Hey, I've hated my body, my whole life. I've dieted and it's not worked. And so I'm going to try something new. I'm going to try to work on loving my body. And to stop dieting, because it's not helpful for me. Can you help me out and not talk about dieting in front of me?

Now, most loved ones will try to understand where you're coming from. And to to help you with this new request. You know, most most people will because most people are not monsters, right? However, some will not because they've known you as a certain way for your whole life potentially. And you saying, Oh, I'm going to change it all up and do something different. It's threatening for them inherently right? So if someone that you love is judging you vocally expressing their negative judgments, judgments about you, then you can't stop that right. We can't stop Are people thinking what they're thinking? If only weekend, I'm constantly being like, I wish I could just just jump into your brain and change the way that you're engaging. But it doesn't work like that, right? So we can't change the way that they're behaving or thinking, but what we can do, what we can control is a way that we respond the way that we take care of our mental health. And so if a loved one is like, Oh, you're so fat, and horrible, and oh, you should go on diet and all that type of stuff, then you need to do something so that doing something could be setting a boundary with them. It could be minimizing contact with them, it could be doing something to protect your mental health. So not saying anything, or going to a different room or putting your headphones in, or whatever. And it could be ending the relationship with them. It could be any of those things, right? So you can't control how other people judge you, you can only control how you respond to those judgments. Which sucks. I know, I know, I know, why can't we can mind control others is when i ng. So you have control in the way that you respond to judgments. So what are you going to do? Are you going to minimize contact with them? Where you're going to set a boundary and say, Hey, we don't talk about that in front of me? Are you going to protect your mental health in different ways? Are you going to cut them from your life? Or options? Okay. So, in a nutshell, in a nutshell, people will judge you. I know, I know. I'm sorry, people will judge you, but not nearly as much as you think. Because most people in the world strive to be better human beings. Not all of them. But a big chunk. Judgments mean nothing about you, and your core value. As a human. Would you rather be a vanilla version of yourself a quieter a, a smaller version of yourself, so that when you're 80 years old, you can look back and be like, I'm so pleased people judge me less, because I pretend to be a different version of myself. Or do you want to be the 80 year old with the pink Mohawk? And the don't give a fuck attitude? Because you have that decision, you have that choice right now, you see on the things I see on the internet all the time, people, you know, they'll be a cool picture of a granny like with a pink Mohawk, or whatever. And people are like, I want to be like that when I'm older. And I always think, why don't you be like that now? Like, why do you have to wait until you're, you know, older? To be like, I don't give a fuck what you think about me? Why? Why is it that you have to wait, because you might not ever get there? And when you get there? Why do you presume that when you get old, all of a sudden, the way that you've behaved your whole life on all the fears of judgments that you've held and not worked on are just gonna suddenly dissolve, guess what they won't, you have to do it now, to be able to be that I don't give a fuck old person who you know, shaves their head and rides a motorcycle or whatever it is that you want to do, you know, or just like, gives a finger to diet culture. So if you're like, oh, yeah, you know, like goals of when I get get older. We're not goals of what you're doing right now. Right? Right. So I hope that was helpful in changing your beliefs and your fears around judgment. And you know, judgment is always going to be that fear, fear of judgment is judgment is always going to be there and fear of judgment is always going to be there because you are a human being. But the way that you respond to it can can change and you can become more it can be easy to tolerate. When you know that fear of people judgments and if people ever say shit to you, honestly so if someone would say to me before, like my biggest fear is someone be like you're fat.

And if someone ever did say, Oh, you're fat, I'd be like, Oh my god. Oh my god, it'd be so painful, so painful. And now if someone says you're fat, I'd be like, No shit, Sherlock like Wow. Great observational skills and what like it doesn't hold that same weight. Excuse apart. I have that same, that same power anymore. Because I've been exposing myself to that fear of that judgment of people having about my fat body. And so the more that you expose yourself to these things that you are afraid of the you know, the judgment around, the easier it will get. So to do that, alright, and go to the show notes first value.com forward slash 037, episode 37 on facebook.com forward slash podcast, and get that juicy new resource that I have made for you the first fatty body love a roadmap. So good. Inside it, you're gonna get the three simple steps to follow to increase your body confidence, the three massive mistakes everyone makes on this journey and how to avoid them. And you're gonna get free body love training sent to your in box. Yes, you're gonna get some more of me. Don't you love it? You might like no go away. But if you do then yeah. And join my Facebook group face value friends link in the show notes. But you can also do face value friends in Facebook. All right. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today. It's been amazing. Have you had fun? I've had fun. had the best time. And yeah, I will see you in the next episode. Have an incredible rest of your day, rest of your week. Whatever you're up to. I will see you later. Crocodile in a while alligator by fatties. Okay, bye bye bye bye.

EP36 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast, and in this episode, we're talking about dealing with weight gain during the pandemic, Episode 36. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby. Let's do it.

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast Let's begin.

Hello, hello. Hello, fatty. How you doing? Thanks for hanging out with me today I separation agents. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to make a correction or note on the episode that I did three episodes ago on fat phobia and racism. So I recorded the last two episodes before I did the episode on fat phobia and racism. Because you know, I record in advance or whatever, anyway, but it was important to get that that fat phobia and racism one out. And there's something that I wanted to clarify notice something and I was like, Oh, shit. In that episode, I mentioned how historically fat bodies were never idolized. And I think that I didn't mention I'm pretty sure. I didn't mention that. What I was talking about was in the West in Western culture. And the reason why I didn't mention that is because of my own white supremacy. And I didn't think to mention that I was referencing the West because of my default racist worldview, right? Like, I'm just I know, talking about history and being like, well, you know, families whenever idolized. And just presuming, you know, obviously, everyone knows I'm talking about the West. You know, I don't know if I thought that in my head. But anyway, I should have said that. And as well. Western culture is a problematic word anyway, but I was referencing the West, how in the West fat bodies have never been idolized. If you want to learn more about whether it was ever okay to be fat, there is an awesome webinar from NASA and A F A National Association for fat acceptance. Anyway, never a great US based not for profits. Who? Yeah, advanced fat acceptance. Anyway, so Dina Tamland did a webinar re recording on was it ever okay to be fat? So interesting. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. And you can you can have a look at that and she starts with you know, the fact that she's going to be talking about the West and looking at the evidence without history of the way that fat bodies have been represented or rather not or if they are represented there, you know, as a point of ridicule or whatever. And so one thing as well about that is the Venus of Willendorf, so if you don't know what the Venus of Willendorf is, or some people call it I think the lady of Willendorf because it's debatable whether it's a Venus or not anyway. Okay, too technical into it. Anyway, it's So, if you like Well, what about the Venus of Willendorf? Yes, absolutely. So the Venus of Willendorf is one of the oldest figurines ever found is around 26 to 30,000 years old. Yes, amazing. But Western civilization wasn't around then. So we can't claim that Venus our beloved Venus of Willendorf is is from Western culture because it Western culture is not that old. And also, we don't really know what that statue Venus of Willendorf is actually depicting. No one left any notes very rude. So some people believe it to be a fertility sculpture. And some people believe it's a self portrait rate. Also something to note is other figurines from later time periods have been found, but still decades, 1000s years old, and they're not clearly fat. So it wasn't that, you know, we found loads of sculptures from 30,000 years ago is and they're all like, fat women, and it's amazing. It's not as clear, right.

So other figurines are not clearly fat. But I personally like to interpret the Venus of Willendorf as worshipping a fat body, as do a lot of fat positive people, right? I actually have a Venus of Willendorf necklace. And I studied illustration at university. And so I'm really interested in the history of art. And, you know, a lot of times we can't understand what our meant, because it's really hard to know what was going on in the culture and what exactly happened right then and this is just one thing. And who knows what all of the other things at that time was was depicting, we don't know. Anyway, so I just find it I find it really interesting. And I have decided personally, that it is a celebration of fat bodies. And it could be right. We just don't know. We don't know. So so yeah. So I just wanted to make a note on that. That, yeah, my white supremacist worldviews and default racist, well viewed view made me not clearly state in that podcast that I was talking about Western culture. But yeah, if you wanted to learn more about that, go check out that that webinar. It's about 45 minutes long, I think really, it's so interesting, the sound is not very good, but what can you do? Yeah, and you can find as well other things on nafas YouTube page, which you might like. So, um, okay. So what we are talking about Zhu Li is juicy, shoots, some, some lots of small arts and juicy shit. So the, the pandemic is not over. But we're kind of coming out of it. And a lot of people have been like, I've I know, I've gained weight during the pandemic. And so what we're talking about in today's episode is how we've been affected by the pandemic. In regards to all of the messaging around it, about how oh my god fat body, oh, you're gonna die. The complex realities that many folks have to deal with how to cope if you are eating more food than normal, what to do, if you put on weight and why engaging in exercise at home may be harmful for you. So lots of important stuff that we're talking about. Now, weight gain during quarantine home, I have gone through, a lot of people have been dealing with this and having a lot of feelings around this, which is totally normal. So we've now been in quarantine for what, three, four months, and people's bodies have changed. And it's something that a lot of people are struggling with. And your body changing. That could happen anytime, right? But we're kind of dealing with this as a collective, the world as a collective are, are dealing with this right. And collectively, we're dealing with fat phobia, and internalized fat phobia. And it's really a unique time in the world. And so going into the pandemic we lived in diet culture, right? We lived in a world that is steeped in fat phobia and the world had and has the belief that getting fat or fatter is one of the worst things that you can do as a human right. And as COVID The Coronavirus emerged. We started seeing a lot of news reports and false news reports that fat people were at the higher risk are at a higher risk. And news, in case you haven't you didn't know this. There still hasn't been any actual evidence to show that fat people are at a higher risk for from Coronavirus. Not no evidence has come out to support this idea. And actually the evidence is that has come out. Some of it has shown that fat people are at a moderately better chance against COVID than people who are straight-sized.

So it's just presumed that fat bodies are unhealthy and at a higher risk, right. And so those falsehoods are continually parroted without proper scientific evidence or studies. Just the other day like yesterday, I overheard a news report and they were saying Oh, like risk factors or if you're old and then oh, yeah, if you have quote unquote, obesity, and I was like offer Fuck sake, do some research. Like it's not based in fact, right. So that's another thing that that we are dealing with is hearing this from the media, like if you're fat, you're going to spontaneously combust and, you know, don't get, make sure that you lose weight. So you don't get Coronavirus and bullshit like that. So we, you know, during lockdown, depending on where you are in the world, everyone is different, right? Some people, a lot of people, most people lost control over so many things in their lives. So work, perhaps you're working from home, perhaps you lost your job, your social life, you're not obviously not hanging out with your friends, maybe you were doing it and are doing it online? Maybe not. Maybe you're living with your family, and oh my god, that can be really difficult, right? Maybe you're not, maybe you're alone and you're isolated. And so a lot of people, the things that they have done to feel in control in life have been taken away, right. And so what a big way that we as a society try to maintain control, a false sense of control, is through trying to manipulate our body size. And so what are you going to do if you're stuck at home, and you're worried about you know, you've got all these messages saying, if you're fat, you're gonna die. And in any way fat is bad. Even if we're not in a pandemic, according to society, you've lost control of everything. So what are you going to do, you're going to try and control your body weight a lot of people are and you know, we've seen this this increase in the hilarious COVID 15 memes and jokes about how oh my god, I don't want to get fat during the pandemic. And a lot of people have this fear of, yeah, oh my god, what if I do get fat? And that is super influential to our mental health and not in a good way, right? Another factor to think about is people panic buying food. And so what effect does that have on you? I know that when I went to the store, there were lots of times when I went and food was sold out and multiple items that I wanted to buy, were gone. And honestly, it was, it was triggering for me. It reminded me of as a kid being in poverty and not having access to food and feeling afraid that I wouldn't ever get food and and reminded me of being in diet land where I would deprive myself of food. And so going into the store, seeing food being sold out and just a fear that what's going What happened to the food? Is everything going to stop? Is there not going to be any food? That's another factor that we have to consider, and how that affects our mental health and how we relate to our fat bodies. So our normal ways of coping, were likely taken away or disrupted during this time, right? And even if they weren't, there is still this massive uncertainty about what's going to happen with the world. Like, are we all gonna die are the people that I love gonna die. And so even if you have all of your normal coping strategies and mechanisms in place, there's still this big looming stress and fear that you're having to cope with. And most people, a lot of their normal coping strategies have been disrupted, disrupted, or taken away completely. So that causes a massive amount of stress. And so what do you do? You're at home, and you want to get some normality and, and relief from that stress and some sense of joy and happiness.

And something that brings us comfort, and joy is food right? Which is beautiful. And a lot of people very guiltily started using food to help regulate their emotions. And I say very guiltily, because most people think that that is a bad thing. When I'm gonna explain to you, it's so fucking isn't a bad thing. So a lot of us have this feeling of we shouldn't use food, to help with our emotions, we should feel our emotions and do the work and work it out. And well, let me ask you this. How many times in your life? Have you been in a global pandemic? How many times in your life? Have you thought legitimately the world might end? And people that you love could die? And you could die? How many times have you lost your job or been unsure of your income? Now that might have happened before? The how else were you? Are you meant to cope? What is the alternative here versus using food as to bring you joy? Like what's the alternative? Right? How were you able to get any tiny little bit of happiness into your day? When you're facing all of that you're facing you were you still are facing a global pandemic? And you're beating yourself up? Because you might have eaten a little bit more food than normal? No, no, I'm not having it. I'm not having it. So you use you've survived so far, you've survived a global pandemic, and you had to eat a little more food, or maybe a lot more food to keep your mental health more stable. That's the reality. You ate more food during a global pandemic to count help keep your mental health more stable. Oh my god, you're a monster. I can't believe that you did that. I can't believe you survived a global pandemic. And to do it, you ate some more food? Oh, the horror. Oh my god, what type of person are you? Obviously, if you can't tell that's being that sarcasm. So imagine if anyone else came to you and said their whole life had been turned upside down. And they feared that they would die and people that they love would die. And they were cut off from their normal self care and then they felt guilty and embarrassed that they ate more food than normal and put on weight. What would you say to that person? You be like, Bitch eat all the food and eat their food. Gaining weight doesn't matter. You're alive. You're surviving. You're doing what you can do. Like really? I have so I have a goals board for my my business. And I have different business goals. But the number four number four goal that I have on my goals board for my business is survive global Pandemic Legion. I legit that is a goal of mine to survive the gold global pandemic. And on days where I'm not feeling as positive. I look at that. And I ask, like, am I achieving this goal today? Am I surviving? And if I feel guilty that I need to have a nap because my brain is exhausted. I look at that. And I say, Am I hitting that goal of surviving? Fuck yeah, I am crushing dolls left, right and center. I'm surviving. And really, that's an incredible thing right now. And when I say that, I want to remind you of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Now, you might not be familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but what it is you've probably seen it, it's like a triangle pyramid thing. And it's all about what human beings need in order to survive and to thrive. Okay, and so at the bottom, let me just bring up my picture. Here.

So there's different levels, right. So at the bottom, we need to get our physiological needs met, okay. And so physiological needs air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction. Okay. The next level is safety needs. So that's personal security, employment, resources, health, and property. So somewhere to live. Once you've got those two down, then you can move on to the next one, which is love and belonging. So that's friendship, intimacy, family, and a sense of connection. Once you've got that one down, you can go to esteem esteem is respect, self esteem, status, recognition, strength and freedom. And once you've got that one down, you can then move on to the top of the of the triangle, which is self actualization. So that is the desire to become the most the one can be. Okay, so they are the stages in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and what we need as a human being. So right now, we're on the bottom levels of that, okay, we are trying to get our physiological needs met, and we're trying to get our safety needs met. So bottom line is physiological, air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction. The next one, safety needs, personal security, employment, resources, health and property. So this is what I mean. So many people don't have personal security. They're not safe, right? They don't have a job. They don't have income, they lost their job because of the pandemic. Their health is in jeopardy. Right? Especially if you're living in a country like the USA where health care is totally and 100% Absolutely fucked up. Like, imagine if you're, you know, you're worried about if you do get Coronavirus, and then you have to go to hospital are you then going to be left with millions of dollars in debt? Because you had to have your life saved? And as well, okay, so property, do you have enough money to pay your rent? Or are you in jeopardy of not being able to pay your rent? Okay, so why I'm reminding you of that is that collectively, a lot of people are really struggling, we're really struggling. And knowing that you still want to beat yourself up because you ate some food. You're eating more food than normal to cope. And you want to shame yourself because you feel bad because your body weight changed. Like you're struggling to survive like, no, no, stop that now. That is not your shame to hold. Okay, it's not yours to hold. You have to be proud of yourself that you are here right now seriously, like, How many times have you gone through a global pandemic? How many times like probably zero, right? Right. So, if you have put on weight, if you have put on weight, don't panic, okay. It's normal to feel uncomfortable with it. And the reason why it's normal to feel uncomfortable with it is because of your internalized fat phobia, or your fat phobia due to the fact that we live in a fat phobic world Old and a world that is focused on dieting and becoming thin no matter what. Of course, you're going to have negative feelings when any, if you put weight on, like, unless you've already done this work, really done this work, then you're gonna have really negative feelings. And if you are still struggling with fat phobic thoughts and beliefs, then you need to get a system in place where you can overcome that.

And my thought is having these these fat phobic thoughts right now like, Oh, my God, I've put on weight, oh, my God, what if I do put on weight right now is actually really helpful. And the reason why it's helpful is because it shows us where we still need to do work. And it shows us what we need to work on. And so, you know, of course, these emotions are unwanted, but it's actually quite helpful. So that, if we're in this situation, again, or if you know, if you're a human being in you have a body, chances are, your weight will fluctuate. And so if you've weighed on again, you'll be able to cope with it better if you get a system in place that helps you cope and deal with those limiting negative beliefs that that you might have around having a fat body. So the truth is, it's not really that big a deal to put on weight. Really, it's not that big a deal. It might feel like it like the the world is going to end and everyone's gonna be like, Oh, my God, look at the state have you What have you been doing when you've been at home, I can't believe it, you know, disgusting or whatever. Really, it's not that big of a deal. Our weight fluctuates in our lives due to different circumstances, right? Many different circumstances. And we have a setpoint weight that all of us our bodies like to be at, it's about a 15 to 20 pound range. And generally speaking, if you're at in this, in this range, your body's happy, if you go out of that range, it's 1520 pound range, then your body does things to try and get you back. Because that's just where your body's happiest, right? And so, we don't know what's going to happen in the future. If you're, if your body's going to say, Okay, this is, you know, higher than what I'm used to or lower than what I'm used to, or whatever and do some course correction, we don't know. But saying that, hoping that you're going to lose weight is not really helpful either. Or actively going on a diet, like I've said many times. As we know, diets don't work for the majority of people, and they can damage your physical and mental health and studies show. More often than not, if you go on a diet, you're actually going to end up with a higher weight. Not that being high weight is bad. But if you think that going on diet is gonna make you thin, then you've been sold a lie. I'm sorry to break it to you. So we all have seasons in our lives, where things are different, right? Our current season is pandemic season. So perhaps our mental health isn't as good as it normally is, perhaps not. And perhaps we don't engage in the wild like we normally do and do all the fun things we used to. And then there's also times where it's a different season where we are going to be more happy. And we're going to be more active and we're going to be filled with much more joy and be able to self care in lots of different ways. This too shall pass isn't one of my favorite phrases. This too shall pass and nothing lasts forever. Right? Like it might feel like we're going to be in this forever but we're not. Okay.

And something else is if you're putting yourself through some brutal workout regime, then this is me giving you permission to stop if you're doing it because you are punishing your bad body because you put on way or punishing your body because you ate a Twinkie or whenever. This is me giving you permission to stop. Of course if you like doing whatever exercise you're doing if you like it Do it like if you know comes from a good place, do it, how fun Knock yourself out, whatever. But if you're doing it because you're terrified of becoming fat, then consider making changes. Because when you move your body, you're you exercise with the motivation being fear, or shame. Studies have shown that, that behavior, the behavior of doing the exercise, whatever it is you're doing, is not sustainable. Meaning that. So if you're engaging, safe, you're like, oh, I need to go on a 10k run every day or whatever, you're doing that because you're terrified becoming fat, then that is not something you're going to be able to keep doing, because shame is not a good motivator. And so you're going to stop, you're going to stop doing it. And then what story you're going to tell yourself, you're going to tell yourself that you're lazy, that you're a quitter, that you're just such a bad person. Whereas if you're moving your body just for fun, just because you like it, just because it makes you happy. You're way more likely to keep doing it. Right. And so if you're if you're engaging in exercise, because you're you're in the pandemic, and you're like, Oh my God, I know, I want to get fat. Look at that and see, you know, am I doing it because it's fun, or am I doing it because I'm terrified of being fat. Okay, so. And another thing is, I wanted to say is if you're stressing about fi feeling the need to buy certain foods, or eat certain foods, like if you have a desire to eat more or different types of foods, I want you to lean into that. So if possible, buy yourself as much food as you can. Of course, not everyone is in the financial situation to be able to do that. But if you can buy stuff that you are desiring right now. Because if you don't, that's where things begin to get diety and Shamy and potentially disordered because that is diet type behavior. Denying yourself what your body is asking for and what your body needs. Even if you've decided, actually, no, you don't need this thing that I've decided is unhealthy. I'm going to override you and say, I know you're only allowed to salad right now. It's you're engaging in dieting type behaviors, right? And seriously, give yourself some goddamn credit. You're alive. And you're super smart brain and body has done everything it can to keep you alive. And that's incredible. So what if you, you know, the, the outcome is that you've put on a little bit of weigh. I know some people would rather be dead than fat, but hopefully you're not one of them. Right?

Because it's okay, to put on weight. It's okay to eat more food than normal. It's okay to have a nap. It's okay to feel like all you can do is watch Netflix. That's all okay, you're doing the best you can. Right? We're in a really weird time. It's a global pandemic. Stop being so hard on yourself. Okay, so thank you so much for hanging out with me today. It's been so much fun. As always, I hope you enjoyed this episode, go to the show notes. For all of the links, links, links links first fatty.com forward slash 036 Because it's episode 36. And in there, I'm going to put something extra special for you. I have made a brand new present for you. I've got a present for you. Oh my god. It's called the fierce fatty body love roadmap. It's so fucking good. Obviously, I'm biased. It looks so pretty. It's it's got such great information in it. And so what the first fatty body love roadmap is what it will give you is going to give you the three easy steps to follow so that you can increase your body confidence. You're also going to discover the the three massive mistakes people make and how you can avoid them on your journey to loving your fat body. And also, by signing up you're gonna get body love trainings sent to your inbox and as well. Reminder, calm Join us over in the Facebook group first fatti friends, you know the one that I kept secret from you for? I didn't want you to know. That's not true. I just didn't think detail. Yeah, because I thought you could read my mind. Why can't you read my mind? Read my mind? Yeah, so come and join us. If you just you know, you can just type first party friends into the Facebook's and it will come up or go to the show notes. First party.com forward slash 036 For link. And yeah, you'll find it and come say hello and tell us who you are what you want to get out of the group and all that type of jazz. Yeah, so thank you. It's been amazing hanging out with you, as always, and I will see you in a while alligator. check you later. Crocodile. Yes. All right. Goodbye.

EP35 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And in this episode number 35, we're talking about: Do you want to be healthy? Or do you want to be thin? Let's do it.

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast. Let's begin.

Okay, hello, hello, welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. How you doing? You're doing all right. Hope you were feeling good. And thank you for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it. And I've got a another special episode for you today. Now this is part two of a two parter. You don't have to have listened to Episode 34. So if you just happen to have landed on here, it's not in you know, consecutive chronological. It's not in order, it's not in order. So don't worry, you don't have to go back to 34. First, you can listen to this episode, and then go back and listen to the other one, no big deal. But what I have done is I have made a series of videos which bust through any limiting negative self beliefs that you might have about your body. And we talked about any mistakes that you might be making that is stopping you from fully loving your body and feeling confident and feeling peace around food. And I want to make sure that you are not falling into any kind of pitfalls or traps or holes or whatever places that you're calling Get out of crevices, crevices, whatever. And that you can continue on that that confidence journey. So last week, we spoke about the Devil Wears Prada the film. But here's an analogy about how we can is analogy of what not to do to get to a place of, of body love, and mistakes that Andy the character of the film made and how it mirrors what the journey that we go through from discovering the diet culture and fat phobia is fucked up and how we don't want to keep hating our bodies to getting to a place where we do love our bodies. And we also spoke about in that last episode, the Constant Learner effect and why you need to avoid it at all cost and why a lot of people, their strategy is actually lowering their confidence. And they don't realize it. And so when they're like I can't I don't know why I'm doing these things. And you know, I don't feel more confident. And then someone else can come and look at this situation and be like, Oh, okay, yeah, you're in the Constant Learner effect. And this is what's happening. So go back and listen to those. And in today's episode, Janssen will first section here we're going to be talking about answering this question, which is do you want to be healthy or do you want to be thin? And so in this coming section, I reveal a massive issue in the confidence coaching world that you need to be aware of, because following bad advice is going to make it harder for you to love your body. Next, we're gonna be talking about the biggest barrier that keeps people committed to hating their body. And why if you've been working on loving your body and you're not seeing results, why it's not your fault, and what is actually going on. Oh Just just when people are like, I'm, I'm trying, I don't know why it's not working, and they make it mean that there's something wrong with them. And I'm like, No, it's not you, you know, like with dieting, like the diets not working. It's not that the people were like the diets not working. They were like, I'm not good at dieting, I can't lose weight, I was bad. And he's like, No, diet is broken. And so there's some models and things that people do. That means that they fall into that trap again. And again, they blame themselves why I am, I'm just not a confident person. And it's just not meant for me, and I just can't do it. And it's not true when I want to know or so. Yeah. And finally, we bust through the two biggest limiting self beliefs that get in people's way. The first one is I'm scared to put on weight. And the second one is, I'm anxious if I put on weight, or if I'm fat, that I will be unhealthy and fears around health. And so that is the first section juicy shit. So let's not wait any longer.

Let's get into it. Enjoy. Hi, it's Victoria here from fierce battling. I got a question for you. Do you want to be healthy? Or do you want to be thin? So in today's video, I'm going to be talking about the ideas of fatness and health and how the fear around those two things can stop us from loving our fat bodies. So answer this question if I could wave a magic wand over you right now. And you've got two choices. The first magic wand can make you healthy, and fat. The second magic wand will make you thin. Which magic wand Do you want me to wave over you? Now the answer to that question is going to help you understand if you are having trouble loving your body and stopping dieting. Because the biggest barrier that keeps people committed to hating their body. And worrying about about health is these fears and it's keeping you stuck. And people hesitate to work on accepting their fat bodies because they don't want to be unhealthy, natural, right, and they don't want to get fatter, which in our society, of course, because we live in a fat phobic society. Now, I see a lot of people offering intuitive eating as a way to lose weight and or body confidence coaching focused on getting healthy. And it really gets on my tests on these big fat tips of mine really gets on my tests. Because approaching body confidence and intuitive eating with with this method is really making the problem that they're trying to fix. Why hers, trying to do intuitive eating with weight loss is going to make you the opposite of an intuitive eater. And trying to work on body confidence. And health is going to make you struggle to get body confidence. And so when I see people offering these things, I just want to do like a facepalm you know that bass POM emoji like this is just it's just not helpful. And it's not going to work because this approach is reinforcing negative beliefs that are unhelpful and plain wrong. And so let me go into more about what I mean there. So biopro approaching loving your body with the lens of I mustn't get too fat. And I must constantly worry about my health or be concerned about my health. You were trying to build build confidence on a rotten foundation. Okay? When people lack body confidence, and everything that they seem to do, doesn't seem to be working. It's because essential beliefs negative beliefs haven't been addressed and corrected.

Okay, so I want you to, to visualization a, something here to help you imagine what I'm talking about here. So imagine There's a bucket, not a big bucket here, right here, there's a bucket. And in the bucket, there are holes. And each hole represents a negative core belief, or fear. And the biggest holes that I see time and time again, is the fear around health and the fear around gaining weight. So every time you try and pour water into that bucket, it's just going to drain out. And no matter how many times you keep pouring water in, is never gonna get full, because this is big gaping holes in there. And the water represents things that are help, you are going to help you grow your confidence, right. And so you can never get those things are going to grow your confidence to work because you have these big holes. And you might not be able to see it because maybe you're you know, you haven't got a view of the bucket, right. So you must plug those holes before you can move forward. And one of the biggest holes I mentioned that comes up time and time again, is I'm scared about my health, and I don't want to put on weight, I don't want to get fatter or become fat. So today, let's try and see if we can plug those holes, because constantly trying to fill your buckets up and not seeing results. And not knowing why is exhausting, right? And it can lead to even more negative beliefs about who you are as a person. I can't become confident there's something wrong with me. I'm particularly ugly. Other people are beautiful, but I'm not an all of these other beliefs that are not helpful to you. Okay, so let me ask you a question. In the past when you have dieted, or if you're dieting currently, or if you've ever dreamed about being smaller, what was the motivation behind that? Did you really do it to be healthy? Did you? Or did you do it? Because you want it to be thin? And have everyone see you and see that you were sexy and hardworking and worthy and in control of your life and lovable and all of the positive things? And healthy them? Have people believe that you're healthy. Really be honest here. What were you really looking for? And some people Yeah, they could be saying, oh, yeah, I was actually doing it to get healthy. I didn't actually care about being thin. That's fine. But but you what, what is it for you? Now has dieting or Hating Your Body? Worked for you long term? But of course you can temporarily become smaller. But was that sustainable? Was what you did to get there? Was that sustainable? Is it sustainable for pretty much every single human on Earth unsustainable for pretty much every human on the earth? Yes. Because studies have shown that dieting simply doesn't make a smaller and doesn't make us healthier. In fact, the opposite. So as we know, there's no reliable way to get fit in. But there are ways for you to get those feelings that you were searching for. When you were dieting, is there ways? Are there ways that you can think of to get those feelings that you were searching for when you were trying to make yourself smaller or wishing yourself smaller? Yes, increasing your self esteem will get you a lot of the feelings that you were searching for. And that is something that we can control. So why hold on to the unhelpful idea that being smaller is the best route for you to get those feelings that you were you know that those good feelings? Why is that why hold on to the idea that that is the best route for you. Why hold on to the fear that getting bigger means that the world is going to stop turning that there's going to be an announcement on a national newspaper to say that you've put on six pounds and call the police that there's this fat person roaming the streets. That's not gonna happen. And think about who benefits when you commit to holding on to this belief. Who benefits from fat people's continued oppression is people who sell a shit to make us not fat. And the people who sell a shirt are the people who are in power. Who is in power. rich, rich white. men in power, rich, white white people who is the epitome of a rich white man that I don't want to give my money to. I don't want to give any flux to Donald Trump.

So by holding on to this belief, you're supporting Donald Trump. Do you want to be doing? Oh, fuck. So, you know, it doesn't benefit you to hold on to this belief. So give it back to the people who, who've tried to convince you of this. So now let's talk about health. Okay. And the truth about health is that we as individuals really have, you know, a limited scope on you know, how much control we actually have over our health. And yes, of course, there are health promoting behaviors. But by focusing on obtaining this magical, unknown, free from disease or healthy status, that that's impossible to get to, we're causing ourselves stress, and stress and shame are known to affect our health negatively. And studies show this time and time again, a lot of health issues linked to people, people in bigger bodies, are actually caused by systematic systemic marginalization and oppression, and not from having more fat on your body. So if you really did care about your physical and mental health, then you'd stop conflating health and weight. And you'd work to dismantle that seriously unhelpful lie that you've been fed, that fat bodies are unhealthy. And you'd work to dismantle the systems that uphold those beliefs, which cause harm to fat people that cause harm to you. And we know that they cause harm. And so if you're holding on to that belief, you're supporting a system that harms you. So, so so so if you plug those holes of fear around health and fatness, you can then actually work on improving your body confidence and how you relate to food, right. So if you plug those holes, you can pull that water in. And you can begin to if health is important for you, you can work on your health in a non disordered way. And when you're working on your health in a non disordered way, and when I say working on your health may be engaging in healthful behaviors. And of course, you don't ever have to if you don't want to, it doesn't make your morally superior or inferior person if you are interested in health or not interested in health, both morally equivalent. So you can, you can approach health in a non disordered way because it a lot of times the way that we approach health is, you know, I have to go to the gym to work off that half a piece of dust I had yesterday and, and gym, the gym doesn't make you feel good, and what and, you know, berating ourselves and all that type of shit. And it's not sustainable. When we approach health from a weight neutral perspective, we're able to maintain behaviors that could support our health. So and that includes like being able to move your body in a way that is joyful versus something that is filled with anxiety. And of course, again, you don't have to move your body ever moving your body or not moving your body does not make you morally inferior, or superior, or not. Okay, so by letting go of these beliefs, you can be free and we want that right? That bucket can be filled to the brim with that sexy water. And you can carry on your life actually deep down feeling confident, instead of this, like surface level confidence that's built on, you know, but what if I put on weight? What if I get sick? But what if this what if they're, you know, this deep knowing that you are an okay person, and that your body is fine and not having to think about it all the time. So imagine in a year from now, a year from now, if today, you let go of those unhelpful beliefs. Where would you be and how far can you go once you plug those holes?

So I would love to continue this conversation in my free Facebook group. It's called fierce fatty friends and and I will link to it so you can head on over there. Continue to the discussion. And tell me in the comments, what fears of or negative self beliefs have you recognized that maybe have come up today that you've recognized that you need to work on and you need to be plugging up. So that your efforts of pouring that water in and not fruitless? Alright, I hope you enjoyed that and got some light bulb moments, then let's get into section two here. Which is talking about if you've not got to a place where you can love or even accept your body, what could be happening in your life? If you don't like your fat body, and why what you're doing is not working. The impact that higher body love can have on your life. Oh, I'm so pleased that I now have body love self esteem and and a feeling of just that I'm an okay person, no matter what it just makes like, everything is just a little bit better. And in some ways, like life is a lot better. And I don't constantly have to worry about like, oh my body my you know, what do people think of me? What do I look like all I look frumpy and blah, blah, blah. Anyway. And also, we talked about how to cut through the bullshit to successfully love your body. So that is our next section, reminder karma and over karma Nova fatty to face fatty friends, the Facebook group, where we have on a family party, we're all just waiting here for you. We're saying what's going on? Where is where are you waiting? The party is getting started with that. Yeah. So come join us. And let's get into this next section. Enjoy. Today, I want to talk about loving your fat body. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because I've been seeing a lot of discussion about this topic. And there are a lot of untruths, and myths about how to love your fat body. And there's a lot of simply just straight up bad information. And I want to cut through that bullshit for you today. And when I say cut through that bullshit, I don't want to put a bandaid on the issue, which is not helpful, right? If you're British, a plaster. Right, we want to take a step back and look at the root of what is going on and why we don't love our bodies. So first, I want to discuss where we're at, when we're talking about this, I don't love my body. Where are we at? And how does this lower confidence or lower self esteem manifest in people's lives? And so in the comments, give me a yes, if you resonate with any of these things, I'm going to say if you feel like this yourself, okay, so how low confidence confidence manifest is believing that your body isn't right to wear certain things. So saying like someone with my body can't wear a swimsuit, or a bikini or a mankini or a speedo, or a crop top. And that if you do then other people are going to be laughing or judging or thinking it's so inappropriate that someone who looks like you is wearing these clothes and it could be even just clothes that are just more colorful or or a shirt that has short sleeves versus long sleeves or a tarp that doesn't cover your bum or a tarp that is tighter on your belly and things like that.

So the belief that someone with your body shouldn't wear clothes that draw attention to themselves or a clothes that you want to wear and feel authentically you and you say don't because someone like me can't wear someone with my body can't wear those clothes. Another way that lower confidence manifest is not good. Being in pictures and so not being in pictures with your loved ones, or not being a part of memories, like, if you look back a lot of times, when when I had lower confidence, I just wouldn't want to be in the picture, or I'll be like, I'll take the picture. And if I wasn't that picture, I'd be like, let me look at the picture. And then as soon as I've been looking at only myself in the picture, and I'm like, No, we need another one knew that another one, because I hadn't, you know, done all the things to make me look as thin as humanly possible. And alongside that, not participating in the way that I wanted to participate. And so going to the beach, and not, you know, ripping off my T shirt and going splashing into the waves or playing and having fun, because I was worried about what other people thought of my body. And when we're not in pictures, we're being raised from memories, and years and years and years from now being like, looking back, and like, where was I, and that sucks, right? So it, it also could manifest. As you know, we all love lives. If you're on a dating app, worried that if you finally meet someone from a dating app, they're gonna be like, Oh, my God, they're so fat. We're so fatter than their pictures, and then not liking you because of that. Or if you have a partner, believing that your partner doesn't really find you attractive, and really would be happier with someone who was smaller. And on that note to thinking that when people do say, Oh, you look cute, or you're beautiful, I love you, or you're so handsome or wet or whatever. But they are saying that to be nice, not because you are actually cute, or whatever. They're just, they're just nice and nice people or they have to say it because you've dressed up or whatever. And you know, just thinking, you know, it's nice to hear that, but I don't believe it. And a lot of times I see people believing and I used to believe this, that certain things in life were just not meant for me. And things like going for a hike, or riding a bike or ziplining or riding a horse or whitewater rafting or jumping on a trampoline, the list goes on and on. And on. Of course, there are some things that people can't do for various reasons. But if you have told yourself that you can't do them, because if I go for a hike, I'm going to slow people down, and they're just going to get really annoyed. And it's going to be really embarrassing, because I'm going to be out of breath. And I'm going to have to take breaks and you know, my friends are just not going to understand they're going to leave me behind. You know, if you're saying that types of things to yourself. That is a manifestation of lower confidence. And finally, a big one is just feeling like you can't get there, you can't get to a place of higher confidence. Someone like you, it's not your mission or your destiny or it's not, you know, a part of your life that you can change around how you're feeling about yourself and interacting with people and interacting with the world makes a lie, you can. Okay, so now I'm going to talk about the three ways to experience the world as a confident fat person. And so most people know about, you know, following diverse bodies on Instagram and reading books and listening to podcasts. But there is a big issue with this.

It can be that you are not doing the work to up root, the problem and up root what really is going on. And so if we think about it, if we look at a garden, and the garden is full of weeds in the weeds represents our negative thoughts we have about ourselves by not getting to the root of the problem, what you're doing is you're just cut cutting off the tops of the of the weeds, and you're not pulling them out at the root. And what happens when you cut the tops off is temporarily it feels good, it looks good, you feel proud of yourself and accomplished. But in a few days or weeks or months, they're gonna grow back. And you have to do the same thing over and over and over and over again. And really you never get to that place where deep down, you know that you're good and you feel confident right? So we have to get rid of those weeds from the root. So those nasty weeds can Get out of here and never come back again. And having to constantly chop the heads off the weeds is exhausting, right? really exhausting. It's not mean, you can't maintain that, you know, no human has that, you know, endless capacity to fight negative thoughts. And at a certain point, you just think, oh, fuck it and just be like, the whole field can be weeds. You know, because it's too tiring, it's too tight, It's too tiring is not sustainable. So when you do dig out the root of your negative self beliefs, you can experience the world in these three ways. And these three ways. The first one is your mind. Okay, so confident people don't have these negative thoughts constantly popping up, that your body isn't okay, that their body isn't okay, that they don't look great, that they don't look good, they don't look acceptable, that they are undesirable, you know, these, these pervasive thoughts that they just keep coming up and up and up, and you're just like, God, go away, you know, like a, you know, a wasp is around your head, and you're just like, Oh, it's just so annoying, right? So confident people are not bombarded with these thoughts. And even if you don't have them, you know, 100 negative thoughts a day, even if even if you're only having one that has really still really impactful, negatively impactful for your mental health. And so, as a confident person, when you are no look in a mirror, walk past a mirror, instead of a thought being. Or, I should really be smaller or something negative. There's just, you know, neutrality, you just like, oh, there's my body. And sometimes you're like, oh, there's my body, oh, my God, I cubed and I look gorgeous, today, you're just not constantly reminded that you're not good, because these swords are coming into your head. And also, you're able to understand where these negative thoughts are coming from, you're able to understand what is potentially triggering for you. And you know, how to protect your mental health and our resilience, right? Because she's always gonna hit the fan things is that things are always going to happen that really shake you to your core. We're unconfident people, people with higher self esteem, are able to be like, I'm still worthy as a person no matter what. So the first one is, is your mind. The next one is the world. And so how you participate in the world. So as a confident person, you do things that you had previously told yourself that you shouldn't, or you had felt anxious about. So for example, proudly getting into pictures and just be like, take a picture of me, oh, my God, I mean, I'm gorgeous. And, you know, when when someone says, Do you want to look at it? Now? I'm just like, Yeah, cool. You know, we look good. Even if, you know, it was an unflattering, quote, unquote, unflattering image of me, I don't care, right? Because people in the world know what I look like. And that that means they know what I look like, when I'm looking the most, quote unquote, flattering, and they know what I look like, you know, when, you know, I'm just being a normal human being in the world. And a picture is not going to change their opinion of me.

And doing things like ordering clothes online that are daring, or, or things that you've been meaning or wanting to try. And when they arrive, putting them on and just being like, yes, and going out and walking the dog in your shorts, shorts and your crop top and just being you know, it's not being a thing and just finding joy in that type of thing. Or when you're dating, or when your partner says, when you're dating, or you have a long term partner, thinking to yourself, wow, they are so lucky that they get to be with me. Not Oh, my God, when are they going to dump me? Or when are they going to cheat on me? Or how often are they thinking about how ugly I am, which is what I was constantly thinking when I was in relationships, and had lower self esteem. Or I would think that people were with me because of my great personality and they would overlook my disgusting body. Not true. Okay, and so that was the second one and that is world and the third one is body. And so when you have high confidence, the way that you relate to your body is different. You do things like feed yourself, honoring your hunger. So instead of being hungry, say Oh, I should do things to try and denying my hunger, you will eat food strangely. You don't look at food as good and bad or food as the enemy. You're not letting disordered food thoughts dominate your brain all day long. And you're able to eat food that is delicious and eat food that makes you feel good and makes you feel vibrant. And you're able to take care of your health, in ways that feel good to you. You know that physical mental health are equally as important. And when you have higher self esteem, you're able to approach your body minus the disordered beliefs that you may have had around food around health around movement. And so you don't do things like having to make up for eating food by doing some brutal, brutal exercise regime, and move your body instead if you want to, but you don't have to, in a way that it feels good to you. versus, you know, I used to always go to the gym, and I fucking hated the gym, and I would go to the gym to try and make my body look a certain way. And it was so boring, I hated it. And I realized when I loved my body, and it wasn't sustainable, you know, I go to the gym for a little bit, and then be like, Fuck this, because it was boring, right. But now I'm in a place where I love myself, I'm able to do things that are fun, and not to lose weight. But because riding my bike is fun, you know, or dancing is fun, not because I ate food the day before, and you need to punish myself. Okay, and so that is, the third one is body. Now, if you are not in a place where you feel confident, your current strategy isn't working. And you need to change something, right. Or perhaps you don't even have a strategy. So you need to get one. And what I see a lot is people becoming overwhelmed with all the information about confidence and fat positivity. It's not that you're lacking information about how to love your body, you might not have been able to cut through the noise and through the bullshit and get laser focused on one thing, right? When you have, you know how to love your body, and then you've got a list of read these 1000 books, watch these million videos, or do you know, watch 70 hours or listen to 70 hours of a podcast or whatever? That's really overwhelming, right? And so, you know, humans are just like, I'm gonna have an app, right? And so it's not that it's there's a lack of information, it's that there's no strategy there. And picking one strategy, instead of doing like a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and not really going all in, and then not seeing results. And you know, you've tried this thing, and it's not worked. And then you blame yourself and you're like, Oh, well, I'm just not the type of person who is confident because I tried this thing once, and it didn't work. And did you, you know, go all in with it? Or was the strategy good, you know, it's not your fault. If you tried something and it didn't work, you have to get laser focused on one strategy and go all in. Okay.

So, I want to continue this discussion in my Facebook group, which is called first party friends. Everyone's welcome. I'll link below to the group. So you can go ahead and join it. And in the group, I want to start a discussion. And I want you to ask me any questions that you have in the comments. And I want you to tell me as well, where you are at with your confidence, and where you want to go. And what lightbulb moment did you have with me today? What thing really stood out for you? So it's kind of like a book club, you know, listen to this video. And then we're going to have a discussion about where your confidence is, where you want to go. And what light bulb moments did you get? And if you have any questions as well put it in there too. So first family friends, you can just search it on on Facebook or you can just click the link. So today we went over what could be happening in your life if you don't like your fat body. Why what you're doing is not working. The impact that higher body love can have on your life and how to cut through the bullshit to successfully love Your body. So make sure that you join my free Facebook group first party friends in the duration, so we can continue the conversation there. And thanks for hanging out for me today. Okay bye for our team.

EP34 Transcript

You're listening to the fierce Fatty podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And in this episode number 34, we're talking about the Constant Learner effect and how to avoid it. Let's do it.

I'm Vinny 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 with a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty Podcast Let's begin.

Hello, hello, fatty and welcome to this episode, I've got a special episode for you today, actually, I have made a series of videos that aim to bust through any limiting beliefs that you have any mistakes that you could be making that will stop you from feeling confident in your fat body. And I'm going to be sharing them over the podcast because I think that they're so important for you to hear. And today I'm going to be sharing two of them. And then next week's episode, I'm going to be sharing the final two of them. So you'll have all four of them. And they will help you understand if you're not at a place of body confidence. Why? And what you can do to fix it. Yay. Right? And at the end of each segments, I I mentioned my Facebook group, which is called first party friends. Why the fuck? I've not already told you about it. I think I've told you once, maybe. But I don't know why I do have been keeping telling you about it. Because you know, you might not have listened to that one episode. I'm silly. And it's important, right? Because those, this world is a fat phobic world. And on the internet, there's lots of diet, culture and bullshit and stuff. And my Facebook group is not bad. It's a safe space for fat people for people who are aligned with dismantling fat phobia and diet culture. And everyone's welcome. As long as you're not a knob head. So thinking your mind or your knob? Nope. Come on. Come on in. We've got rules, obviously not to be like, Hey, I'm so fat. And you're like a size zero, whatever, you know, different things like don't don't trigger other people. But yeah, come on in first party friends, you can just search it on Facebook, or Google, you probably find it on Google as well. But I'll also link to it into it in the show notes of the zoo. So kind of when do that. All right. So in the first section here, we are going to talk about now this is going to be weird. What The Devil Wears pride at Prada, the film can teach us about loving our fat body. So spoiler alert, I'm going to be to going over the synopsis of the film. And not saying it's a great film or anything, but it's just a great analogy example. One of those things of what we shouldn't do in certain circumstances. So if you haven't seen the film, and you're like, oh my god, it's on my list of things to see then skip forward to midway through and you'll get into the next section. But you know, it was made in 2006. So if you're planning on on watching it, then you've had 14 years and so I reveal the synopses you know, if you want to go watch it, watch it, but it's not a big deal if you've not seen it anyway. So I'm going to be in this section talking about the number one mistake that everyone makes when trying to love their body. And how this film can give us an incredible lesson on not on what not to do to get to a place of body love. And it's not what you think and why you need to plan your escape from diet culture with careful consideration. And finally, this three step essential steps to take to love your fat body. Okay, so

I'm going to pass it over to past Victoria from a couple of days ago, here we go. What we're going to talk about is what the Devil Wears Prada. At the film, The Devil Wears Prada, what that film can teach us about loving our fat body. Interesting. So I want you to think about that movie. Now, if you haven't seen the movie is based on a book. Let me give you a little bit of a synopsis. So the main character is this woman called Andy. And she is a recent graduate who wants to be a serious journalist. And she scoffs at the fashion industry and thinks it's, you know, just a bit vapid and silly. So for whatever reason, she gets an interview at a fashion magazine called runway, which is basically Vogue, for an assistant job to the editor. The editor is called Miranda Priestly, basically, Anna Wintour. And so she gets a job that many people are vying for. I don't know why I can't remember, because she was like, not a good candidate, theoretically. But I think that's why Miranda Priestly picked her anyway, that doesn't matter. So she, she starts a job, and it's awful. They say that she's really unfashionable. And what she's wearing isn't appropriate. The editor, Miranda Priestly is awful to her. And she doesn't fit in to the culture at all. But eventually, she starts changing. And she because she asked for help. And she becomes more fashionable. And she because she fits more into the runway, the runway model of what to be, and the runway culture. And how she does this as she, she steps over a colleague, to take an opportunity from that colleague. So basically, she's turned into the thing, the very thing that she laughter and she scuffed up before and what she hated from the beginning. And the thing that is made her life miserable. And she knew that this wasn't good for her before, but now she's in it, she doesn't really realize, and she's being abused by her boss, and her co worker, the one that she stepped over for this opportunity. Her name is Emily. And she is so dedicated. And she's so fashionable, and she does everything above and beyond. And she's just tossed away when she gets sick. And she can never measure up like poor Emily. So, in the end, Andy, she's in Paris at this moment, this fancy thing, fancy runway thing with Miranda Priestly, the editor, and he realizes what she's turned into. And she gets out of the limousine that she's in with Miranda Priestly. And she basically quits her job. And she throws her phone into a fountain and Paris and never looks back. And eventually, sometime in the future, it cuts to whenever in the future. She is she's got a new job at some place that she actually likes. So I shouldn't have said spoiler alert to begin with. But this movie is like 14 years old, I think. Anyway, so that's a synopsis of the Devil Wears Prada. And you might be thinking, Well, what's this got to do with loving your body? Well, let me tell you. The reason why I'm talking about the Devil Wears Prada is that it's a great analogy for the way that we go through our adventure of loving our fat body. And the each character kind of represents something in that adventure. So Miranda Priestly, the editor, the evil, you know, Anna winter character. She represents diet, culture and fat phobia. She seems glamorous and fabulous and what we should aspire to. But really, she's our oppressor, right? She's the villain and underneath it all, she's a bully. Someone who is cruel and unkind, and not actually someone we would want to associate with, or be friends with, or spend time with, right? Because there might be some fringe benefits of knowing her. But really, she's gonna make you feel like a big bag of shit. So Andy, the main character, the one that you know, has this transformation moment and then realizes what she's become and leaves.

So Matt, Andy, the main character, Andy is us, when we're still in the grips of diet, culture and fat phobia, we are trying to conform, right, we're trying to make Miranda Priestly, aka diet, culture and fat phobia happy by changing who we are. And we get abused by Miranda, and nothing we do is good enough. But we get a little bit of recognition. So in the film, Miranda will, you know, praise, eventually praised and, and, and, you know, that really fueled ally to give, keep going, because she's like, Oh, I'm gonna get the love and everything that I really want from this relationship. And she was never going to get that anyway, the same way, with diet culture, we're never actually going to get the things that we want, we might think that we want to have a smaller body and to be healthy, but really, we want acceptance and love and to, you know, feel good and all that type of stuff. And we're never gonna get that from diet culture and fat phobia, we're never gonna get that from Miranda Priestly. And so at the end of the so and Emily, Emily forgot about Emily. So Emily, the co worker, played like Emily Blunt, she is the devoted Dieter. So she's been doing it for years, she's been working for Miranda Priestly, you know, for more longer than anyone can tolerate because of the abuse that she experiences. And she's gained privilege because of her blind devotion, but it is causing her to break down and be sick. And then in the end, she is tossed aside for this, you know, new young shiny thing, which is Andy. And so all of those things that she was trying to get, she didn't get. And she's just tossed aside the moment that she showed any type of vulnerability, or any kind of real side of her personality. So at the end of the film, and the Lee was Miranda in Paris, and she's compelled to, because she's seen what she's become. And she throws away her phone and she walks off. And this is like what we do when we wake up to diet culture and fat phobia. We say fuck the hat. We're like, Oh, my God, what is going on? And we instead of throwing our phones into the fountain and powers, we like, throw our scales into the bin, and we unfollowed diet people. And we're like, oh, no, like, I can't do this anymore. And so we just have this feeling of this is not working, I can't do this. But same as Andy in the film, and he leaves. And she doesn't know what the next step is. She just knows she's passionate, and she needs to get out of there. This is wrong. This is doesn't align with her values. And so in the film, we see later that she has a job, we don't know how long it took for her to get a job. We don't know what happened that night in Paris, if you have to go to the hotel room and see Miranda Priestly. And it was awkward. And did she have to pay for a flight home? Because she left early? And did she go to the office to collect her stuff? And how did she explain to people when she was interviewing that she didn't have a job and so it's you know, we didn't get to see all of this, this difficult stuff that Andy had to face because she was passionate and, you know, followed her heart. So she didn't leave with a plan. And it would made it harder for harder for her. And that's just the way it goes sometimes, right? But it would have been a lot easier if she had planned and she knew what steps to take next. And if she had another job, what job lined up and you know, sometimes that's not always possible, but if she knew exactly what to do and where to go, and the same way it is for us, when we say fuck you to dieting, there's not a plan to follow, right? It's not like we're gonna say fuck you to dieting and then be like, Okay, now I need to do this, this, this, this, this and then I will love my body, you know, get another job basically, which is what happened to the film

The equivalent of loving our body. And so the thing that Andy had on her side is that she knew the goal. The next step was to get a job. up. But we, when we say fuck you to diet culture, we don't know what the next step is like, what? What do we do? We're kind of floundering. And it's very hard to do things if we don't know what the steps are to get there, right? So Andy knew, Okay, well, I need to write a resume again or CV, I need to go looking on the job boards, I need to maybe call some people I need to do you know, by an interview outfit, but we don't have those steps. When we say fuck you to dieting, and that's what I see a lot is people in this limbo of saying hello to diet culture, and fat phobia, but not at a place where they love the fat body and have healed their relationship with food. And that's not because they don't want to. And it's not because they're not trying the absolute opposite. And people try and do things on their own to try and get there. But you kind of like going blind, you know, walking without a map. And it's, it's a lot harder than it should be really. There's nothing for people to follow. And you know, when we're in that stage, we just don't know what to do. So I have created a framework to help you transition from that, throwing your phone in the fountain, aka saying fuck you to die culture and knowing that it doesn't work for you. And knowing that there is a different way to finding the new job, aka getting to a place of body love and food freedom. And this framework, it's it's called, it's nice and simple. And I'm going to share it with you right now. It's called the three step framework to love your fat body. Okay? So, because I've been through this, obviously, and I've seen, and I've helped loads of people get through this, I wanted to make it nice and simple. So that you can just follow this framework is laid out for you like, okay, right, your resume, by your interview outfit, whatever. And it's three steps to this. And it's even simpler is just three words. Okay, so the first word, the first step, step number one is explore. And so what explore is, is looking at why do you believe that your fat body is not okay? Why is it maybe that you can look at other fat bodies and say, well, they're beautiful, but then you look at your fat body, which is pretty much the same, and you say what mine isn't? Why is that? Why do you believe that? What are you not doing in your life? Because you believe that? And how are your current beliefs being supported. And so why this is important to do this is to what we're doing is we are looking at the house of our, our self esteem, our confidence. And we're looking at the foundations of our house. And so our houses have been built on unstable and rotten foundation foundations, right, because our core of our confidence and our self esteem and the belief around who we are. We believe that our bodies aren't good enough. We've been taught from a young age, and from media and all of the different things that we consume, that fat bodies are not okay, and that you need to dye it and you need to eat these things. And these things are good, and these things are bad. And we cannot build on top of shit foundations, because we know we've tried it in the past, we've tried these gimmicks to try and make ourselves feel better like dieting, like you know different things that you might have tried. And it just crumbles again because the foundations are not good. And once you've rebuilt those foundations and understood what was happening, you become like an expert in foundation making, and you can just go build loads of self esteem houses, but we can then build this new house of confidence, and it will last. So doing this is super important because it stops, stops you making the same mistakes over and over that derails your confidence. Or houses is going to be rock solid instead of you know, a little bit of wind blowing over like, you know, someone saying, You look bad on the internet or someone saying, do you really need to eat that and that big like core shaking versus up just being like,

Oh, well, you're a fat phobe. And we become really wise in this process. And we're able to build resilience for continuing through our lives. And when shit hits the fan, we are able to deal with it once we've looked at our foundations and rebuilt it, and you're able to build lasting confidence, but most people don't do this, right? Because so if you've not done this, and it makes sense, right? Most people don't do it because they don't know they need to. They don't have instructions or a roadmap or something. It's like if you went out to a house and someone said, Hey, dig up the foundations, then you're like, What the fuck? I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do that. Probably, I don't know, maybe you do. But, you know, most people be like, I don't know how to do that. And that seems hard. And it? Do we really need to do that. It seems unnecessary. Can't we just, you know, use up things. And you know, can we just paint the house or, you know, put some flowers out making it pretty, but that's not going to work. And so it can be really difficult to know where to start. And people just want to rush ahead, right? They want to get to the really, you know, juicy, you know, feel good stuff, and then be like, Oh my God, I feel like Lizzo I feel amazing. But you need to start with step number one, explore. Okay, so step number two is just one word, again, is unleash. Okay, so what unleash looks like is letting go of all of the diet bullshit, and feeling free around food and around your body, and wrangling those limiting negative self beliefs. So you're always going to have limiting negative self beliefs, if you are someone who likes to grow and become a better person. And there's a reason for that. So with unleash, you're able to step into the version of you, that you maybe in the past, have been too afraid to show the world. So you'll, you'll start being like, well, do I like this? Who am I really? What am I? How am I showing up in the world if I'm not trying to minimize myself, or please others, etc, etc. And also what unleashed looks like it's saying fuck you to beauty ideals, and really believing it versus just intellectually, knowing that beauty ideals and fat phobia and diet culture is fucked up, knowing it's fucked up and believing it for yourself. And with this, it's important to do this because what you're doing is you are able to learn how to connect you with yourself, like you had never been fucked up by diet, culture, and fat phobia. And you're able to do things like eat in a way that serves your workload that you want to do and play with your kids with on the beach, in your swimsuit, without thinking what other people are thinking and explore and achieve and do all of the things that you want to do. And stop trying to please everyone else, and to please yourself. And so what this really is all about is cultivating deep self compassion. And really what this whole thing is, is self compassion. And confidence is a side effect of self compassion. And that self compassion is knowing that no matter what, no matter what you look like, and what you do in the world, as long as you're not a massive bellend which most people aren't, that you're worthy. And even if you are a massive Belen, you're still a worthy human being. Right? So it's accepting yourself good, bad, all of it, right? Because we're never perfect people. And sometimes with confidence, it can be like, Well, I'm amazing. I'm just amazing. There's nothing wrong with me. And that's what some people get confused about that confidence is being a narcissist. And it's not it's just being self compassionate. So it's really important to do this because it lets go. It helps you let go of the fox that you've been giving about unimportant shit, right about whether should I be wearing a sleeveless top or not?

Should I let my fat arms be out in the world because people are going to be horrified and, and debating it and feeling hurt, but I'm hard to know what to do. But I don't want to. That's not important. Just, you know, share your fucking arms with the world. It doesn't matter, right? You're going to be able to express yourself and find self fulfillment, and no longer have negative or a disordered relationship with your body and with food. And what impact does that have on the world and the people around you not that we're doing this work for others, but it does if you have negative, low self esteem and if you think that you are disgusting, if you are relating to food in a way that is disordered, you are passing on that message and that legacy to those around you. And if you change that, and you have a positive relationship with your body and with food, and you wholeheartedly believe it for yourself that your body is okay, then to you pass it on to those around you. But most people don't do this, because their negative beliefs are so deeply ingrained that they think it's not possible to change. And they just don't know how right. So the third step is at devote, activate. And so what activate is, step number three activate is doing the scary shit is doing it. And this is where a lot of people fall down is that they will learn about this stuff, but they never actually do this stuff. And where confident confidence really comes from is from doing the stuff not just learning about it. So inactivate, you will become an expert at living your life authentically and with joy and achieving things and doing things that you previously never thought was possible. And have the ability to weather any, any storm at home. So I want you to think about my like a mountain self love mountain, okay. And you want to climb this mountain of self love. So the ultimate test for your newfound confidence is to be able to climb this self love mountain, but you can't do that. So if someone just said go climb a mountain. Unless you're already a mountaineer, you'd be like, what, how quiet. But once you've done it a few times when someone's has, has guided you and showed you the equipment and said, Don't watch out for that, that hole over there, you might fall into a crevasse or whatever, you were then able to do it yourself, right. And so it's important to do this so that you can build confidence and you can climb that mountain. And the first, who knows how many times you're going to need a guide, and you're going to need help, and you're going to need support and people cheering you on. But eventually, you can do it yourself. And eventually you'll be the one that's cheering other people on. And so you can't learn how to climb a mountain by reading a book, you have to do it. And so that's why this stage is so important. And you're not always gonna need help and reassurance from other people. This is making you self sufficient in the process of feeling like you're a worthy person and you have you know that your body is okay. And confidence will just become a part of who you are. You just won't have to think about it that much. You'll just be like, Yeah, you know, I'm fine. It's just no big deal. Right? And you're never going to be like, Oh, should I lose weight? I think I might try another die. You never know. Like, you just won't be a part of what your brain is saying to you. Right? But most people don't do this. Because how? How do you do confident things? If you don't feel confident, right? It's a catch 22? How are you meant to do confidence things if you're not confident? Well, when I get people say when I feel more confident, I'll do that thing.

It's not gonna happen, or you have to do the thing to get the confidence. And people don't do this because they don't have a system in place.

So that they know if I do this, and this and this, then I'm going to be able to feel like I can do that. And then I'm going to do it and it's going to be great. And even if I think I don't, I can't do it, then I'm going to do it anyway. Because I know that if I follow these steps, and I will get there, and they believe that they can get there. And a reason why people don't do this as well is is it's scary. It's scary, especially doing it alone, especially doing this work. When you're surrounded by people in your life who were like, should you eat that? You should really lose weight and really make fucks with you like should I fish? Should I be loving my body? Or should I listen to the people around me who are telling me that? You know, it's disgusting to be fat or whatever. So these are the three steps. Number one, explore. Number two, unleash. And number three, activate. So follow those three steps that three step framework. And you won't have to be like Andy, in The Devil Wears Prada, floundering and not knowing what to do and how to get there, you will have a plan, you will have a step by step process. And you won't have to be like so many other people who are stuck in this limbo land of not knowing how to get there to get to a place where they don't feel disordered around food and get to a place where they don't feel shit about their body, or even get to a place where you just don't have to think about your body right, because that's boring. And let's continue this call conversation in my free Facebook group. And it's called first fatty friends, obviously, we have a community of fatty friends in there. So I'll put the link below for you to join. And let's continue this conversation. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed that. Now we have got the second section, which is about the Constant Learner effect, what the heck is a Constant Learner effect? What don't you worry, I'm going to explain it in this next section. So what it is and why you need to avoid it at all costs, and why your potential current strategy is actually actually lowering your body confidence. And we're also going to be talking about the counterintuitive thing that you should be doing instead. And finally, three questions to ask yourself to determine if you've fallen into the Constant Learner effect. And again, a reminder to go on over to my free group, Facebook group, first party friends, and have a family party on my amazing. Okay, so let's get into this next section about the Constant Learner effect enjoy. So in today's video, I wanted to talk about something, some things something that people who were struggling with their confidence do that they might not realize, actually lowers their confidence in AD vertically. And so I made this mistake for years. And I want to tell you about it so that others don't make the same mistake that I did, that actually helped lower my confidence. And so what we're talking about is the Constant Learner effect. Now, if you Google that nothing's gonna come up. Well, I don't think so. Because it's something that I just made up. And what it is, is constantly learning. Now, constantly learning about a topic could look like reading loads of books, following those people on Instagram, listening to multiple hours of podcasts, but not taking action. Now those things on their own, they're great, right, and, of course, educate yourself. But when you don't take action, then it can be very damaging to your self esteem. Now, this is why you don't feel confident or whoever doesn't feel confident. And there's a thing that they want to do. Now, they learn about it, and they read about it, and they listen to people talking about it. And but they never do it. And because they don't do it, they're reinforcing the idea that they can't do it. And the longer time passes where they don't do it, the more that belief that they can't do it, is reinforced. And so it's like this constant feedback loop of, I don't think I can do it, I'm not doing it too, therefore I can't do it, I don't think I can do it, I'm not doing it, therefore I can't do it.

And so a lot of people get into this, this cycle. And it the longer that you're in it, the harder it is to break free. So it's normal to do this to be in this if you are in this, this is not a failure on your part. Because in taking action is really fucking scary, especially if the thing that you're trying to do is something that you are nervous about, and you're something that your brain is telling you that you can't do, then of course you're not going to and of course learning about a topic is going to feel a lot more accessible versus doing the scary shit. So it's totally normal if you're doing this and it's totally understandable. So this this, this action, this constant learning, the Constant Learner for act. It's like, say if you wanted to learn how to swim, and you read a book, and that's how you were learning how to swim, were you reading books, you were watching videos, you're listening to podcast, you were following swimmers on Instagram, and you weren't getting into the water. This is what it's like, right, because of what was scary and what was deep and dark. And, you know, you could drown. And there might be animals that might touch your fee and all that type of stuff. I'm a little bit scared of the deep sea. And so you're you'll never build confidence to be a good swimmer. Unless you get into the water even if the first time you're really scared. So I actually this swimming analogy I was in when I was a kid, the we had swimming school swimming lessons at school, we didn't have a swimming pool at our school, but we would get a bus and we'd go to the city's pool, and we'd go and swim. And I was in the lowest group. My, my family was poor, and we didn't have the money to go swimming. And I had never learned how to swim. And I was like, maybe eight years old by this time. So I was in the lowest group like the kids that can't swim. And I would always look at the kids in the other groups and the kids who were the most skilled would jumping off the diving board. And I would be like, No fucking way. Not only did it mean that I'd have to get into the big people pool where it didn't work. It wasn't warm, you know how like the kids pool is really warm. One time I went into the adult pool, and I was like, oh, fuck this shit. No, no, no, it would mean jumping into the deep end. And that looked terrifying. And so I was like, No, I can't do that. No way. And sidenote, this is not related. But I never really progressed that much with swimming, because we were poor. And so I had a swimming costume that came from a secondhand store, a charity shop, a thrift store. And it had lost all of its elastic, and it had a zip down the front. And the zip was totally loose. So much so that as soon as I started to begin swimming, the thing would unzip come off my shoulders. And I'd be basically topless in this pool as an eight year old. And so I would never want to swim properly or swim at any type of speed. Not that I was going at any speed. Because the moment I did start moving my arms, I would lose my swimsuit. And I was too shy to say to anyone like oh yeah, I've got a faulty swimsuit. I wouldn't say to my mom, I you know, I was just like, this is just the way it is. So I didn't progress for a long time because of that. But then eventually I did get another swimming suit, another secondhand thing, but it was just, you know, no zipping it. And it had elastic, but unfortunately, it had the spots on in the same colors of this famous in the UK at the time, there was this thing called Mr blobby, which was like this, this person dressed in a suit and it was like blood by Robert Bobby. And so the kids would call me Mrs. Bobby. So yeah, lots of trauma, around swimming. But anyway,

years later, I got into swimming, and I loved swimming. But there was one thing that I always wanted to do, which I was like, I'm Tuesday I can't do it, I can't do it, which was diving, but I really was it was just like in the back of my mind. And so eventually what I did was my partner at the time, he was great at diving like we would go to the lakes and he would just dive in like some sort of a Olympic athlete. And I was like, I want to try it. But I was I was so scared. Oh my gosh, if you've never dove into a body of water then you will know this feeling and even if you're trying to do something in regards to your confidence, that kind of feeling of dread of standing on the edge of like there was a dock at the lake and looking into that deep dark water and knowing that I was going to have to dive in headfirst literally was terrifying and the amount of times I was like almost hooked no and then just like jumping in like without diving and being like oh next time it took you know ages but the first time I jumped in just you know not headfirst then I got a little bit of confidence and a little bit more and I had my then partner there with me to say oh, you're not you know, you need to put your head down more you need to straighten your arms more you need to your bum needs to be this way or that way and every time he was watching what I was doing and helping me now if I didn't have him to help me what I might have done which you know, accidentally I did was belly flop in there and I'm Imagine if I was like, I'm just gonna learn how to dive and I just went in. And then I just did a big belly flop. And I was like, Oh my God, that hurts so much. And I learned that diving is scary and it hurts and not to do it again. And it will just have reinforced my belief that I couldn't dive and diving was painful. And just someone like me couldn't dive. But because I had an expert there with me, to help me to encourage me to say, yeah, that you're so close, oh, my gosh, he almost did it. And then after, like, I remember leaving the lake, and him like drawing a picture of what my body was doing when I was trying to make it get into the pool. And so then I took his feedback. And then next time we went to the pool, I tried again. And eventually, I got to a place where I could kind of dive. It wasn't perfect. Like, I didn't look like Pamela Anderson diving in there, like with perfect, you know, I look more like, Oh, she's getting she's getting in there. But that's the thing is, is you need someone who is going to help you along. And so that you don't do things like a big belly flop. And so you don't do things like say, Okay, I'm gonna go to the very highest diving board and jump from there and traumatize yourself and take those smaller steps, and have people there encouraging you, and helping you and giving you feedback. There are three questions that I want you to ask yourself to see if you are falling into this Constant Learner effect trap. And so these three questions will help you think like, am I am I just kind of learning and not doing? Am I falling into that trap? Because remember, it's like learning how to swim by reading a book, you actually have to get in there. So the first question is, are there any activities you won't do? Because of a story you have told yourself about your body? So let me repeat that? No, are there any activities you won't do? Because of a story you have told yourself about your body? Now? If there is, if there are any things that you're not doing any activities that you're not doing, then you need to follow a framework and take action. Right? You need to have that person there who's like, yes, you're doing it helping you. And you need to jump in and not from a top board. Make it easy for yourself from the from the from the just from the side. Okay, next next question. Question number two, would you wear anything that you want, or express yourself in any way that you want? Without being like, oh my god, this is so awful, I hate it and it being a big deal. So would you wear anything you want or expect to express yourself in any way you want, without feeling really uncomfortable and stressed about it? If you wouldn't, then there's work that you need to do. And you need to follow a framework and take action.

Because what action is going to do is going to help you get to a place where you're like, I don't fucking care. Well, how where am I split crotch panties and peep the whole bra and feel amazing. Right. Okay, third question. Would you set a boundary with a fat phobe? Would you set a boundary with a fat phobe? So like your mom or your sister or some some person at work is like, oh, that that that person is really unattractive? Or oh, I shouldn't be? Oh, my God, I had like the piece of dust yesterday, I must, you know, work out for 17 years to work off the calories. Or someone just saying shit that makes you feel bad or someone putting you down? Would you say, Hey, that's not okay. We don't talk about that stuff around me. Now, you don't have to be doing this with everyone. You know, it's not like would you do this with everyone? Because not every situation means that you're going to set a boundary. But would you in any situation, be able to set a boundary with someone who was a fat phobe? If you wouldn't, then there is work that you need to do. And you need to follow a framework and take action. Right. So there are some questions you can ask yourself to see if you're in that. That Constant Learner effect or if you have been taking action because you know what action does it Is dissolves fear. And it changes that feedback loop loop into something positive because you take action, you think, oh my god, I did it, I might have been shitting my pants with fear, but I think I can do it again. And then you do it again. And you might do it a little bit harder. And next thing you know, you're diving off the top board and you're like in the Olympics for diving or whatever. Not that you have to dive like you know, it's my analogy. Okay, so I want to continue this discussion in my Facebook group, I've got a free Facebook group. It's called affairs fatty friends, because I like a little bit of alliteration. I'm going to link to it below. And I want to have this discussion about this video and a chance for you to ask me any questions about what we're talking about today. So in the, in my Facebook group, answer these questions. So share how you answered those three questions. And so the three questions were Are there any activities you won't do because of a story you've told yourself about your body? Would you wear anything you want or express yourself in any way you want? And would you set a boundary with a fat phobe to answer those questions? And share your share your answers with with me and with the group? And there's no shame like if you like, No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't set a boundary with the fat fo but I just I don't know what to say that's fine. Like, that was me for years and years and years. Like I was probably probably the fat folk who was shaming people, right? So there's no shame of wherever you're at in your journey. It's all completely normal and nothing to to feel bad about. So and what light bulb moment did you have from this video? Okay, so Yeah, talk about that in the Facebook group.

EP33 Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And in this episode, we're talking about how fat phobia stemmed from racism. Let's do it.

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 first fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. Society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money, and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop a negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast. Let's begin.

Hello, fatty, welcome to today's episode. I'm so pleased that you're choosing to hang out with me today with all of the other things that you could be doing, you've chosen to have some fat goodness in your life. So thank you. Now with all that's been going on with going on in the world, I wanted to make this episode. And also, I wanted to explicitly state my support for Black Lives Matter. And say that first fatty, me, we are anti racist, I'm anti racist. Black bodies have been seen as the enemy for hundreds of years. And that's because we live in a white supremacist society, a society that I as a white person benefits from every single day. And murder of black people isn't something surprising or new to the black community. And it's only just now that some white people are beginning to take it seriously and beginning to understand their impact on black people and black communities. And that includes myself. So some things I wanted to share with you some of the things that I'm doing to try and be a better ally. So some of the things I'm currently doing, I'm not sharing any content about my business on my my channel. So over over email or over social media, I'm not sharing stuff about my business. And instead, I'm sharing content that is created by black people, and about racism. I have donated to Black Lives Matter Vancouver, which is my local chapter of Black Lives Matter. I've been educating myself and listening and learning. I yesterday listened to a couple of episodes of a podcast called 1619. And I had discussion with a loved one about it is it's really good, a really good podcast, I'm gonna link to it. In the show notes. I have. I've also found a resource with writing prompts that's going to help me unpack my bias around race. And this was created by Lisa, Renee Hall. Everything I'm talking about, I'm going to link in in the show notes.

So that you can do it too. So some of the questions in Lisa's writing prompts, things like what what are your first memories of seeing a black person? Did your parents talk to you about race and, and things like that and it really gets you think about your your biases, and we all have biases, if you're a white person and you live on planet Earth, you're living in a white supremacist society, and you would have picked up biases along the way that you have yet to discover. A lot of us, myself included, have felt like I'm not racist. And if I see racism, I call it out and that type of thing. But what am I doing to be actively anti racist, and to continually work on how I have yet to discover what I'm biased against, right? This the same stuff that we're doing with fat phobia, to recognize that we do have bias. And it's our job. Now that we know that to try and excavate it from our lives. So another thing is, it's a, it's been a policy in my business for a few years now to when I create something like, for example, a summit or any type of virtual event, that I have a minimum of 50% of the speakers be people of color. And also when I'm invited to speak somewhere, I want to make sure that there are people of color which are not just invited in a tokenistic way. And in many times, I've said, No, thank you to things because I look at the lineup, and it's just white, white, white, white people. And I say, Come back to me when you have people of color in this lineup, because I'm not taking the space of someone, a person of color, a person of color. So I don't need to be cranking congratulated for that, or given a cookie. That's like a basic thing that I could do. But I haven't extended this to my business in regards to the systems that I use, the tools that I use, for example, the software and stuff. So are the companies that I am using and giving money to, are they actively anti racist. And up until now, it's been kind of hard to tell. So some things I've done in the past is I would look at a company's like, website and see the pictures that they're using. Is it just white people? Is it just thin people and look at the people who work there, if they if I can find those images? And I have in the past called out companies and said, Hey, I've noticed that it's just loads of white men working here. Do you have any people of color do you have any women? Companies don't like that when I when I've done that. Anyway, so I, I've done that a little bit. But I got lazy in looking at all of the other different types of software that I use in the things that I use in my business. And so I'm going to do that I'm not going to give my money to companies who cannot come out, especially right now, where everyone is stating whether they are anti racist, or if they're like, all lives matter, or white lives matter or some other bullshit. And so if they can't, at this time, say, black lives matter, then they're not going to get my money. So some of the tools that you can help to educate yourself, yourself. And I'm going to be using to educate myself. I'm going to link below, but I've picked out a TEDx talk for you. That podcast that I mentioned before is called 1619. And it's about how slavery transformed America. And 6019 is when the first group of about 20 black people were traded into slavery in what was would become America. And it's very interesting. So check that out. Because I've also got a anti resource anti racist racism resource guide for white people. So you can click on that and pick one thing that you can do. I've also got 75 Things white people can do for racial justice.

And because because it's there's so many different things that that that we can do. And there's a lot of information about read this, read this do this. I want to give you these a handful of resources that you can just like to begin with, watch one video, listen to one podcast, read one article. don't donate to one place. And so if you're financially able, we've got a list of vetted and updated bail funds and so hat tip to Reagan chest Dane who shared this and so that's another thing we have to be cognizant of is a lot of links to share to donate. And sometimes we're not sure if these are you know, vetted and and legitimate places or if it's white people saying give me my money, give me your money and and using it for nefarious things. Okay, so, like I am going to continue to work on my bias and work on How I haven't been doing enough. And I want to say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, for not using my privilege, and I want to do better, and I will do better. And I will continue to educate myself and share the message, that it's not okay to be racist, obviously, and dig out my own biases that I absolutely 100% have. But yet, you know, haven't discovered. And this is a reminder, because I think most of my listeners, you're probably liberal, obviously, if you're listening to this podcast, but to recognize even if you're liberal, and you identify as someone who's not racist, what are you doing to be anti racist? So that is, there's my mistake of not working to be actively anti racist. Okay, so that is why today I wanted to this was, this is a topic that was on my mind, but I felt that I didn't know enough about it. And so I've done a lot of research about fat phobia and racism. Now. I've always known that fat phobia intersects with racism. And the fear of black bodies, has translated into fat phobia, but I really wanted to dig into the history of it. And I want to share that with you today. And so I'm going to be sharing a lot of Sabrina strings work. And Sabrina has a book called fearing the black body, the racial origins of fat phobia. And she's got other other writings that she's done as well. She recently did a blog on what is it called? It's not, quote unquote, obesity, it's slavery. We know why COVID-19 is killing so many black people. And so basically, it's not because they're fat, it's because bias and racism, so I'll link to that one as well. It's gonna be like 50,000 Links in today's show notes, but that's okay. I am sure that you're interested in this stuff as much as I am. Okay, so, the racist origins of fat phobia. I'm going to be quoting a lot from Sabrina. So that we're using the words of a black person who is an expert in this. So Sabrina says in my book fair in the black body, the racial origins of fat phobia, I describe how fat phobia in the West finds its roots in anti blackness. Since at least the 18th century, white philosophers and race scientists had been convinced that black people were excessively quote unquote sensual. black Africans, they claimed were addicted to gratifying their sexual and oral appetites. As a result, they asserted black people tended to be too fat. And so I'm going to give you a quote from a lock a lock is amazing. Go find a lock on Instagram, a lock in in response to reading Sabrina's book.

This was a lock summary. Most often we think of race as skin color, but European theories, theorists initially began to define race by facial attractiveness and body size. In order to perpetuate the racist myth myth that white people were superior to Black people. These thinkers asserted that black people were inherently fatter than white people are raising the variation of sizes amongst white people and black people. Women's bodies were and continue to be the battleground for proving racial difference. Despite black women having long being idolized across Europe. They will assume that they will soon shifted from ascetic counterparts to counterpoints for white women. White women had to define their beauty against black women. Maintaining thinness was about the pursuit of Western rationalism, as experts maintain that fatness stifled one's ability to think clearly fatness, a state of being which at various times has been seen as a mark of beauty became associated with racial failure. White women in particular were tasked with managing their size as a way to preserve the integrity of the race. So basically, so some of the things that a lock has has said there about Um, how black women were idolized was because at the time, do you remember? Not what you remember when do you remember in the 18th century when you were like 300 years ago, but the, the, you know, the the bustles that that women would have at the back of their skirts, and they'd have a big, you know, they'd have something in there too, to make their bum look bigger. And so when they saw black bodies, and they saw some black bodies had bigger bums, they were like, Well, how did they get them naturally when we have flat bums, and so they, they were idolized, but that was a temporary thing. And also, we have this this myth that gets keeps getting perpetuated about how fat bodies used to be idolized throughout history. And that's not really true. Slightly, very slightly chubby bodies at some periods within our history have been, have been represented as an idea of beauty. So you know, the idea like a Rubenesque body? Well, if you look at artwork from hundreds of years ago, and these bodies that we claim to be fat bodies, they're not actually fat. They're pretty thin and pretty white. And they might have like, a little bit of cellulite. And, you know, they, they probably like, I don't know, a size eight or something or a size 10 in the UK. They're pretty small. They're definitely not fat. And so and we're like, oh, you know, we're remembering like it before When fat bodies were, were celebrated. That's never been the case. Actual fat bodies have there's not much evidence to support that. Historically, fat bodies were ever celebrated. And I'm talking about fat fat, not, you know, slightly curvy people. You know, like that, you know? Who's that white actress? Can't remember she did one way she's like, she she bent over. She did a stat that she copied a statue and being like, oh my god, I'm just like a statue and she's like a thin white woman with a tiny little bit of rolls. I feel like I named Amy. Amy. Oh, God. You were gonna be shouting at me wrong me. Her name is this. But she's American, thin white actress who has kind of her brand is like harm kind of fat and ugly, but she's neither. Okay, so this is from the BBC.

So I want to tell you about a woman whose name was sarchi, also known as Sarah Baartman. So this is from the BBC. Two century goes two centuries ago, Sarah Baartman, died after years spent in European freak shows. Sarah Baartman died on the 29th of December 18 15. But her exhibition continued. Her brain skeleton and sexual organs remained on display in a Paris museum until 78 until 1974. Her remains weren't repatriated and buried until 2002. brought to Europe seemingly on false pretenses by a British doctor, stage name the hot and taut Venus, she was paraded around freak shows in London and Paris with crowds invited to look at her large buttocks. Today, she is seen as many as the epitome of colonial exploitation and racism, of the radical ridicule and commodification of black people. So we're going to learn more about Sarki Bartman and how basically she was brought over from South Africa under the like this BBC article says under false pretense prints pretenses basically what we think now is that she was enslaved and she was taken to the UK to to England and then to France to be put on display as you know, look at this black woman, look at her body. Isn't it strange, isn't it animalistic? You know, a freak show. She was she was in. And so Sabrina strings writes about this in a post for bust. This is a really great article, go check it out. I also learned about sarchi in a YouTube video and then there's BBC article. But Sabrina she looks at the intersection of racism and fatness. And so what Sabrina says is, quote, a slave from Cape Town Bartman was the human property of the British entrepreneur, Alexander Dunlop. It was Dunlops idea that she'd be brought to Europe and exhibited for lurid delight. Exhibit goers, both the curious and the lecherous, would encounter her in a small enclosure. On a typical night, Bartman would be adorned with jewels and garments that would, that had been poorly curated to represent the raiment of her tribe tribe. The coin, also referred to by Westerners as the hot and hot, she, she'd emerge from a dark corner wielding a spear. Then she'd slowly remove her coat, allowing it to dangle coquettishly from one shoulder to give the crowd a moment to take in her undulating curves. Her thick, five soft arms and rounded belly were all major drawers, but it was her general return to the return to duty and jetting backside that brought throngs of spectators. It was these qualities that made Bartman an archetype of black femininity in the popular imagination. They were also what many believed proved racial scientific claims of African Bob Barbati barbarity Batmans, international fame popularized an idea that had been percolating since the 1700s, that black women will constitutionally fix it. And that war, and that this was evidence of their savagery. So the 18th century, it was the height of the slave trade. And white people were exploring the idea of quote, unquote, race science is bullshit, basically racist, and pointing out racial differences. And so it was argued by these race scientists that black people were sensuous, and they were sexual. And they were a step between white people and animals, and their bodies were evidence for this.

And these race scientists and philosophers said that black people indulged in animalistic things. So they said, quote, food and fornication. And so with these these studies, things started getting written down and put it into publications. And so going on with what Sabrina says, quote, according to Buffon, so Buffon was a philosopher of you know, this race science bullshit. According to Buffon, Sub Saharan Africans, especially were unable to were able to remain well fed with little effort, given the local climate and their lush green surroundings. The result was that they were tall and plump, but simple and stupid, and in and quiet. And so in 1771, John Baptiste paella Romain wrote in an encyclopedia, it's called encyclopedia, a systematic Dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts. And this John Pat Baptists fellow wrote, Africans were and this is quoting from Sabrina Africans were described as having a potion for pleasure that makes them fairly unfit for hard labor. Since they were they are generally generally lazy, cowardly, and very fond of gluttony. So this evidence quote unquote, evidence is building and building to say that fat so that black people are fat, because they are gluttonous and because they are lazy and because they are animalistic racism. Hello. And this depiction of black bodies continues, and it was reported that quote, African men incited their women to grow to the size of cells in what was described as an art of fattening and so, and think about your own ideas about you know, like, remember when tests Holliday said she was on a photo shoot, shoot, and there was like this, this scandal around, a reporter heard her say, oh, black men love me. And that stereotype, and that's obviously racist. And that stereotype that all black men love fat women like that is like, where does that come from? Where does you know? Hello, like 1771 this is the shit that they're saying that black men, African men want their women to grow to the size of cells. And so this these types of biases come from hundreds of years ago, and they've just been perpetuated and seen as fact. So by the 19th century, it was taken as fact that black people were gluttonous and lazy. And their bodies were used as evidence of this, and particularly women's bodies. And they were said to grow to a quote, unwieldly size. So Sabrina writes, in his own natural history of mankind, but it was written in French. Natural history of mankind. Vieri wrote that hotton Top Women, and that's where sarchi came from she from the KhoiKhoi tribe. Western is called hotton Top hudon Top Women developed protruding buttocks and bellies that push out, intensifying the link between blackness and animate and an animal animal at some, like words are hard, which had been the aim of race scientists since at least Buffon very changed that hot and charged that hot and top women's buttocks resembled those are four legged creatures, and that they get so large, they'd need to be supported with a small cart, like a domesticated animal. It's just, yeah. So race scientists, really successfully linked fatness and to blackness, and thinness to whiteness.

And so the beauty ideals were we don't want to we as white people don't want to look like the savage black people who have fat bodies because they gluttonous, the animalistic, they, they're just interested in fornication and food, and they're lazy. And so how know we don't want to be looking like them. And so we want to look like what white people look like, which is thin, which is not true, because of course, there were thin white, fat white people and thin black people. You know, there's diversity of bodies, there were a diversity of bodies then. So, quote, In God in God's lady's book, the most popular women's magazine of the 19th century, an 1830 article by a socialite named Lee hunt, describe the relationship between over eating femininity and race, reminding the gentle Anglo Saxon Saxon reader that women who want to preserve their looks, must never eat too much. According to hunt, no lady in America, my American high society could cope. Two could hope to maintain her esteem while corpulent only in Africa, could a fat woman find her stride? Since it was rumored that on the continent, no lady can be charming under 21 Stone, or nearly 300 pounds. And so it began becoming a rule that to be feminine and to be nice and lovely. You have to be thin, not like those black people. And some feminists at the time. Were not happy about this, and they recognize this as a distraction. And they saw the way that thin bodies were being represented in newspapers, and would write in and say, Why you depicting thin bodies as the way to be, and they were very, like, you know, trying to get thin is is not going to keep you robust to fight against patriarchy. And it's, it's just a distraction from the important work we're doing with feminism. But of course, feminists notoriously racist as well. So but some, some who were abolitionists. So soon enough, the origins of fat phobia were lost. And it was just taken as this inherent thing, but thin bodies were better than fat bodies, and then attributed to health. And so now it is racism is disguised. As you know, well, it's just you know, I just find thin bodies more attractive and it's just not healthy to be that way. And that is a wonderful way to describe to disguise racism to the point where a lot of people don't even know that how it stemmed from racism. So, quote, The thin ideal, like other physical ideals, oppresses people, often women by compelling them to confer form to an arbitrary body standard. But gender wasn't the only or even the primary organ organizing principle in the disciplinary force that is the slender aesthetic. The impetus for the ideal was to avoid the unseemly association with an adiposity that had been deemed black. The fear of the imagined fat black woman was created by racial ideologies that have been used for almost 300 years to both degrade black women and discipline white women. anti blackness is the Forgotten rationale, but underload underlies both thin privilege and fat stigma. So, so my quotes there were from Sabrina's Sabrina strings article, the racist origins of fat phobia, and I encourage you to go check that out. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes with 50,000 other links.

So. So Sarah Sarki Bartman her story, you can learn more about her story, but basically, she, it's, it's Yeah, so basically, she was there exhibited, and people were like, Oh, my gosh, you know, look at this, this black body. And then in the evening, wealthy patrons had her around her house so that they could touch her. And she was probably sexually assaulted. And not everyone in the society at that time, thought that this was okay. So the, so Britain had stopped the slave trade. So they'd stopped trading slaves bringing slaves into the country. Sorry, enslaved people. They had stopped bringing enslaved people into the country, but there were still enslaved people in Britain. Like, they hadn't freed enslaved people. And so, so that was the climate. So some people were like, You can't do this. Basically, you have enslaved sarchi. And that's not okay. And you are parading her around as this freak show. And so the, the men who brought her in, were taken to court and charges were withdrawn. But then they brought in Sarki as a evidence to show she was there under her free will. And I, she didn't speak English, I'm pretty sure that they said that they had an agreement written written a written agreement with sarchi. But there's no evidence of this, obviously, because they probably just enslaved her and it was awful. And so eventually, she was, I don't know if she was sold to a French person or she was given to a French person. But so Aki eventually died of alcoholism. And, and then, like we like in the BBC article. The exhibition didn't stop there. So she died in 1815. But what The the person who? Who the French guy, he took her body. And so he had asked her, show me your genitals and and she said no. And she refused. And so when she died, the first thing he did was was to cut out her genitals to put them on display. He did a plaster cast of her whole body. He took out her brain and cut other things off her. And then he took her skeleton. And it was in display in this Parisien new museum until 1974. So people would come and see this plaster cast of sarchi. And we look at her skeleton as like, oh, wow, look at the black body. Isn't it strange? And isn't it? So? You know, look at her genitals isn't that you know, showing how sensual and how animalistic these black people are. So South Africa, they demanded for her return her remains to be returned, and this prison machine was like, Well, I don't think we should give them back to you. Because then you know, you're going to start demanding all of the stuff that we stole from you. And so all this is a problem. And it wasn't until 2002 that they got her remains back. And so she was buried in an area that, that people think that she might have been from related to the KhoiKhoi tribe. And so finally, she got some, you know, piece from being looked at, like this and, and whatnot. So, that is the story of how fatphobia stemmed from racism. And there's a lot more to it.

But this is a very kind of, you know, Coles notes, is that what you say Coles notes, American, so people from the USA, you know, overview of that, so go and get Sabrina strings book fairing, the black body the racial origins of fat phobia. And also, Sabrina has been on many podcasts. And so clearly, you're a podcast listener to listen to. So go and check her out the podcasts to learn more. And as well on the on the subject of racism, if you're a white person, just want to point out that in this work that we are going to continue to do to be anti racist. You're going to make mistakes, and I'm going to make mistakes. Like even in this episode, I didn't use the word enslaved. And I caught myself. But that is not a reason to not try and feeling uncomfortable about this stuff. And not knowing everything is not a reason to try and do better. So So join me in trying to do better and trying to dismantle our own racist beliefs and our own biases that we have in our beautiful brains. I was watching this video by I can't remember who. Anyway, it was about how if someone says you're racist, you're like, No, I'm not. Because what you hear is, you're a bad person. And our identities is that we're, we're, we're kind people and we're empathetic. And we we try and do good in the world and all that type of stuff. And so when you hear that, you're racist, it doesn't align with your identity of trying to be a good, you know, liberal person. But that is not what being racist is. It's, you know, you don't have to be outwardly overtly racist to still hold racist beliefs. And so it's not really about us, it's not about us. It's about the system. The, the, the way that we've been brought up as, especially as white people is that to say, you know, we've been just been given a leg up on everything. And everything is just that little bit easier because we don't fear that we're going to be murdered, and we get better health care and, you know, black people, like with health care, the the health care outcomes are horrendous. like black women are way more likely to die in childbirth, and any made of anything in medical procedures, white people stand a better chance than than black people and people of color. And, you know, everything, obviously, like wages and, and housing and access to food and everything is affected by race and white people. You know, I have this privilege that, yeah, I'm gonna keep working on trying to erase. So, so thank you, thank you for being here. And I'm sorry, I haven't been better. And I will do better. And if you're a white person, please check out the resources where you can, you know, maybe just watch that TEDx video, maybe you just listened to that podcast 6019 It may be just donate to one source, you know, so that you don't feel overwhelmed with with all the things that you need to do. Because I know that I have felt like that. And, you know, we can just start with doing one thing a day and seeing where that gets us. Yeah. Okay, so thank you for tuning into day. I really appreciate it. I hope that you're feeling okay. And you're doing alright with the lockdown. I I've got to see my my nephew a few times. And it's really cool and cute. Like the other day.

He came round. And I was working and he was like, oh, no, come play with me. And I was like, oh, I need to work. And he was like, no, no, he's like, Shut, shut, shut your pooter Shut up at pooter. He just turned three. And I said, I need to make money and that he was like, okay, and then he came back and he was like, Hey, go his money and he gave me like invisible money. And I was like, okay, so then I shut I shut my pooter and yeah, watched him play with Teddy's or whatever. So I go. Yeah, so. All right. Well, thanks for hanging out with me today on this episode, and I will see you next time fatty the boss

EP32 Transcript

Welcome to Episode 32 of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby. And in today's episode, we're talking about when is it okay to fat shame? Let's do it.

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 first fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop a negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast. Let's begin.

Hello, hello. Hello, fatty. So nice to hang out with you. For this episode, I'm feeling good and excited to talk about what we're talking about today. Reason why I'm feeling good. Every time I've come on the podcast recently, I'm feeling good. Because lockdown is kind of being loosened a little bit in Ireland. It's still very strict. Like we can't really do anything. But I were allowed to drive five kilometers away from my house. And and so do you have me going on a little drive? I discovered a chip shop that was open. And I almost shit my pants with excitement. So I haven't had food that was not made by my hand. In over 10 weeks, three months? Yeah, I'd say three months. And I'm not a big, you know, food maker. I don't, you know, if I had if I had a partner, they would probably be making more food. And I'm like, thank you. But I just you know, like having access to food, which is not food that I've made. And so I was literally like, hi, you're open and I went and got a vegetarian pizza and chips. And the pizza was you know, in normal times, I would say it was a bit shit or mediocre. But it tasted so fucking good. And the chips when I say chips, you know British chips as in french fries, but they're not French fries. They're like fit cut, chips, Chip Shop chips. They're amazing. Oh, it was just so nice to be able to like come home and sit at the table and unwrap and eat something that I hadn't made. And now it's got me kind of thinking about the future of when I can actually go and eat more food. I want to go back to Vancouver. So in Ireland, I've said this before that we don't have a lot of food choices. Genuinely but then because I'm a vegetarian. Most of the things that I get is you know, goat's cheese tart or pasta and I'm just like, I'm so boring. Now. When I get back to Vancouver, I'm literally cannot wait to eat sushi. And this veggie burrito that I get from this place when it's in it's just so delicious and far and bomb me and Domino's Pizza and salt and pepper tofu. And I'm just gonna eat that food knows how I'm like putting this food on a pedestal and I'm just like, oh my god, I'm just gonna eat that food. Because I have been deprived of it. And I haven't had access to it. No, is that how I have I'm desiring it more and then when I get out I'll probably be like, Oh, this is good. And then you know when I know that I have access to it all the time or you know, lose interest Well, I won't lose interest because I still like it but you know, I mean, how you know it's just it goes exactly show to show what what happens when you die it and how you're just you can't help but think about the things that you can't have.

Right? And I had I did have sushi so I went to LA gosh, maybe Six months ago now maybe? Actually no fuck it was in January. That feels like six months ago. Well, I guess it was four months ago anyway. And in in LAX and the LA Airport, they have a Japanese restaurant and they have a golden roll. And it's, I think it's $20. Us. And it's it was really disappointing. It was so rubbish. I was like, No. And the thing is in Vancouver because Vancouver is on the sea, we have really good and cheap sushi. And so a garden roll, which is basically what it is is like some cucumber, some maybe some avocado, maybe some carrot with some rice, that would cost like two bucks. And for me to pay, like $20 in us as well. So that would be probably 25 Canadian. Well, there's Shana laying. That's how desperate I wanted sushi. So I can't wait to get back to Vancouver to eat the sushi, or? Yeah, it's gonna be good. So I have got some more podcast reviews. Thank you, everybody since last episode, you've been showing me the love. I really appreciate it. I just want to share a couple. So Jeanette says, looking in a mirror. This podcast made me cry. I see myself in so many of Victoria's experiences. I'm just sorry. It's taking me until I'm 48 to realize how worthy I am. Thank you, Victoria, you are an inspiration. Thank you, Jeanette. And the next review is from Donna and Donna says amazing Victoria Welsby is a breath of fresh air and a fat phobic diet, culture world of judgment. She is oozing with real life examples of how fat phobia can impact your self esteem and make you miserable and offers practical ways to change your mindset and handle difficult situations. or breaking away from all the negativity This podcast is truly a gem. And let's face it, her accent is the coolest. Wow. Thank you. Thank you, Donna. I really appreciate that.

And, and as well, exactly what Jeanette said, saying, Oh, I'm sorry, it's taking until I'm 48 to realize how worthy I am. That has been so many people stories, honestly, a lot of people getting to an age they think is too late. Or you know, wishing they had found it earlier. And I always just think Thank fuck you found it because you could be that person who up until the you know, in their dying breath thinking, you know, am I too fat. And whoa, so hopefully you've you've called it like 50% in through your life. And so that's pretty amazing. And but yeah, it sucks that we weren't all just taught this from children that our bodies are great. And we don't need a diet and all that sort of shit. So in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing links. And so I'm going to put those in the show notes. And as a reminder, go to first fatty.com forward slash zero through three, two, because episode 32 face fatty.com forward slash 032 for the show notes. And if you forget, and you want to go to the show notes, you can always just do first party.com forward slash podcast or just vSv just do it, you'll get you'll find it. So a reminder, those those people who sent me their reviews, guess what they got, they got a copy of my book fierce Batty, and audio and a digital copy. So if you would like an audio or digital copy of my book, then write a review and email me and take a screenshot of the review before you submit it. And I will send you the book free. Oh my gosh. And at the moment actually, I'm in the process of beginning to redesign my book and rejigger it around a little bit because I wrote it when I still hadn't rebranded to my business name being fair Smarty and my business name was banned power life and so I need to my graphic designer is is in the process of of looking to redesign the cover and also I'm going to be changing some of the bits in there and so once that's done, I might not be given away for free anymore. I haven't decided I might I might not. And I'm also going to be re recording it now I have better audio equipment. So re recording the audio book so that you can buy it on Audible. So right now You can buy it on my website. But like I say, you can get it for free if you write me a review. So if you're thinking about getting writing a review and you want that book before I start charging for the, the audio and Digital Copy, then do it now. Quack, quack, quack quack. Then again, I might might just keep it as is. Alright, so today's episode, we're talking about whether it's okay to shame, fat shame someone. And the reason why we're talking about this is because Nancy Pelosi, this is American politics. So sorry, if you're not American or interested in American politics, but man, Nancy Pelosi fat shamed. Donald Trump. And fat shamed him because he is. He's a massive bellend and he has started taking a medicine, which is not intended for him to guard against COVID-19 hydroxy. So hydroxy, Chloroquine hydroxychloroquine, which is super fucked up, because it could literally kill him. And he just mentioned this medicine before. And I read a story about a couple, an older couple who went out and got the medicine. They took it and both of them died. This is before he said he even started taking it. So he this will mean that people will die because what it does is it increases your heart rate, I think it makes you more susceptible to heart attacks. And so he said this in a prospect press conference, and everyone's like, he's such a fucking knob. And what Nancy Pelosi did and Nancy Pelosi is obviously thinks he's a knob as well. She said, this is from the BBC. Asked on Monday night by CNN about Mr. Trump's remarks, Mrs. Pelosi said she would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group. And in his, shall we say, weight group, quote unquote, morbid obese, they say that was her quote, the US House of Representatives Speaker said so.

And so she wasn't saying that he's quote, unquote, morbidly obese as a neutral descriptor, right? She's saying, Oh, he's so fucking fat. He shouldn't be taking this because he's gonna keel over and die any second, right? And so, this is the first point that I want to talk about. Is it okay to fat shame, a really awful shitty person, aka Donald Trump. Well, the answer is, no. No, it's not okay to fat shame. Someone who is a really terrible, awful person. Literally, there are hundreds of reasons why Donald Trump is a complete and utter bellend. Like, he's, he's racist, he's sexist. He's a rapist. He's, he's, I'm just so mad. I think about all the ways that he is a bad human being. Now, is his weight one of those features that make him a bad human being? Absolutely not. No. It is a characteristic about him as a person, which is just like any other fat person. None of our business, not a personal fourth floor or failure, and not something that should be shamed. Do you remember when I think it was about three or four years ago? When the he was in the running to be president and there was loads of these installations of these art pieces? Which was Donald Trump naked? Or what people thought he was named? Where he looked like naked? And everyone was like, Yeah, this is so fucking funny. Oh my God. Look, he's so fat and look how small his penis is. That's transphobic by the way, laughing at the size of someone's penis. And obviously, it's fat phobic to say Oh, look how disgusting his body is because it's fat. Like, really? We have to go after his wait. Could we not go after the trillion other reasons why he is a horrific candidate to be President of the United States. Yeah, there's, there's loads of other things, right. So what happens when someone like Nancy Pelosi, someone who is meant to be a liberal says something like this? Well, us as a society learns something. So what do we learn about shaming Trump about his weight? Well, a lot of people will learn that it is absolutely a okay to shame Trump and therefore, shame anyone about their weight. And it's not. Some people might think, Well, Nancy Pelosi, she wasn't being that mean, I mean, she said she used a scientific term, which is, quote, morbid, quote, unquote, obesity, quote, unquote. And that is not a scientific term. So morbid obesity, that term, the morbid part is 100%. Something that is not and should not be used in science. Is it's, it's, it's literally not used, right? It's something that I can't remember how many years ago, like 40 years ago, someone said, Well, if someone's really fat, then they should be called morbid, because they're about to die. But it's not actually a scientific term people use and obesity. Yes, that is a term that is used in science. But the word obese is you is modeled on the BMI scale, which in previous episodes, I've explained why the BMI scale is super fucked up. The word meet obese means to have eaten until gotten fat. And so it's perpetuating stigmatizing language. The those words, the Oh words should not be in our language. There, it's a slur. And so she is saying she is being fat phobic, and using slurs to describe him.

And so people who are liberal, will learn that fat shaming is fair game, and not actually a political issue. And it is a massive political issue. Some people are going to be looking at their own fat body and know that yet another person thinks that there is something wrong with it. And you know, if you are living a fat body, if you see your friends on social media being like, Ooh, she really burned him with that comment. And aha, that's so funny that she said that about him, she really showed him. You're learning from your friends that they think that your body is a joke as well. And it's not. Some people after hearing Nancy Pelosi is comment will avoid going to the doctor even longer, because they fear the stigma that they're going to face. Rightly so. That is directly impacting fat people's health. Some people will embark on yet another diet, which will damage their physical and mental health, again, directly harming fat people and even straight size people. Because straight size people of course, go on diets. Some health care providers are going to be buoyed in the idea that they need to shame their patients for being fat. Again, something that directly negatively impacts their well being. And even more people are going to buy into the false information that having a high BMI means that you're at greater risk for COVID 19, which still there has not been any clear evidence or data to show that this is in fact the case. And recently, even another study came out that showed that fat people are moderately better off against COVID-19 If they have that so and so this is just off the top of my head from hearing that she she made that comment, the impact that fat shaming, it has not only on fat people on everyone, and it kills fat people every day. So it's not okay to fat shame, a really awful person, especially if someone's really awful because it means that they're going to have other things which are legitimate things that you can Go after them for so if they're an awful person, why not be like hey, stop being an awful person and stop being a racist or sexist or you know, an Islamophobe whatever it is, versus being like hey, you're fat. Oh, we really got them home we said that they will fat is just really is not cool in any way. So what about is it okay to fat shame someone who is a thin shamer or a skinny shamer Is it okay to fat shame someone who was shaming you for your way and you're a smaller person or they have their fat shaming you when you're a fat person is that okay then so if they're going if they if they're if they're doing a low blow and shaming someone because they're so thin, should you retort with some like, Well, fuck you, you're so fat. I want to read something that I got. I just happened to get in my inbox this morning from Reagan Chasteen. Incredible Reagan Chasteen. The blog dancers were fat from Reagan, and Reagan wrote is fatphobia, the opposite of skinny shaming. So let me read you this little bit. This short blog post that Reagan penned. So, in a social media conversation, a fat person posted about fat phobia and received this response from a thin person. This is the response from a Facebook post from the thin person. I've never really heard of fat phobia. To be honest, I can tell you from the other side of the fence is pretty awful. When you're thin. In my case, underweight people just randomly asked me awful questions. Oh my god, you're so skinny do you eat, you should gain weight, you look better. sigh I would never talk about a person's body like that. So it's fat phobia like the opposite of me.

I'm sure this person was not ill intentioned. But this is an exhibit excellent example of harmful behavior. That's driven by privilege and in this case, thin privilege. The person has never heard of fat phobia despite living in a world that is literally built on it. And instead of say of say googling to learn more about the oppression they have not previously been aware of, or even asking for education, they've decided their best move is to try and shift the conversation to their experiences a thin person, and to frame and refrain the concept of fat phobia as something that happens in relation to them. I'm sure that this person didn't mean to be harmful. But one of the ways that we can become more competent in dismantling oppression is to realize that centering ourselves in a discussion of other people's oppression is wrong, and that working to educate ourselves is the way to go. Now to answer the question is fatphobia the opposite of thin shaming? No, it's not. While Finn shaming is wrong, and harmful. fat shaming, including being asked rude questions is just one component of fat phobia, and weight stigma, which includes the shame stigma, bullying and systematic oppression that fat people experience. Our society is not built to accommodate fat people, meaning that fat people literally live in a different world than thin people, with greater oppression happening to those with larger bodies, and those with multiple oppressions. A few examples. Fat people have many fewer options when it comes to clothes. And our options are often more expensive, including because they aren't sold in source so we have to pay for shipping both ways to try them on. This affects not just our ability to develop personal style, but our ability to dress appropriately for situations from job interviews to red carpets. think people have an expectation that they will get be given accommodated. By seats wherever they go. Whether it's at a restaurant, on a roller coaster, at a wedding or funeral on plane, etc. Not only do businesses often fail to accommodate fat people, but but they often blame fat people and force us to pay twice as much for the same services. For example, a trip from point A to point B in a seat that accommodates us. Fat people often find it impossible to get ethical evidence based healthcare because our practitioners are so distracted by their stereotypes about body size and so committed to forcing our bodies to look different, even if they kill us in the process that they fail to treat our actual health issues. Fat people are hired less and paid less and thin counterparts. A study by Jennifer Chanel at Vanderbilt found that heavy women earned $9,000 Yes, less than average weight counterparts and very heavy women earned $19,000 left less very thin women on the other Hande earned $22,000 More than those who were merely average. And that's just the tip of the of a very large, very harmful iceberg. I'll mention that weight stigma harms people of all sizes, since it dirt drives unhealthy thoughts and behaviors around the fear of becoming fat. The harm it does to fat people would be enough to dedicate resources to dismantle it. fat phobia is real, and it deserves entire conversations that are not diluted or derailed by the experiences of thin people. So I will link to that blog post if you care to shave, share it from Regan Chasteen. Excellent, excellent writer resource on on how to dismantle fat phobia and diet culture bullshit. So the reason why I shared that is that a lot of people think that because they have been thin shamed, that they have similar experiences, people to people who are being fat shamed. And what that article is showing is that, no, when you're if you have a smaller body, you have privilege, you are able to fit into the world, and it absolutely is awful and offensive, if someone says something rude to you, and it should not be allowed, you do not also then have to experience a world that reinforces those ideas. In fact, thin people live in a world that reinforces that their body is the right body. And so say if then shaming is like, one out of 100 on the, you know, oppression spectrum and fat shaming is 100. You know, fat oppression is just, it doesn't compare, right? It's just they're two separate things. And so it's, it's not okay to fat shame. And it's not okay to thin shame. And

something that, that I see a lot when people are new to fat positivity and body positivity, they will share memes about how awful thin people are. And that is not okay. You know, like the memes like dogs like bones and men like real women will fuck, you know, fat people are not real people. Like, No, I hate that. I hate that. I hate that phrase like fat, we're real people know, anyone with a body is a real person. Right? Because you're fat, it doesn't make you a real human being and you know, someone who is who is thin, it's fake. That's not true. So, that's not the way to go. Like, we don't need to divide ourselves and be like, listen, those Skinny Bitches over there. I mean, it's absolutely and right, we should look at the privilege that straight size people have and try and dismantle it. But by shaming someone's body to do that, that's not the way because we're just doing exactly what we're trying to stop from happening. But recognizing that if you thin shame, a straight size person, the damage that you know, the experience of being thin shamed is nowhere near the experience of being fat shamed in a society that hates fat people. So is it okay to shame? A fat person if they thin shame, you know? Is it okay to fat shame a fat person who fat shamed you when you're fat? No no, no, no, none of that we know we need to get away from thinking that talking about other people's bodies and comparing them and saying this body is better, even if you're saying fat bodies are better, is not okay. And again, recognizing the you know, obviously straight sides people have thin privilege that that people don't have but it's still not okay to shame anyone for any physical attribute really. I'm just not down for it. Especially you know, I mentioned before like the penis size thing I just I was watched so I'm really into I'm really into learning about like scam companies and multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes know that for years. I've been really into it and like following them and hoping that they don't trick any more people anyway. So there's a really good person that speaks about LM LM L M M's and talks she was talking about like this really shitty person and she's like, why have you got a really small penis and she just went on a on a like a two minute rant about how his penis must be smaller. I'm like, Nah, you ruined it. I thought you were liberal, but you are not you're shaming someone. They're literally a part of a scam Corporation Can't you pick on the fact that they are, you know, defrauding people and not their penis science, which you don't know. But anyway. Okay, so finally, this is one that I get genuinely asked. And the question is, Is it okay to fat shame someone in a nice way. Because someone that I love is really unhealthy. And they don't say fat shaming, they say, is it okay to tell someone that they should lose weight? Because they're really unhealthy? Is it okay, my, my sister, my friend, she really just needs to go on a diet, he really needs to work out more, and how can I approach them and say that in a nice way, a place that comes from love. And when I was on that BBC show, The Show producer came to me and was like, okay, so So at the end of it, we've been wrapping up filming, and they came to get my answer on something and brought the camera crew and everything, and was like, okay, so what do the audience do when they have a family member or someone that they love? Is that's really unhealthy because they're fat? Like, how do you tell a fat person to lose weight? And I was like, well, there's certain up here. Yeah. Yeah. Don't you mind your damn business? You don't? So are you there? Doctor? No. Mind you damn business. And if you are their doctor, are you able to offer evidence based weight neutral care for that person? No, then maybe you need to educate yourself and mind your damn business if you're gonna be prescribing a diet because they don't work.

But then some people say but but but but they food that I have decided isn't healthy. They eat food. They eat food, and they're fat? How do I get them to stop eating food? Well, this is how you did it. Your mind your damn business? Mind your damn business. Shit. Like, when I work with people in coaching in my first factory Academy, the amount of stories that I hear from that people who say, My family told me Do you really need another helping? Do you really need to eat that? And it has really stuck with them and cause trauma and caused all other negative outcomes, which didn't include becoming thin. Right? And so people also say, but what? I've, what if I've never seen them exercise? They've never exercised in the whole life? Well, then should I tell them that they need to exercise and they need to lose weight? Well, this is what you need to do. You need to mind your damn business. Who know? Are you the boss of them? Like they might just not be an exercising type. They might exercise when they don't have the prying eyes of someone who's judging them on them. Maybe they do other things like maybe they don't, and it doesn't, it doesn't matter. You don't need to be moving your body to be a worthy human being or even to be healthy. And so people might say, but what if the fat person that I love doesn't like being fat? And is trying to lose weight? Well, then should I help them them? Should I say Oh, this diet is really good. And and you could you can do it, you can lose weight? Well, in this circumstance, you shouldn't mind your down business. And even that comes to if you have a fat person in your life who is like fat and doesn't want to be fat. And if they don't talk to you about this subject, and they're or they're losing weight on a diet or whatever, and they don't bring this subject up. You also shouldn't be like, Hey, you should Don't be on a diet, they don't work. You should just love your body unless they bring up the subject. Right? Just let them do what they want to do. And you can model your own positive behavior by not dieting and loving your fat body or you know, whatever. So did they come and ask you for advice? No. Then Mind your damn business. Right? So the reason why it's so important for people to mind their business when it comes to fat people's bodies and presuming they know the health status of someone that they love because they have seen what food they eat, they have seen their body size they've seen whether they exercise or how much they exercise or whatever is you are actively harming them. Okay? You care about that you care about their well being you care about their health, well then you need to educate yourself on what fat phobia shame and stigma does to fat people. It is so damaging. So your job is to unlearn fat phobia is to understand that if you want to fight for a better health of someone you love, then you need to work to dismantle diet culture on our culture, cultures deep fear of fatness. So if you really cared about someone in your life who's who's fat and you've decided is unhealthy, or you quote unquote, know that are unhealthy because they, you know, said one time will I don't feel well or whatever, or my doctor said that this I have this issue or whatever. If you really care about their health, and you need to do work on yourself and not give them advice about how to reduce their body size, because you are further stigmatizing them, marginalizing them, shaming them, and that is not good for their health.

So I'm going to read a little bit from anti diet, which is Christy Harrison's book about what shame does and we've we've kind of spoken about it a bit, but let's let's round out on, on what it's on it does. Okay, so this is page 136, of anti diet by Christy Harrison. And we start with weight stigma has been linked to an increased risk of mental health conditions such as disordered eating, emotional distress, negative body image, low self esteem and depression. That's understandable, it feels awful to be stigmatized. And people in larger bodies get stigmatized from all sides. They're often bullied and shamed in school at home, walking down the street and in the doctor's office. Because of the pervasive weight bias in our society, people in larger bodies are less likely to get hired for jobs. And even when they do, they're paid lower wages and their thin peers. They're also constantly barrage with media messages about the so called quote unquote, obesity epidemic, and the supposed perils of higher weights, which only reinforces the message that they've already gotten from all corners of society, and their bodies are a problem to be solved. What you may not know is that abundant scientific evidence shows that weight stigma, okay, fat phobia is also an independent risk factor for an array of negative physical health outcomes such as diabetes and heart disease, regardless of people's actual body size. That means to people at the same point on the BMI chart can have very different physical health risks. Depending on the degree of weight stigma they've experienced and internalized in their life. A person in a smaller body with a lot of weight based self loathing may actually be at greater risk for poor health outcomes than a thin person in a much larger, larger body, who's learned to accept their size and fight back against weight stigma. And the that last bit about the physical health that's actually quoting a study that I had previously quoted in another episode of the podcast about, yeah, basically, weight stigma, aka fat phobia. It's just it's just another word for fat phobia affects everyone, no matter what your weight is. So if you care about your loved one, you will unlearn fatphobia, which also helps you so do it for selfish reasons, you know, unlearn fatphobia only to reduce your own, you know, weight bias that you might be putting on your self. So you can you know, be selfish in that. That thing, and that's if you're straight size or if you're, you know, whatever size fat that you that you may be, so Who if shaming worked in the way that a lot of people use shame to motivate people to become thin? If shaming worked, everyone would be thin. And everyone would be quote unquote, healthy. But big are they all we know, because shaming, illusion does the opposite actually people who are shamed tend to be higher weights. Not that there's anything wrong with being a high weight, but it initially does the opposite. And so I know you're not shaming someone in this instance. So if you're shame if you're shaming someone, because you want to like laugh at them, you're not shaming them, because you want them to be happy, you're shaming them, because you want them to be ashamed. You know, so not all shame comes from a good place, obviously.

But if you shame someone on their appearance on their weight, what it shows to me and to the world around is that that person who is fat phobic is holding on to bigoted beliefs. It shows that you think that being fat is a negative characteristic? Because why mention it? If you didn't think it was a negative thing, like Nancy Pelosi is not out there being like, well, you know, you know, Trump, you know, because of his his his hair color, because of his eye color. People with his eye color for he better watch out? No, because that's just a characteristic about someone that we haven't attributed negative things to. The fact that people are bringing up means that we as a society, or that person thinks that that is a bad thing. And white feminism is terrible for this. And it's really frustrating. So many white feminists, white feminist women are like, don't be racist, don't be sexist. But then when it comes to weight, they're like, Oh, don't be fat. Oh, well, that's nasty. We don't wanna be fat, eat healthy, you eat organic, no GMO, all that bullshit. And they will say that intersectional. But they're not intersectional when it comes to weight. So intersectionality just an FYI, is a term that was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in 1989. And let me read a little bit from Wikipedia. What it is intersectionality is a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of one's social and political identities might combine to create unique models of discrimination. It aims to broaden the agenda or first wave feminism, which along largely focuses on the experiences of white middle class women. So if you want to be a good feminist, you know, if you want to strive to be a good feminist was a good feminist, you will look at all of the marginalization that are out there. Or the different intersections and recognize how people who have different identities are differently impacted to say, if you like me, or a white woman, my life is just that little bit easier, because I'm not a person of color. And if you are a white man, your life is just a little bit easier than if you're a white woman, or if you're a man of color, or if you are a fat man of color, or a fat woman of color, or a fat disabled woman of color. Or, you know, the list goes on. And so there's lots of different intersectionalities and so there's different waves of feminists who align with like, we're, you know, we're really great feminists, but we hate transgender people. They're not transgender women aren't women, and that is fucking bullshit. And so you've got those that they're called turfs, trans exclusionary radical feminists, you also got swerves, which is sex worker, exclusionary radical feminists. And it's the exclusionary bit which is fucked up. So feminism is saying, hey, let's just treat people equally. Right? So everyone loads people like I'm not a feminist. I don't hate men. It's not about hating men. It's Do you think that that people should be treated equally? Well, yes, well, then you're a feminist. So, and that goes for fat people too. But it's so hard for Some people because they're so deeply fat phobic and they cannot see how fat phobia is a political issue how health is a political issue? And they hold on to the idea that fat people just aren't trying hard enough that they have quote unquote, brought this on their selves or whatever. And that's not true. So, in conclusion, is it okay to fat shame someone who is a massive bellend like Donald Trump? No. Go about go after the things that make them a bellend Is it okay to fat shame? Someone who's skinny shamed you or fat shame someone who's fat shamed you because you're fat? No, let's not go after people as appearances.

And is it okay to fat shame in a nice way to try and get your fat loved one to become thin. And what does shame do? It damages our physical and mental health and not just fat people. Everyone in society is hurt by fat phobia. So let's just not do it. Right. Should we decide that today? No more fat phobia. Should we decide? Okay? Are you in? Are you in with me to decide? No more fat phobia. Okay, done. All right, we've banished a phobia from the world no more fat phobia. For the next one second. Maybe there was not fat phobia for like one second right there. We did it. We did it with our brain power right them. Yes. So if you want to tell someone to fuck off, because they're an absolute knob head, the worst human in the world. Just tell them to fuck off and don't say fuck off your fat piece of shit. Just say fuck off your piece of shit. You know, it's my it's not be big as I discovered, hey, guess what I discovered. I discovered this is like two years old. I'm on the cutting edge of discovering new singers. But I discovered a new fat singer from Israel called Neto. And Netta has got some really cool songs. And what Netta does is she like beatbox. And you know, one of those loop machines where you like, you'll lay down a beat and it's on a loop machine. And then you'll do like another bit and then it's bit over and then make a song out of it. It's really, it's really good. And so she won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. Now, if you are not European, you might be like, What the fuck is the euro? Eurovision Song Contest? Well, it is. I don't even know how to begin to describe it. It is. So all of the countries in Europe. And I think some countries actually that are not in Europe have joined as well, will come together once a year. And they will bring their best singer to sing a song and all the countries in her in the competition, like all the citizens of the country will vote for who's the best song. Now traditionally, it is super cheesy and funny. Like, the people are not necessarily sending like their best like I'm like, Why doesn't the UK send like I didn't know the number one pop star at the time? Well, because the number one pop star at the time is like I am wasting my time on the Eurovision Song Contest. And so you get you know, really quirky and unique offerings from different countries. And you know, a lot of times it's a bit shit and all there was always we always had an Irish commentator, and he was really funny. He died in the last few years. I don't know who I think there was. There's another Irish person that does the common common tation or common common commenting. NARRATION you know, I mean, on it and it's it's a pretty good steal but this year they didn't they couldn't have they couldn't have it because of COVID and, and Netta did a song again in this year's Eurovision Song Contest anyway, so there's one song one song that I'm really vibing on which is better said baba, baba salsa bow bad dad that that and she's got like very colorful videos. So I'll link that to that in the show notes. First fatty.com forward slash zero Free to offer you just want to go and find it right now. Bassa said Baba from Netta ne TTA. And it's bas s a next word. S A ba ba. Ba said Baba. Yeah, so fatty Singh is if you have any come across any cool fatty singers let me know I'm always trying to collect, collect, find them, add them to my, my playlists and whatnot.

So let me know. And reminder, leave a review with Jol that would be really calm. And if you ever want to consider joining fierce, fatty Academy, which is the place where I teach you all of the juicy stuff, then feel free to drop me an email Victoria at first fatty.com Go onto my website and sign up for the waitlist. I opened the door sporadically. So who knows if the doors are open now? They're not like who knows? Well, I know they're not. But you can get on the waitlist, too. If you go on the website or just email me or whatever. So all right, well, thank you for hanging out with me today. It's been a slice. As always, I hope you are surviving the final kind of not final but the winding down of the lockdowns, actually, I read this really cool article about how we're in the fourth quarter, or third third of isolation. It was really interesting, I wonder if I can find the article and put it in in the show notes. But basically, they studied so when astronauts go to space, no matter how long their mission is, say if it's 100 days, or if it's 1000 days, in the final quarter. That is when interpersonal relationships become really strained. And that's when it becomes very difficult. And so when there's hope on the horizon, or when people go to like Antarctica, and they'll they'll go in, and they'll stay there for the winter. And so they can't leave until then the summer and so when they see the ice start to melt, then they know that they're getting close to the end, that's when the interpersonal relationships really fail. And that is the one of the most difficult things that NASA or whoever is leading these missions have to deal with, like they can they can work on all the science, but they cannot necessarily control how the astronauts or how the scientists relate to each other. And so it's this phenomenon where people just get down and they start arguing and I was actually getting my blood taken at the doctor's a couple of weeks ago. And I was telling her about this. This thing and she's like, Oh my god, yeah, loads of people have been saying that they've been having arguments and they're just really stressed out right now. And so if you're getting that if you're feeling like, you know, the people in your house, you're like, fuck off. I hate you. Why are you such awful people? Then it might be because of this fourth quarter phenomenon because we can see, it's not the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, you know, versus before we were like, when's this gonna end? Where now we can see maybe, you know, in the next few months, we might be able to touch another human. Who knows. And so, yeah, so if you're experiencing that, and it's probably normal. Maybe it's not. But yeah, I'll see if I can find that article and put it in the show notes because really interesting. So anyway, okay. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I will see you on the next episode. Have an incredible rest of your day. And big fatty love and hugs to you. Okay, bye fatty my.

EP31 Transcript

Welcome to The Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby. And this is episode a 31. And today we're talking about the lies we tell ourselves, so we can't get to a place of body love. Let's do it

you're listening to the face 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 first fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop a negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast. Let's begin.

Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to this episode. So pleased to have you here and welcome back. If you've tuned in before and Hello, if you've never listened to the show before. I'm so pleased that you're here. I'm feeling pretty good today. I'll tell you why. I got to see my sister and her two children yesterday my nibbling. So Finley who's three years old? And Molly, who is? Gosh, What month is it now? Me she's six months old. So I haven't seen them in February, March, April, May, June, February, March, April, May four months. So I haven't seen Molly, since she was two, two months old. And she's grown so much. Oh my gosh, we went for a walk. So we were allowed the guidance in in Ireland is that we're allowed to have for people from a family meet, as long as they're two meters apart, in and outside space. So we went for a walk along the sea. And it was it was so nice. Like yesterday, I woke up and I was like, oh my god, we got runner adventure, how exciting. Something a few months ago, I would just be like, Oh, this is cool. But you know, I wouldn't be you know, being like this happening. So it was it was really nice. And to see Finley who's almost three now, his speech is like, developed so much is mad. Really it's mad how how kids grow so quickly. So yes, and I have got a few more podcast reviews that have come through. Thank you very much. By the way, if you leave me a podcast review, take a screenshot before you submit it. So you can do that on Stitcher and on iTunes, and email me Victoria at first party a.com. And I will send you a digital and Audio Copy of my best selling book called first party or VHS. February, I'll just send it to you no questions asked. Or maybe if you leave a review and you're like Victoria is a massive knucklehead then maybe I'm not like oh, yeah, what's going on here. But I just wanted to share a couple of rules a couple of them a little bit of the reviews that I've got recently. So this one I got yesterday from Karen and she gave it five stars love this podcast. And I just love to listen to this podcast Victoria is very funny. Thank you. Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you beautiful fat positive role model amazing. This podcast is an absolute must here for anybody who wants to love their body. And the next one I have is from Kate and Kate's reviewed on iTunes and said I cannot get enough five stars. As someone who is struggling to fully accept and love my body. This podcast provides an honest and thoughtful insight in to how to reprogram the fat shame that society has taught us. When I listened to her I felt like my big sister is talking to me about self love, which has always been a dream of mine. Thank you. Thank you you so much, Kate. And thank you everyone who has left a review. The thing about iTunes, it's so effing annoying is iTunes, it only shows reviews from whatever country you happen to be looking at, versus all the reviews that exist of that podcast.

And so if you're if you live in a weird country, this is my please leave a review. So I say weird country, a country that is not the United States, Canada or the UK, because that's where that's where most of my reviews come from. But if you live in those countries to leave a review, but if you live in a country, which is not one of those countries and leave a review, you're probably going to be the first one to do it. And you will be participating in fat activism when you leave a review, because it means that more fatties will be able to discover this podcast and learn that their body is just a okay, and realize that diet culture is a motherfucker. And like to eat it into space, as the kids would say. So, yes. Okay, so what we're talking about to do is the stuff the lies that we tell ourselves, so we can't get to a place of body love, go and check out the show notes because I've got a resource to to help you with this. It's called the confidence booster book, The confidence booster book. And so it's got like quotes and different things to make you feel good and make you feel like a badass. And it's free, obviously. So go to the show notes first party.com, forward slash 031. And get the confidence booster book that is going to help you with what we are talking about. And the reason why this episode is really important is because people say to me all the time, Victoria, I would love to be confident I would love to accept my fat body. But I would love to feel like you, but I can't do it. I just don't think I can get there. It's not an option for me. I've tried and it's not worked, or I haven't tried, but I just I know there's no point in trying because it's not gonna work. Being like you is not possible, but I admire you for it. And I also want to want it but I am not going to get there. So a lot of people say that, like, I wish I could have your confidence. And I'm just like, cool. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. And what people hear when I say like you can do it is I don't know. Like, they hear me being like, theoretically you can do it, but you're not gonna do it because you're not the type of person to be able to do it because you're, you know, this is what I presumed people are thinking and what I thought when I wasn't confident, but I'm particularly ugly. Like I'm particularly disgusting. I'm particularly fucked up. My life experiences are particularly bad, so I will never get to a place of confidence like the people around me My family are particularly fat phobic. Have you seen my belly? It's way massive bigger than what we see on Instagram and my tits are extra saggy not like yours and my bomb is flat not like you know big you know what it should be and my cellulite is extra cellulite II and you know, and when I was not confident I would look at confident people and just be like, well, they're you know, they're they have something special or something extra or something about them that I don't have or they underneath their clothes. They might be fat, but they've got perky tits, or they've got a flat stomach or, or they've got some sort of thing that I don't have, which means it's not possible for me. And that my friend is total and complete. What do you think when I say yes, you're right bullshit. Bolted, it is bullshit. But it was also 100% 1,000,000% normal to feel like this. So many people feel like this like that they can't get out there and do certain things. So so it's not possible for them to get there because they have these beliefs that hinder them. And I want to break Some of that down today. So don't feel bad if you're in that position where you're like, I don't quite, I'm not there, I'm worried I can't get there. And, you know, whatever it is that you think is particularly bad about you or your situation. You know, it's normal to feel like that. But let's, let's see if we can turn it around somewhat today, or even turn it all the way around to the end of the episode, you're like, yes, badge, wow. And like flopping your tits out, or traffic lights and stuff, probably don't do that. But you can't have your one. If you're feeling excited. Maybe maybe don't do it while you're actually driving the car.

So first off, the belief that you can't get to a place where you except your body, or even love your body is a belief. And I've said it before on the podcast of what a belief, it's a belief isn't a fact, a fact, is 100% true 100% of the time, and what makes up our beliefs is information that we've got gathered throughout our lifetime. So you have gathered evidence to that has come to the conclusion of this belief that you can't get to a place of confidence, or you don't know how or or there's, there's some sort of barrier there. There's a belief or many beliefs that are behind that belief, you can't get to a place of body confidence. And remember, these beliefs can feel very, very, very, very real. But they're not set in stone. They're not solid gold fact. And a lot of the times what is happening when you think a negative thing about yourself, or if I think a negative thing about myself, is we are looking at the evidence that we have available to us. And we say, Aha, evidence around me shows that I can't do this thing. And really, we're not a lot of times clearly looking at what evidence we have available to us. Because we're it's like confirmation bias, right. Confirmation bias, Wikipedia says is the tendency to search for interpret favor and recall information that confirms or supports one's prior personal belief or values is a type of cognitive bias. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. So I, throughout my life, I've done this so many times so many times. A big thing, especially when there's very clear evidence to prove that the belief that I have about myself is not true. So for example, I would have the belief that I am bad at my job, I used to be in recruitment, I was in recruitment for 10 years. Now, if you're in recruitment, if you know anything about recruitment. What we do is, you know, you find people and you get them jobs at companies that that type of recruitment I was doing and in house actually. But anyway, that doesn't matter. It is really hard. It is really hard. And so if anyone lost in the recruitment past six months, then they're doing something well. And so not only did I last in recruitment past six months, I was in it for like, almost 10 years. And not only that, I won an award for being the best at my job. And this wasn't on my opinions. This is on the amount of money that I made in my best in my job in the country. Okay, so that is evidence to prove, maybe I might be good at my job. Maybe even if I hadn't won that award and like won a five star vacation and all that type of jazz. There was still evidence to prove that I was good at my job. But still, I would be like, well am I am I though I always you know, the other people that I was competing against for that war award will rubbish and they weren't that good. And that's why I won and only one because I had that lucky break and that thing happened and it wasn't to do with me and only one because this and that so it's not really Based on my skills and, and I would rationalize it a way, which is what we do in humans is when something doesn't align with your beliefs, you either rationalize it away, or you just ignore it. You just be like one award, I didn't win an award.

Well, what you don't know, you just ignore it. And, and this is something that people who are intelligent do so studies show, the more intelligent you are, the better you are at twisting data, so to support your beliefs, so it means you're skilled. So there you go, you've got some skills. If you do this, okay, so are you looking back in your life and say, Okay, well, you know, I am I am. I mean, I'm just a bit of a loser. I'm a failure. My whole life, I've hated my body, therefore, I can not really love my body in the future. Well, have you ever experienced any type of success in your life? Yeah, of course, you fucking have, like, ELO, you're a human being, like, from the time you were a baby, you have done so much stuff, right? So you learn to do things, for example, like walk or feed yourself, or speak, or know how to work the internet, or you know, so many things, know how to make yourself dinner, be able to get a job or be able to play, be able to brush your hair, you know, these are all skills, these are all achievements, right? When you think about it, a little kid was was learn how to, I don't know, braid their hair up, like, you don't have to braid your hair. That's so good. But you know, as we as we get older, we're like, well, whatever, it's not a big deal. And even our day to day, experiences of getting out of bed, brushing our teeth, maybe you don't brush your teeth, having a shower, maybe you don't have a shower, whatever. Whatever you do in a day, it's success. It's straight up success. And as well, I bet yeah, I betcha. But yeah, you've done other things, like, gotten the job above other people. Like if you ever gotten a job, you were chosen over all of the other applicants. You were the one that they picked? Wow. That's an achievement. them. Have you ever maintained a relationship with fucking Relationships are hard no matter what, no platonic, romantic family, that shit is hard. And you did some amazing things to continue to make that happen or made that happen. And I bet you have other like, you know, really brag worthy things that you've had happen in your life. So we're able to look at those and kind of be like, long, well, even though it's now how you're like, well, that doesn't count. It's not that cool that I learned how to do like, this, like amazing trick on the skateboard or, you know, loads of people can do that. Notice how you're rationalizing away your skills and abilities, or ignoring it, right, because that's the other thing we just poopoo it, which is, you know, whatever, that doesn't count. So you have the skills to be able to get to this place of body acceptance, or body love, you have the skills. They exist within you. And have you ever had moments where you felt good about yourself? Have you ever had moments where you stood up for yourself or you felt like you had more self esteem than you normally did? Did? Have you ever times had times where you've been brave and you've done things that previously you thought that you couldn't do? Well, that's what getting to a place of body love or acceptance is is doing those things. It's having those small moments of Holy shit, I'm doing this thing and I'm scared and holy shit, I'm having a moment where I'm setting a boundary with someone or whatever, like, that's it, you're doing it. So the belief that you can't do it is a belief. And you need to really look at the reasons why you think that you can't do it. And how you're not that type of person or you're so particularly ugly or you're so whatever and you're but you're you You know, fat in the wrong way or whatever it is because I've heard these things like so many times.

And I get it like, I used to be like, Well, my tits, but then my tits are really just unattractive. Like, I can't ever flush my tits if I'm on holiday in Ibiza, which is I thought what you had to do as an adult, when I was when I was a kid watching like night and late night TV and always be like, you know, I beat the, you know, teenagers go into Ibiza, and then people like women, flushing the tips on camera and being like, I can never do that my tits are not like those women's tits. And, and so, um, that's not for me. That's not what confidence is. It's not, you know, flashing. My tip is not to say that I wouldn't flash my tips. But that is, you know, I thought that that what was what confidence was, was feeling like, I wanted to flash my tits, because it was so amazing. But that is not what confidence is. And on that note, too, you might be looking at me and my style of confidence and being like, well, I can't strut around in a bikini and take videos of myself being a knob the pool or stand on a TEDx stage and, and take my dress off and, and jiggle my fat and sing quote unquote, dance, I say dance, I was just flailing my arms around to a liaison. Well, that's fine. That's my version of confidence. And that's very, very, like, particular, to me. That's my expression. And the reason why is because I had a list when I was 30. Before, like, when I was like, 22, I had a list 30 things to do before that. And it was things like, I don't know, have sex outside and the whole go to a meet Kate Nash or go to a Yann Tiersen concert. And one of them was wear a bikini. Now, when I wrote wear a bikini, what I meant was become thin enough to wear a bikini but I didn't need to write become thin enough because that was the obvious because clearly, I was not going to be wearing a bikini the weight that I was in my brain at that time. And so it was this goal always wanting to wear a bikini. And my condition of doing that was that I would become a supermodel. Miraculously, something would happen, I would lose, you know, in my mind, like 95% of my body weight. And then I'd be like, Oh, look at me. And I'd finally be able to be quote unquote, allowed, like the bikini police would give me a license and say, Okay, you are now allowed Ms. Welsby to wear this string bikini now that you are thin enough. And so for me being able to wear a bikini now as a fat person. I'm just it's it's my kind of like, Fuck you too. fat phobia and diet culture is just particular to me. Now I know loads of fat people who were super confident, and bikinis aren't their thing. dancing in front of a camera isn't their thing. Public speaking isn't their thing. It doesn't mean that they're not confident. It's just not their thing. Right? And maybe they do things that is not my thing. Like, for example, posing nude. Like I would pose nude for like an art class or something, but only if I knew that those images wouldn't be on the internet. And for me, the only reason is I just want to keep something private. You know, my flaps want to keep my flaps private. And doesn't mean I'm not confident. I don't care if people see my flaps. It's just you know, I know. It's just something that I'm just I just don't want, right? I'm just not interested in. I have like a new, like a new illustration that that will be coming out soon that someone has has done of me. I don't want to say who Yeah, because it's going to be surprised. But I've asked them to cover my nipple, just so that there's like that, that level that I don't you know that level that I don't want to cross on the internet.

Whereas other fat people, they fat confident people, they're like, yeah, man, I can get right in my crevices and that's wonderful. That's great. That's perfect for them. Right? So if you're thinking looking at me or other confident people who you think I would like to be like that, but I don't want to be exposing my bumhole Well, guess what? You don't have to expose your bumhole right, your bumhole can just be for you and your significant other and your doctor or whatever. Whoever else you want to show it to but if you don't want to get on the internet and like bend over and be like, have a look at this fellas, it doesn't mean you're not confident. What is confidence for you, it could just be not thinking about your body all day long, it could just be wearing something that feels good for you, it could be telling that one person at work to maybe not talk about their diet. It could be telling them to fuck off, you know, it's guess what is individual to you? Because we're all different. And so what confirmation bias? Have you got going on when you're looking at the evidence to support the idea that you can't do it? Is it possible? Is it possible that you're wrong when it comes to your limiting negative self beliefs? Is it possible that you're wrong? When it comes to your limiting negative self beliefs? Is it possible that they are not based in reality? Is it possible that those beliefs were implanted into your gorgeous brain in nefarious ways, by people and companies that don't care about your well being? And you have internalized them to be true? Is that a possibility? Yeah, of course, of course. And so that's a wonderful thing. Not that that happened. That sucks. Let's you know, not be teaching people that their bodies are bad, but it's a wonderful thing, because it is not a truth. It's not a universal truth that you are the most disgusting human that ever walked the earth, or whatever version of that, that you you currently might believe.

So another thing that stops people is that they look at the mountain that is the journey that is ahead of them. And say if you if there was a confidence scale, and 100 is like, Uber confidence, like the most confident you could be without being like a knob. Comp, good confidence. When I say when I say like, you know, good, high confidence. I mean, self compassion. I don't mean that you're like, your mobile phone guru. I'm the fucking best thing. Ever. I am the best human in the world. All of you else, other people can plug in suck my tits. No, that's not what, what governance is. That's being a knob. So confidence for me was like, 100% not the confidence on the scale, but feeling confident for me is is being having self compassion. And saying that I am a human being I am totally imperfect. Obviously not me. I am perfect jokes. That I'm imperfect. And that's okay. Right. So that for me, that is what confidence is, is self compassion. And so, on a scale of like, one to 100 like one being like, you think that you're a piece of shit, like literally like you're a magnet or whatever. And 100% is, is 100 is, so I felt really deep self compassion. Like, if you were at a lower number on that scale, and you see confidence and getting there as you know that you're at 80% away from getting to that goal of feeling confident. Is that overwhelming? Does that seem like something that is achievable? Does that seem like you know some fairy tale pipe dream? Like Why be so ridiculous to think that you're gonna get there? Yeah, of course, like shit. Of course. It is. Like I use this analogy is like imagine you've if you've never done any mountaineering before, and someone said okay, right. Tomorrow, we're going to climb count Mount Kilimanjaro. Your brain is gonna be like, Bitch, no, that ain't gonna happen. What I can't do that I've never I've never climbed anywhere I am going to die. And that is a write reaction to probably have. But if someone said right, tomorrow, we're going to Google where to find a snow snow snow, shoot snow shoot. us know shoot a snow suit, a snow snoot or snow suit. We're gonna Google where to find a snow Shun. Suit. Fuck you try setting that. See if you say snow snoot. Okay, so we're gonna go Google find where we Fellas no snoot. Can you do that? Well, yeah. Have you used Google before? Probably, unless you're in one of those countries that you aren't using Bing, or, you know, you're a weirdo that uses Bing. Why are you doing that? or Yahoo or something? Anyway? So yeah, you've probably searched for something on the internet. Okay, so you can do that. And so you're like, I can do that. And so then day one searching snow, find your snow snoot. Day two, let's Google and find a mountaineering instructor in the area. And oh, let's just watch a video on how to mountain climb. You can do that easy, right? So when you break it down like that, of course, you can do it.

But when you look at it, like climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which is for some people, the would be easier than loving themselves. It is not possible because you're looking at it as a whole, you're looking at it as a final destination versus okay, what is the first thing that I can do? What is the easiest, what is what is a way like the weather isn't a barrier. And let's not think about getting to the top of the mountain yet, because it's a way off. Let's just try and improve my situation by 1%. Let's just try and make things just a little bit better for myself. And then before you realize you look back, and you're like, Holy fucking shit, we're on the double the amount then. And, you know, it was the same for me. Because obviously, you know, we might not know that I haven't always been confident, I used to have really low self esteem. And so if someone said to me, Victoria, how about giving a TEDx talk and at the end of the TEDx talk, and do you dress, drop it to the floor, and you stand there in a bikini, shake your tits around to some music and dance for like, 1520 seconds in front of an audience of 2600 people? I would probably straight up and do do a poo. I just poo? No, not even close. I wouldn't even wear a bikini in my own house on my own and look at myself in the mirror. Never mind. Like any any of that whole thing like not in a bajillion years, a you, there's something wrong with your brain, if you think that I can do that. So when I had low self esteem, if someone said like that is your final destination? I would just be like, I? No, no. Don't be silly that I'm not the type of person who can do that. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to show this disgusting body to the world. But, you know, when I took one step, and the next step, they know that someone when you've taken so many steps, and you've become so strong and resilience in this area? Someone you know, didn't someone didn't tell me I had no idea myself. It's just you know, it would it was another step of growth. Like before I did it, of course, I was like, what are people going to think? You know, in regards to the act of me taking my clothes off? Not like, what are they going to think of my body? I probably didn't think about what people are going to think of my body. But I just thought, well, people are gonna think, you know, she is a goddess to she is horrible. And that's fine. But yeah, yes. So you have to just break it down into the easiest thing. And before you realize you're going to be flapping your tits out everywhere, or not, whatever it is you want to do, and your own version of confidence. So here is a fact for you. There are tons of resources out there to help you love yourself. You're listening to one right now. But obviously, through the podcast, I can't give you personalized one on one coaching. There's no one in this room with me. I'm talking to myself right now. Now, I know this is not like personalized one on one coaching. By listening to the podcast, you're not doing something like going through my first fat Academy, which is my E course where I teach about this stuff and we go even more in depth. And I coach you one on one

you know even or you know reading my book, you getting more information. But there's tons there's so many resources out there for you to get to a place where you love and accept yourself. It could be going to a therapist, it could be you know, everyone is everyone's journey is different, right? So why haven't you or why do we generally not take the action to get to that next level? Why do we not take when we hear advice have, you know, you should do this or that or whatever? Why do we not listen to advice? Why do we think we can do it all ourselves? like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Could you do it on your own? I don't know, probably probably not actually. Probably someone has done it on their own, or I don't know, I don't know anything about Mount cleanup. Kilimanjaro, I have no idea that maybe people don't even climb that mountain anyway. Could you do it on your own? Yes, probably very, very, very, very difficult. Would it be easier if you had someone to guide you to someone to ask questions and say, like, should we go this way? Should we go that way? Which is like, you know, common mistakes that people make? What about that crevice over there? Is it safe to walk over? What about this ladder? Like, what? How do I use it? You know, would it be easy if you had someone to help you along? Well, of course. And so we know this, right? We know that it's, but a lot of times, we try and do things on our own to try and for whatever reason, we're going to get those reasons. Now. I have done it many times. Like when I started my business, I was like, I ain't gonna pay for no coaching, like no dummy. I'm gonna, like, see how other people do it by watching them online and, and just copy them. And no, that didn't work. My business only started working when I paid for coaching when I bought e courses. And I remember, I remember this E course I was listening to this like this, this person, super famous in the online online business world. And she had an E course. And it was $97 a month for 12 months. And I was like, Oh, it's so expensive. And I could afford it at the time I could have afforded it like no problem at all, literally no problem at all. But I was like, No, I'm just going to reverse engineer everything and like work it out myself, instead of spending that $97. Like, if I could go back to Victoria, then I would have been like Victoria. Stop trying to make it harder for yourself here as an expert who knows how to do it, just give them the money, and learn how to do it without making it harder for yourself. And nothing is like, you know, I had the money so. So why do we choose not to take action? Well, the reason is, there are benefits to not doing this work to not working on loving our body. Benefits being it's really fucking scary. So it's easier not to do this work. It is really scary. It is actually dangerous. It is it could be harmful for our health, for our mental health. Especially for a topic like this, going against the majority of the world and saying, I'm going to love my fat body, I'm not going to try and lose weight. Holy shit, that is hard, hard, hard, hard. And so of course, it makes sense that we don't want to take action when it's hard. Because we could literally we could be in physical danger. You know, you're probably going to face criticism. What are you going to say to the people around you? You know, if you say Oh, well, I'm I'm doing I'm going into therapy to learn how to love myself, or I'm taking this ecourse learning how to love myself or I'm doing this one on one coaching with this person who's an expert in it and have learned how to love myself, people around you are going to have opinions, right? And so some of those opinions might be criticism. I've seen it so many times people might go well how are you know, my families think this a family, my family think, or people around me think that, you know, I've gone mad or something because I'm doing this. Another thing about it is you you're gonna have to let go of old stories. And you have to change challenge, long held beliefs that you have about yourself. And it could be challenging your identity of who you are.

And that's difficult. That brings up a lot of emotions. So of course, it's easier to not take action and not take that next step. Like if your goal is to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, it'd be way easier just to not, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be way easier just to not. But if you knew that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro really you knew it was going to make your life so much better. It was just going to make you feel really good and it was going to have lots of positive outcomes that far outweighed the negative ones. Then you No, you have to do it. Right? And it's the same with body love, do you know that there is going to be a load of shit? You know, when you're in it that you're probably going to be like, Fuck this, why am I doing this, this sucks, I just want to go home, go to bed, have a nice warm bath, fuck the mountain, you know, you have to decide. Like, for me, man climbing Mount Kilimanjaro ain't interested, the benefits for me are not going to outweigh the negative, like, I'm not interested in sleeping in a 10. I don't do well with a lack of oxygen because I have asthma and, and so I know I wouldn't enjoy that. And now I say that, like in 10 years, I'm like I'm climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. But no, I'm just not interested. And so some people are not interested in learning to love their body, it's just not their thing. They're just not interested in you, they know it's not going to be have any benefit to their life. But presuming you if you're listening to this podcast, that you know that this is an issue for you. And you know that a lot of areas in your life could be better if you had higher self esteem. So. So another thing is, is people think that they think that they're giving up on their health. Now, this is something that I've covered a lot in previous podcast episodes. So look at anything that has health in the title, to talk about how you're literally doing the opposite. And so people are like, well, I don't want to give up on my health. Well, that's not true. But one thing that is true is that you're having to give up on the dream and the fantasy in the hope that you will finally become thin. And that is super painful. The reason why it's painful is because we have tied a lot of outcomes to what will happen when we become thin. Most of them are magical thinking, one in particular that I can think of that is not magical thinking is being less oppressed. So being in a bigger body, there is marginalization, right? There are outcomes, the people who live in bigger bodies experience, that people who live in smaller bodies don't experience those medical fatphobia there's, you know, every, I'm like, every single area of your life, like buying clothes, finding a date, going to the doctor, having friends, like everything is affected when you have a fat body. And so that is one way that, you know, one barrier that people are like, Well, I have to give up on the hope that one day, I can move myself out of a marginalized group into a group that has privilege. And that is as someone who has a smaller body. Now, that's a complex issue in of itself. But that is a reality of having to let go of that fantasy. And that is one of the outcomes that having a smaller body will give you the rest of them, you can get them living in a fat body. So feeling more confident, or getting a date, or moving your body in certain ways, or whatever it is you want to get or feeling you know, sexy, you're you're going to, you can get that living in a fat body, but the the ways that fat people are oppressed, and that comes with as well like, being able to go to a clothes store and buy, you know, find something off the rack. Like, so many of us can't do that. I know all of us have things that correlate with that as well. So there are some real things that we have to let go of. And the truth is, you know, there is no chance that there's such a small chance that that if you're fat that you're going to get into that

privileged group for any length of time anyway, so, you know, the reality is you're not really letting go of it. It's just letting go of the hope. Right? So on the flip side, what are the benefits for for loving yourself or feeling more confident? Well, increased self esteem, happiness, self compassion, able to either know go on vacation and do those things that you've been putting off or, or you know, do those things that you think oh, I can't do it because I have a fat body or or you know, date people that are worthy of you or ask for a pay rise or wear that bikini or whatever it is. There are so many benefits Is to loving your fat body having a healthy relationship with food, not continually continuously dieting. So for me, now, I can see how life is just so much easier, like my brain is free. So I don't have to constantly be like body checking or, or ruminating on things or playing things over in my mind because, you know, I am shy or lack confidence or worry about what people are thinking to think of me. Everything is just easier. Like, it's like, the volume on my life has been turned up and, and I've been able to let go of these chains that have been holding me back and, and, you know, before I ever like, oh, we know, I could think of like a couple of things I wanted to do, like, oh, maybe I can wear that bikini or whatever. But you know, that's just one tiny part of it. And it's really is a massive, like, just everything is just easier when you don't think that you're a piece of shit. Like, this is not news Wiktoria Of course, everything is easier. But before I couldn't, I couldn't I couldn't get to that that place because, you know, I've shared in previous episodes, you know, some of the shit things that have happened in my life and, and the shit things that happened in my life is no fault of my own. But what happened after experiencing those shit things, which is totally normal to happen is that I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, me. I'm, I'm a victim. And absolutely, I was a victim. And it's absolutely normal to be like, Whoa, me, and important to be in that stage. But I was letting it define me. I was like, You know what, I'm just such a loser and Oh, my life is so short. And and that's normal. Again, that's normal, by the way. But I was getting to a place and a time where all of these feelings of my life is shit I'm such a loser was so bad at my job. And it just got boring. It got old and, and I was like, I don't like this anymore. I'm not into being like, you know, woe is me for so many years because it was it was not like 10 minutes later on, like my cup, you know, it's years and years of feeling like this and and believing that I wasn't good enough. And I read a book called The Happiness Advantage by Sean Aker. There is a he's got a TEDx talk, too. It's really funny. But he is Is he a doctor is a doctor. He was what I Yeah. I think is, you know, it just like psychology and stuff. Anyway, he studies he studies happiness, happiness, and satisfaction and all that type of stuff, Brain Stuff. And something that he talked about in his book, really good. I've met the guy he's amazing, is something called the third path. Now when we experience bad things in our life, when we experience trauma, human beings do three things. First, the first path is exactly what I did. And what exactly what most people do is experienced trauma. And then they go on a downward spiral. Totally normal, that's to be expected, right? Bad thing happens. Oh, this is shit. Oh, and then we kind of get stuck. The next is so you go on a downward spiral. The next is status quo. So a bad things happen. And you know, you don't necessarily make it mean anything about you good or bad. Nothing really changes in your life

that is less common. What's really, really uncommon is the third path. The third path is going on an upward spiral. So something bad happens some trauma. And instead of making it mean something bad about you, or you know, your life, you use that as a push to move into something more meaningful and use it as a good experience. Now, if something bad happens, and you're immediately like, oh my god, I'm so pleased that I just broke broke both my legs on this is the best thing that's happened to me this year. I'm going to use this as an inspirational story about courage. And you're like lying on the side of the road with you know, your legs broken. That would be really fucking weird. Right? So don't you know, this is not saying like, you have to be so positive all the time and you know, something bad happens and you just like, oh my god, guess what happened to me? I'm so excited about it. Like no, that would be weird and not normal. You have to go through the no Normal, human, you know, sadness and anger, and all of that type of stuff. And then when you're ready, you can be like, Okay, I'm going to use this and I'm going to go on the third path. So I got to a place where I was fed up of being on that first part of that being like, Oh, I'm such a loser. I always pick the wrong guys. And oh, my job sucks. And, oh, I'm so ugly, and clothes don't fit me. Which is all, you know, that I needed that to begin with. But I got to a place where it got old, right? And I wanted something different. And I learned about this, this, you know, the third path, and I was like, Oh, shit, what goodness comes out of my situation? What is what what lessons have I taken from my life? And loads of lessons? Like pretty shit? How strong did I become? You know, unfortunately, I had to, like, that sucks. But I learned what a fucking badass I am. I learned what I don't want in life, or how I don't want to be treated, I learned what a shitty boss is. And so I'm able to spot it now and be like, Oh, no, thank you. So, so now, I try to live my life with radical responsibility, and radical responsibility, which is really, in life, who can we control? Who can whose thoughts can we control? whose behavior can we control? The only person we can really control is ourselves, we can influence others, we can try and manipulate others and, you know, do things to change people's minds, but really the only person that we can influence and, and take responsibility for is ourselves. And so I like to this is radical responsibility, you can look it up, it's like a thing of saying, What can I do to make things better for me? How could I have done that better? To have a different outcome. And it's not saying, you know, blaming yourself, and sometimes you do blame yourself, but, uh, not that blame is a bad thing. But it's not saying like, Oh, I'm like, I'm such a loser. And it's my fault that I, you know, that someone ran over my legs, you know, it's, it's just saying that I choose to have control over the way that I think, and the way that I behave, and I'm not going to be blaming others, constantly, when I can be also looking at myself. And the way that I show up in this situation, because I am the only person in the world that I can control that I can influence directly. It's only me, it's me, and I love it. I love it. Because it because it gives you me freedom, because, you know, I can say something is not going right in my life, or what is going on? Something that I've been thinking about a lot, because I've been talking to you about me dating is I love this kind of like, No, I love it. But I've got this idea, you know, men's arc, and it's so annoying. And, and so I have these beliefs of there's not that many good men out there. Now that might be true. It might not be true. I'm I'm discovering it. Of course, there's millions and amount of amazing men out there. But so me dating and me, you know, going on Tinder and OKCupid, and all that type of stuff and having conversations that aren't fulfilling for me. In what way? Can I take radical responsibility? What am I doing to screen these people out? What am I doing to make the conversation great, you know, things like that. And, you know, it doesn't have to be so in depth where you're just like, it's all about me. And it's all about how I'm not doing well enough. It's about how I can influence my own behavior, to make it more aligned with who I want to be as a person. So you have to look at the benefits of not loving your body. Because there are benefits and look at the benefits of working towards a place of body love and body neutrality or whatever you want to call it and decide what do I want to do. And by not making a decision by default you're voting for if you don't currently love your body, you're voting for not loving your body. So you have to decide, do I want to try and work towards climbing that mountain or do I know and you might say, You know what? I'm not that interested. I don't really want to climb that mountain of body love is not for me. That's absolutely fine. But there could be Be a part of you that's like, this is my calling, I need to do this. I know I've spent my whole fucking life hating myself and wasting so much precious brain energy and not being in photos with my kids and, and just not not going for it because of how I feel about myself. And I know I need to do this. And so that that if you feel like that, then you can make a decision of I need to do this and take that first step. And even if you think I can't do it, what is the first step? What's the easiest thing? Okay, so you're listening to podcast? What might be the next step in your journey? Is it to research therapists in your area? Is it to do my first fatti Academy? You currently when this podcast comes out is the doors are open, by the way, so. But it could just be, you know, emailing someone or messaging someone and saying, I would like to learn how to do this, can you help me, you know, whatever it looks like for you. But take that first step. And when when you've taken that first step, then you can think about the next one. So don't think about the whole mountain because if you think about the whole mountain, you were just like, fuck this shit. I'm not gonna do it. But let me tell you, from my perspective, it is so worth it. It's so worth it. If you know if you know, you know, you've you've spent your you know, a big part of your life, wasting brain and energy thinking that you're not good enough. Honestly, you can do it. Those feelings that you have about yourself, are beliefs. Remember, a belief is something that isn't it's not a fact, a fact is 100% true 100% of the time, and just take the first step. So they are some of the lies that we tell ourselves. We can't get to a place of body love, so that you can't do it. You're looking you have confirmation bias and you're looking to the past of how you're such a loser and how it's not possible for you. You're believing those negative limiting self beliefs that you have. And you're not taking action on taking the next step in climbing the body love mountain body love mountain. So that's the end of our episode, but hey, guess what? Do you know what I really like has been making my brain happy recently. And I feel like I'm such a teenager is tick tock Have you been on tick tock? Oh my gosh, I love a bit of tick tock. I've only been like on it for the last couple of weeks or whatever. But I've been posting them on my on my Instagram. It just like just makes me happy people doing silly dances and people you know, telling jokes to the mum and seeing the mums reaction or this one guy was like his parents were in the whoo I presume his parents were in the in the kitchen listening to music, Mrs. Oh, can I put on one song? And they're like, Oh, fine.

And then he puts on my neck, my back. Let my pussy and my crack. You know that song I think is by Kia lick my neck map and they're like one of the jokes was like so this girl says a joke to a mum. What's the difference between two decks? And a joke? The answer is, I can't take a joke. Yes. I tell this to my mom. And she's like, well, I don't get it. If you don't get it, it means that I can take two decks. And it's worse if you say to your two parents because it means that you take two decks and so I explained it to my mom. I was like bass, ma i can take two decks and she was like, Well, probably not at the same time. And she understood what I was talking about. So yeah, so hey, why don't check out a bit a tick tock. I don't think you should follow me on tick tock because I'm not done anything on there. It's just my picture. You know, so I'm not gonna tell you to follow me on Tik Tok because there's no point but there's fat people on Tik Tok. Allegedly I haven't found I've only found like one yet. But yes, so far I've not seen any like diet bullshit or any like any bullshit so far. But I bet you're probably on that but it's just you know, it's making me feel good. Or you can just go to my Instagram first off at a and see the tech talks that I've shared. Because here's another one. This guy says to disguise a fart, drop, drop something at the same time you you fart and people won't hear it as so he's in his room room with the parents. He drops a tissue and it gently floats to the ground as he lets out like the longest wet Taste fart and his parents are just like you you're just disgusting just get out of here that reminded me so much of my sister so I said it to my sister and she didn't she enjoyed it so anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this episode so believing yourself okay you're stupid and yet all right believing yourself you can do it and come and join me on this this body love mountain it's pretty cool here yeah on this bottle of mountain we show Tik Tok so yeah. On a on the theme of me hating men. Where do mansplain errs get their water? Where do mansplain is get their water from the well actually get it from the well actually because they say well actually you'll find that normal. I shouldn't be explaining my jokes. No, my jokes. I stole them from other people. But yeah. All right. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today on this episode. It's been a songlines, as always, I really enjoy talking to you and getting your messages and your voicemails on Instagram and if you want to ask a question for the podcast then just message me anywhere email me Victoria at first party.com or even on the if you want to do it anonymously. There's a link on the podcast the show notes and the show notes is facebook.com forward slash 031. And you can do that there and also I forgot go and check out the show notes because I've got a resource to to help you with this. It's called the confidence booster book. The confidence booster book and so it's got like quotes and different things to make you feel good and make you feel like a badass and it's free obviously. So go to the show notes first party.com forward slash 031 and get the confidence booster book that is going to help you with what we are talking about so All right, I'll see you in the next episode you incredible human being you alright see am I fit my.

EP30 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. Welcome to episode 30, where we're talking about when your partner says they don't find you attractive. Let's do it.

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

Hello. Hello. Hello, fatty. How are you doing today? Thanks for being here. I'm so excited to chat with you today. I was feeling, I was feeling a bit meh this morning. And so I decided that today would be a good day to record my podcast episode for ya because it makes my brain happy. So yeah, I was just going to wallow in on happiness and because that's sometimes good, but then I just thought, you know what? You know what? I'm gonna put some makeup on. I'm gonna comb my hair and I'm gonna make a podcast episode.

So yeah. Hey, is my accent weird? Do you think my accent is weird? I'm curious. I think it's kind of a little bit weird. I've been watching loads of videos on Youtube of like dialect coaches. Reviewing when you know, people doing accents in movies and stuff and, showing how this is good and this is bad or whatever and how they really now the accent, it's so interesting. And it's something like something that I find really interesting is the different ways that Canadians and people from the States say things versus Europeans, people from the UK. And I'm in Ireland now, so my accent is 60% British and 40%? No, I'd say 70% British, 20% Canadian. And I forgotten what that percent left is 10%. 10% Irish, not even 10% Irish. I was in UK for 20 plus years, in Canada for 10 plus years and in Ireland for one year. So yeah, sometimes I'm saying things and people don't understand what I'm saying, so hopefully you can. But just like the other day I was asking my mom if she had pickles and she was like, what? And then I was like, pickles, you know, she's like, I don't like pickled things. And I'm like, you know, no pickles to put in a burger. And she was like, huh. And I was like, Oh, gherkins. Do you have gherkins? And she was like, Oh, no, no, don't have gherkins. But it was so ingrained in me to say pickles and not gherkins anymore that my mum literally didn't understand why I was saying but I've got some words here that I want to say to you. And so depending on where you are in the world, you might be like, Oh my God, yeah, this is different and weird and funny, but I'm just laugh at being in Canada. I'm just like, no, I'm saying it wrong or maybe Canadians or for people from the States, it's like, no, you're saying it wrong to people, to Brits. The first thing that I noticed when I got to Canada, people were like, go and find somewhere to live on this website called Greg's list.

And I'm like that type it in G R E G, Greg's list. But turns out they weren't saying Greg, they were saying Craig in Canada, I'm just gonna say Canada, but you know, saying, you know, pretty much either United States as well. They you say, or they say whoever, you know, depending if you're a Brit or not, they say Craig instead of Craig, like Greg, but with a C, it's so weird. Craigslist instead of Craigslist. And the next one, the name Graham, they don't say Graham. So G. R .A . H. A. M. There's no H in there. They say Graham, G. R A. M. Graham, graham crackers. Instead of Graham. Not that British people know what Graham crackers are. I don't think. I think we get Graham crackers in the UK. Anyway, here's another name, Dawn D. A. W. N. Dawn, Canadian say Don. D. O. N. In the morning when it's when it's dawn time. Now dawn, there's an A and W not Don. Here's another one. There's a place in the States and they say, I think they say they say St Louis, but it's not written Lewis as Brits. L. E. W. I. S. It's spelled Louie, but they pronounce it Lewis. And so Louis, L. O. U. I. S., in the UK. We would say that's Louie. But Canadians, Americans for people in the States say Louis, I don't even know if W L E W I S that type of Lewis, is that a thing in Canada? And I don't know. Here's one that I really struggle with. Okay. So, and when I'm in Vancouver, I go to a singing group and there's one song that we sing that has the word water in it. Now posh British people say water with a T. I'm not a posh British person, but sometimes my accent can go into posh. But I'm like from a place called Pittsburgh, which is not posh. And so if I was talking normally I'd say wa-er, wa-er without the T. But Canadians say water with a D water. And that, like for me, my tongue is like a little, a little, a little more when I'm saying water. And so the song goes, we come from water and water and it's so hard for me to say to sing that because I want to say we come from water and water. We shout depending if I'm being posh or not. Water and water and water and water and water and water shall remain. Yeah. So when I'm singing that in my song grief, I'm like, it feels like I'm like my tongue is drunk when it says water and I'm probably doing a really bad, but that's what it sounds like to me water, water, W A D U R ,water instead of water? Here's another word. Squirrel. You know like the rats with the bushy tails in the trees. Canadian say sqrrr.

No vowels in that at all, sqrrr. It's sqrrr. You are so Britt say squirrel. Squirrel and Canadians say sqrrr, sqrrr. And so I remember like watching RuPaul's drag race, I don't even know, even if he's saying squirrel friend or have you saying, is it squirreled friend that Rupert RuPaul's saying or is he saying, cause he says squirrel friend, squirrel friend. Is he saying squirrel friend or is he saying something else? Which is, you know, sometimes, you know, make up noises and stuff. And I presume that, I've always thought he's just saying sqrr,sqrrr friend, right. Not that squirrel, but maybe it's squirrel. I think it is squirrel. Now here's another one. Now this one grabbed my case. There's grinds my gears because it's like a British word and Canadians have stolen it and they're doing it wrong and it gets on my tits so fucking bad.

But the swear word twat Canadians pronounce it taught it just, I just wanna I just, this one gets on my tits like the other ones, like whatever. But this one gets on my tits. Now he just makes this cool swear words twat and turns it into like, just no, just wrong and not cool any more than just twats. No, it's, it does have a A there. There's no, O. And the other thing that Canadians get wrong and people in the States is on St Patrick's day. Now because I'm half Irish. I can be mad about this too. They say instead of Patty, which is the the shortened version of Patrick. I have an uncle Patty. Obviously, I'm Irish. I let you have an uncle Patty. My granddad was Patty. I have a cousin Patty. They're old Patrick, they instead of saying Patty, not everyone, but a lot of people says, says Patty with T.

Oh my God. Oh my God, it's Patty with T. No, Patty with Ds. Here's another one. Okay, last one, last one. This is a phrase. So the phrase is, I couldn't care less, so I couldn't care less. So even if I tried, I have nothing left to give of caring. There is nothing. I couldn't possibly care less. I hear I could care less. Meaning the same thing. I could care less about you doing that, but it's couldn't. It's kind of, Oh my gosh. Anyway, I've been thinking about this. I'm like storing this up being like, I need to tell someone. I need to tell someone and my audience being international, some of you are gonna be like no Victoria, you're wrong because it is water and no, you should be pronouncing it the posh way and say water or whatever. We're all wrong or right but you know, obviously I'm right about it. All of them. Yes.

Yeah. So it was kind of funny watching those videos of pronunciations is just, you know, making me think about you know, the funny ways that people say. One of my ex boyfriends, he, Oh my God, he had me crying, laughing and saying how when he got to the, he wasn't, he's Canadian, he was Canadian. And he went to the UK, this was before me and he got in the taxi in London and he said, take me to Leicester square. Leicester square. And I was like, what's Leicester square? And he meant Lester and the way that Lester, his spell is L, E I. C E. S T. E. R. L. E. I. C. E. S. T. E. R. So I can get it. Why he said Leicester, but the cabbie was laughing at him and I was laughing at him saying like, no, you're Dingle berry’s Leicester. But yeah, some, some ways that I pronounce Canadian things people have loved it me being like, M, that's not how you say it. So I have been the Dingle berry in lots of situations.

Anyway, what we're talking about today is what if your partner says they're no longer attracted to you or never were. So we're talking about spouses and them confessing or telling you or whatever about, you know, don't get fat cause I won't be as attracted to you or I prefer thin people or whatever. I have had this experience. My long-term boyfriend who I was with for six years told me after I had put on, I'd maybe put on 15 pounds. So nothing that he wasn't attracted to me anymore. So I actually made a video about this in 2018 and I wrote a blog post about this in 2017 and I'm going to read the blog post to you. It's a short one and then we're going to dissect this because a lot of people have this fear or have this issue. Okay. So this blog post, I'll link to it. Yeah, I'll link to it. I was like, actually no, I'm not gonna link to it because I'm gonna read it here, but I'll link to it in the show notes is why I was happy when my boyfriend told me he wasn't attracted to me.

I always got the impression one of my partners just wasn't that into me. Let me rephrase, just not buy into my looks. My suspicion was confirmed four years in when he told me that he didn't find me as attractive because I had put on a little weight walking in the park at winter when he shamefully told me his secret, I assured him I would quote unquote become better. I would lose weight. The next week I went on what would be my last diet. I vowed I would lose the weight, the quote unquote healthy way and my partner would finally see me, see how wonderful I was and think I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Of course, as all diets do, it failed. I put on more weights. I became resentful. Why couldn't he just love me the way I was? Why did he have to tell me something that was so devastating to me? I was filled with shame, anger, and confusion. Why am I now happy that he gave me this information? Why I am now happy that he gave me this information is that it led me on a path of self-discovery around beauty. Six months after we split, I asked him, would you have liked me better if I was thinner? Yes. This time his words didn't hurt. It didn't hurt because since I gave up on that last diet, I have learned all about fat positivity and feminism. I have learned about our patriarchal society and our beauty ideals. And beauty ideals hurt all of us. Why would a thin girlfriend be important to you? I continued. He explained that having a thin partner improves his status, that having a small girlfriend makes him feel more masculine. Like a lot of people, he has never explored our society's beauty ideals. We are constantly told that the most desirable are white, young and thin. This belief will hurt him as he searches for a new partner. It will hurt him when he finds a new partner and she ages it will hurt him. If she ever puts on weight, it will hurt her too as it hurt me. Knowing that the man I adored would prefer a different version of me. Now I know it's not about me. It's a byproduct of living in a society that objectifies women. Men seeing their partner as a status symbol and women believing their worth is determined by the number on the scale amongst other things. If I could travel back to that time and that icy cold park, I would have had such a different reaction. I wouldn't have seen my body as a problem, but the fact that my partner believed my worth was decreased as my weight increased, I would encourage my partner to explore his belief of what is desirable. And if he couldn't see the beauty of my quote unquote waves and honey, then I would remove myself from the relationship. So if you're in the same situation as I was, know that it's not your fault, it's this fucked up beauty ideal. You deserve to be with someone who accepts you for who you are. And if they don't leave them. By the way, my now ex is a wonderful kind person. He didn't tell me about his feelings to be cruel, but to try and strengthen our relationship. It just didn't work out the way he plans. The end. So that is the post that I wrote about this topic, and I remember it so clearly him saying those words the park were out, the Lake was frozen. We were throwing stones onto the lake and making the ice break. And him saying this and me being absolutely stomach dropping through my body, sick, heart sinking, you know, that feeling of my worst fears coming true.

Like this boyfriend, he was never kind of like, Oh yeah, you're so sexy, you're so fit and you know, that kind of thing. And I was always like, I don't think he finds me that attractive. Now, I don't know if that was the case, but that was the case in that moment. And this incident, it was like two years before we broke up and we didn't break up because of this, but obviously this didn't help. It was like a slow drip of him thinking that I wasn't good enough when, hello I clearly was. And him saying this to me, it was the last diet that I ever started. And this started me kind of getting into disordered eating again. And I remember saying to my therapist at the time, I need to confess to you about how much I eat. And I remember this because maybe a year ago when, yeah, when I was writing my book, we together went through old notes of you know, our past sessions so that I could put it into my book. Because a lot of times when you work on things and it's in the past, you forget about it. Right. And this is one thing that she brought up and I was like, Oh, yes. Confessing to her about saying, I eat so much food. And she was like, well, what do you eat? And then I listed out what I would have in a day and afterwards, you know, a year ago we were kind of laughing about it, not laughing at me, but kind of how now it seems so not ridiculous- but I was making a problem where there wasn't a problem cause I'd be like, I had a piece of dust after I hadn't eaten for six hours and I'm so greedy and like at the time she wasn't like listen out bitch.

Like you're allowed to eat more than just dust. But I just really thought that there was something wrong with me and there wasn't. And I had put on weight because I was slowly starting to get away from diets and, this was kind of like me getting away from diet meetings you know, slightly a little bit more and, who else knows? But I hadn't even put on that much weight really. I remember standing in the mirror naked in the bathroom with him and looking at my hips. And there was a little change in the way the shape of my hips and I was like, Oh, look at that. Isn't that interesting? And kind of like without judgment, observing a change in the shape of my body. And that was really cool that I was able to see like that nonjudgmental. But he in that moment was probably like, Oh no, there's a change in the way that she is looking and there's like an extra bulge, like very slight thing. But this issue is a really big issue for people when they are on that journey of trying to love themselves, try and to accept that their big body trying, to stop dieting. That desperate fear of what weight gain will mean to their partner or has their partner always had a preference for someone in a smaller body. And you know this or you know, you just know that your partner would be happier if you were your current way of thinner. They definitely don't want you to be bigger and that sucks that it's such a big barrier.

And what is happening here is that your partner is objectifying you. So the dictionary states what objectifying is, is degrade to the status of a mere object. So the reason why objectification is problematic is it makes you into a two dimensional thing versus a human being with you know, a full and varied life and lots of things to give to your partner. And it would do things like isolate parts of your body, like isolate or just your tits or just your bum or you know, I really like this and you know that single piece of you as being an object for your partner to consume and not seeing you as a whole person. And so the reason why objectification is problematic is because it leads to the idea of possession. If you are an object or if a part of your body isn't object, then objects are owned and so are, are you, is your body no longer yours?

Is it owned by your partner? And if you are an object, objects are treated differently from humans, right? It leads to mistreatment and at least to controlling behavior. And eventually it leads to violence. And eventually it leads to murder. Now, not saying because your, your partner says, Oh, I like skinny girls that they're going to murder, you know. But this is kind of like the big scheme of things of why it's problematic. Remember in last week's episode a common trait that the World Health Organization identified amongst domestic abusers was misogyny. And this is misogyny. So I want you to think of it if the tables were reversed, I cannot even imagine my partner putting on weight and me saying, this is a real problem for me. I don't like the fact that you've put on weight. I'm not attracted to you anymore. I cannot imagine saying to my partner, if their body changed, bring like eww. You ugly now used to be so fit, but now you're disgusting. Like it's ridiculous. It seems ridiculous to me. Like that would not ever happen. I cannot imagine it maybe, you know, 10 years ago when I didn't know better. If my partner's body changed, then, you know, one, I would expect it because human bodies do not remain static and two, I would just think, Oh my God, why are you so cute and lovely? And it would just be lovely to be with someone throughout life. And as their body changes, as they get older, whatever happens to their body you know, it's like a strengthening of the relationship that you can be with them through life and life is your body changing? It is absolutely 100% unrealistic to expect any human body to not change, to not gain weight or lose weight or to age.

What if you become pregnant, your body's going to change. What if you have an accident? You're in an accident. Your body could change. What if you get an illness? Your body could change, your body could change. There's so many reasons. A lot of people are very nervous about getting pregnant because they are very concerned about how their partner will then perceive their body afterwards. Like it's a broken body, like their body before was better, but your body has just created a fucking human being. Your body has just created an organ that you presenter like just grew a fucking organ and a whole other human being like Holy shit. How amazing is that? And how amazing is it that your skin was able to organically grow and stretch and, their stretch marks to show how cool your skin is and that it was able to adapt to this massive change in your body and to have to worry about that, your partner's going to be like, your tummy is different and your vagina is different. It makes me want to do around house kick to someone's face.

So our society fetishize is thin bodies, yet hardly anyone thinks this is an issue. Let me repeat that because this is really important. Our society fetishize is thin bodies, yet hardly anyone thinks it's an issue. Now fetishization is not inherently wrong when all parties are in agreeance and the person doing the fetishizing sees you as a whole person. But we are fetishizing thin bodies where there is not consent. Do you consent to your partner fetishizing a body that you used to have? Do you consent to that? Is that okay with you? For me it was not. It was nonconsensual I didn't consent to that. I do not consent to that. I do not consent to my partner fetishizing my current body to the point that if it changes, they no longer love me or love me differently.

So on the flip side, you know, you can have people who fetishize fat bodies, you know, the level to fat fetishization too thin fetishization that what is hard to say repeatedly is like, you know, a billion to one basically because pretty much everyone fetishizes thin bodies and it's a small portion that fetishize fat bodies and people were like, Oh, is it bad to fetishize fat bodies? Well, no. If I'm the person who, you know, if the dynamic, if there's consent there, you know, then it's okay if I was with someone and they just own, they were like, Oh my God. The only thing I like about you is your fat belly or your fat tits or whatever it is. And then I happened to lose weight and then they were like, Ooh, gross, you're gross. Then it's really clear to see how that is a problem.

But when it comes down to the other way, we don't see it as a problem. We see it as, Oh shit, well I need to lose weight from my partner. You know? If a partner says, I'm just not into fat girls, that's fat phobia. All preferences are not made in a vacuum. Right? All preferences are not made in a vacuum. So do you want to be with someone whose love is dependent on what you look like. Who's no love and affection and sex and care is dependent on your body saying the staying the same size? How sustainable is that in a relationship? How long can you guarantee that your body is going to stay the same? At what point do you, is your body changed so much that your partner leaves? Do you want to get to that point where your partner is eventually like, Oh well you've changed too much because you know you're a human being and I can't handle being well the human being he had a day you get older and how dare you, you know your skin change and this and whatever.

Do you always want to be thinking, when is that day coming? When will my partner say I no longer love and care for you in the same way because your body looks different. Is that something that you consent to? Is that something that you agree to? I personally, when I'm in a relationship I don't love someone because of what their body looks like, what someone looks like. Yes. It's a part of what draws me to them and it's part. It's something that will give me pleasure but does my love for them change because of what they look like. Am I, and even if you go to non, you know, non-romantic love, do you love the people in your life, your parents or your friends or your siblings or whoever because of what they look like? Well, no, of course not. Of course not.

Well, why does romantic love have to be so dramatically different than it's based on such a massive part of it is based on looks. It doesn't have to be that your partner and partnership is so heavily based on what you look like and flip the script like, would you be saying that to your partner? Do you have that same expectation of them for their body to never change? How does that sit with you? You might say, yes, I do have the expectation that my partner always has this same body. Well, is that something that is beneficial for you? Is that working for you? Is that something that makes you happy? What is going on there? Why do you want your partner to have the same body now? I think like most people listen to this podcast, which is just be like, well no, obviously no, I don't presume my partner to have the same body forever.

Well one that, why can you not ex extend that? Why can't your partner extend that same grace to you and rebel in changes in your body, especially when changes in your body come from you working on your mental health, healing your relationship with food, getting to a place where you're more confident. Wouldn't that be an incredible and joyful thing? Wouldn't that be a wonderful achievement where you're able to say, I have let go of my disordered eating, my eating disorder, my mental health issue around this and now my body is softer. And that is a like a trophy for how far I've come. When you want a partner that celebrates that with you versus makes it into an issue when it's not an issue. So it's the person who is doing the nonconsensual eye objectification and fetishizing to deprogram their brain is their job to see you as a whole person and not something that's put on earth for their enjoyment and for their sexual pleasure.

They're the one who has work to do. Not you, because even if, say if diets did work, even if there was a reliable way for you to make your body smaller and you could make your body smaller, do you want to be with someone who is thinking of you like that? Hmm. I wouldn't want to be with someone who's thinking like that. So if I do go back to that moment when my ex said that he wasn't attracted to me, I would literally be like, Whoa, Oh, hello dude, you need to work on your fat phobia motherfucker. Don't you see what a fucking gorgeous person I am inside and out. Why is this hard for you to see me as a whole person? Why? Do you fetishize my body when it was smaller? And even, you know, in that article that I wrote six months after we broke up, I said to him, would you have liked me better if I was thin?

And he said, yes. That's so fucked up. Whoa. That's fucked up that we had a lovely relationship. And in his mind, that relationship would have been just that little bit better. If I was thin or thinner, is that the truth? Well, if he fetishizes bodies that he does, then yes, he would have got a little bit more pleasure from fetishizing my thinner body if I had a thinner body. But that is, that was not possible. What is possible was for him to work on his fat phobia, to work on his misogyny, to work on him objectifying his girlfriend. Like that conversation could have gone him saying, I'm finding you less attractive or I'm not attracted to you anymore and I feel terrible about it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to a therapist and I'm going to talk about it because it's not okay for me to be objectifying you like that. I want to be with you forever and your body is going to change and, and my body's going to change and I don't expect you to you know, judge me if my body changes and I am not going to judge you because your body has changed. I see the beautiful work that you're doing in stopping dieting and all that sort of stuff and I realized that I have work to do as well. So that would have been the beautiful outcome of that conversation. Or even if he had just not even told me that he was found me less attractive and just went to therapy and did the work on his own or you know, gone on to read it and like read some blog posts or whatever. He was always on Reedit. And it would just be, you know, now that I am educated, it's just a totally different, you know, conversation.

It's a totally different reality. The reality before was, Holy shit, I'm disgusting. I have repelled the man that I love and adore and want to be with forever. I have repelled him and repulsed him so much that he's had to get up the courage to tell me that he is not attracted to me anymore. How hard is it for him to have to deal with that? That is what my brain is saying now and I'm saying then, but there was nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you. And to an extent, it's not the person's fault to be fetishizing thin people because we live in a society. But in this moment, if this ever happens to you when someone points out, Hey, this is problematic and this is why it's problematic. You have work to do on your bigotry. Then they're made aware that this is not okay, then it is that, you know, and their issue to work on and not your issue. And you can't force someone to do the work, right? You're doing the work. You've done the work. You know, you are getting to a place where you're realizing like, Holy shit, fat phobia is fucked up. Oh, diets don't work. All that type of stuff. You're doing the work you're in it, you're in the thick of it and your partner is letting you down and it's not okay. Now in this situation, you could just go and try and lose weight. You could try and attract your partner in different ways and I don't know, get a new hairstyle or whatever. I don't know. You could try and do those things that might work out for you. You could have a difficult conversation with your partner and say, this is not acceptable.

I think you need to work on this. You know, misogyny that you're obviously grappling with. You could just be like, see you later. I'm out of here. It depends on the length of the relationship and all that type of stuff and it's hard. It's complicated, right? Like I said at the end of my blog post, generally speaking, my then boyfriend wasn't an asshole. He was a good guy. He was kind. He thought about others. He was a good partner to me on the whole, obviously there was things that weren't good, but he wasn't like he was this demon that was like, Oh, I'm going to destroy her and I'm going to make her really sad by saying this thing. He was already struggling and he thought that the solution was to tell me so that I would then lose weight, you know, and then as well, it wasn't just wrapped up in a traction, which, you know, that's how he presented, but I bet you deep down he was probably like, Oh, just fatness mean that she is going to become unhealthy.

Just fatness mean that we will no longer do the things that we enjoy doing together. Like does this mean the beginning of the end? Does this mean that she will become very, very fat and these things happen? Basically all fat phobia but the way he, I'm guessing, I'm guessing but the way it was presented was I'm not attracted to you. So if you're in that situation is complicated, you know, I don't presume that your partner's just a massive, you know, knob and just a dick and doing this to be mean. That could be the case but you know, giving people the benefit of the doubt there. But it's not okay. It's not okay that someone, anyone presumed that the way to fix this problem, which is based in bigotry is for you to change your body, right. But this is a common thing is we know when someone is a bully, say in the playground there's a bully, the bullies picking on someone because they got big ears. You wouldn't say to the kid with the big ears, maybe you should have like surgery and get your ears pinned back. No, you would say to the bully, stop being a fucking bully. You know, what's wrong with you, what's going on here? But a lot of the times with fat people, we say, well, it might be a good idea for you to lose weight because then you won't get bullied versus saying to bully what's wrong with you? Stop being a bully, you know? So we put it on the fat person to do the problem solving when really it is the bully or it is society or your partner or whatever to be the one to work out.

Why are they feeling like this or behaving like this or reacting like this is not our duty to change ourselves so that we are less of a target or victim. Whew. So complicated one. Hey, but you know, in my mind, like now it, you know, if I met someone, they were like, Oh, maybe you would just be so cute if you lost a lot the other way, I would just be like, suck my fucking saggy tits, motherfucker. Ah, I'd be like, no, see you later. Oh no, I would not fly with me. But as you know, I am starting to date, well, last time I told you that I was starting on Tinder and yeah, well, I've given up on it. I can't be bothered. These like one word conversations. I'm just like, yeah. You know. I can't be bothered. I dunno. I dunno. Is this the reality for everyone? I just keep thinking I'm going to give it another go. I'm gonna give it another go. And then I'm just like, Oh, can't be bothered. And then, so now I'm like, I'm just gonna wait until I get back in Vancouver and then when I'm in Vancouver, then it will be different or better. Or maybe then when I'm in Vancouver, I'll just be like, if the conversation is not really going anywhere, I'll be like, let's just jump on the phone and have a chat or, you know, let's just go on a date or something. Because, I don't like to write people off with the web because of the way that they communicate on the internet to a stranger. Because everyone has different communication styles. Sometimes people are better in person, sometimes people are better when they've got to know someone. And so I always want to give someone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to communication. Now we're content of that communication. Like if they're just like, yo, big tit bitch or whatever, then I'll be like, nah, I'm not gonna give you the benefit of the doubt there. You're clearly a creep. And as I asked him to call me a big tit bitch or whatever, but I always try to, and then say if I go on a date with someone on the first date, they seem nice, but they're a little bit shy. I will always again, given the benefit of the doubt, as long as they're not creepy or anything because I tend to, I'm an extrovert. I tend to romantic partners, get on with introverts better. Even though like in my mind, I'm like, no, give me another extrovert. Really when I'm faced with a guy who was also an extrovert, I'm just like, Oh, who is this guy? Why won't you let me talk? I tend to do better with introverts as romantic partners. If I get on better with introverts, I have to try and, you know, not saying the introverts are shy, but yeah.

Anyway, I've done my pandemic hair part two. Remember I did my pandemic hair where I kind of shaved the sides of my head. Well, I have now bleached my hair and because I shared a video on Instagram with this guy bleaching his hair. His hair is exactly the same as mine, and it was the same like dark kind of. My hair is naturally kind of brown. And he bleached it and he looked so fucking good. And so I said, do you, shall I do this? And Instagram told me yes. So I bleached it and now the tips of my hair were properly bleach cause I bleached it, the tips a couple of times. So I was bleaching my roots and so I bleached my roots and they kind of went a little bit gingery, not gingery, but then very brassy. And so then the next day I put in gray. And so now the tips are kind of like purpley, bluey and the roots of kind of, I don't know what color it is, like blonde, I don't know. You can see on YouTube. I put a video of me recording the podcast on YouTube. So if you ever want to see what I look like when I'm recording you and know you can learn, you don't have to see my hairs, see what's going on in my hair. Yeah. So, I might now put in a little bit of a pink on the roots. A hairdresser friend said, why don't you try that? So I might do that. Good thing is being in a isolation. If it fucks up, then who's going to see it apart from, you know, or you lot and Instagram and people in the shop, really. I don't, I really don't care. I don't care. And a good thing as well about having really short hair is if it fucks up like really bad. Like if a damage my hair and I can just shave it off. So one time actually when I very first shaved my head. I shaved my head and it was probably a centimeter long and then I bleached it. And I bleached it and then I was like, okay, I'm going to dye it purple. So I got this purple from the store and I put this purple on my head and of course it goes straight onto my scalp because my hair is so short. And I started noticing like, it looks like it's stating my skin and it says keep in for, I don't know, I think it was like 50 minutes. It says keeping your hair for 50 minutes. And then I, after like 10 minutes, I looked and my whole scalp was stained purple, deep, dark purple. And I hadn't like cleaned around my head properly. And so it was all on my ears. It was like dripping down on my face, like stained. And when I say stain, I like racist motherfucker out. And then I got like scouring brushes. I got like, I went on Instagram, what the hell do I do? And people were like, try this, try that. I was putting everything in my hair, like oil and washing up liquid and then I buzzed the rest of my hair off thinking that might help. But then it made it even worse because then I was like completely bald with a stained scalp. Like it looked like I was wearing, I don't know, a hat of purple drip over my head. And that night I had to go out and I think it was. I could wear a hat because it was like January or whatever. And eventually someone said try bleaching it again. And so I had to bleach basically my skin, you know, like a millimeter of hair and it got out. But, Oh my God, my head was just raw. It was so bad. So anyway, I'm telling you this horror story, but you know, if that happened now, then whatever, it's just hair. Right. And Hey, me shaving my head a bit. Part of that was my ex was always like, I prefer when girls have long hair. And so I always had it in the back of my head. Like short hair is not attractive, which is bullshit. So a little bit a part of me shaving my head was kind of like a fuck you to my ex. And I'm like, huh, yeah, don't like short hair. Well suck my fucking tits. I've got short hair now.

So I have you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I feel good. I feel happy now. You know, it's been in a bit more before now. I feel happy. So thank you. And hopefully this has made you feel a little bit unknown. I don't know if you'd feel happy about me being like, Oh, people are fat phobic. But anyway. Okay, well I will see you on the next episode of the Fierce Fatty Podcasts.

Hey, if you want to go to the show notes or as always, as always, you can go to, I think I've ever told you this, so not as always, but you can go to fiercafatty.com/podcast to get all of the episodes or for this specific episode show notes where the only thing that's going to be there is the link to that article, which is fiercafatty.com/030 for episode 30. I'm also on there in the show notes is a thing where you could submit an anonymous question if you want to and links for other things. So it's not just that link, I lied, I lied to you and Hey, why not message me and tell me weird things that British people say or Canadians say, or people from the US have a say that I've missed out on my list of Greg, Craig Graham, Graham water, water, water. All right. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you later for it. Okay. In a while, alligator. Goodbye.

EP29 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby, and in this episode 29, we are diving into part two of my story of domestic abuse. Let's do it.

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

Okay, so we are into part two. This originally was going to be one episode, but it turned out to be over 19 minutes long, just the first recording. And then I recorded it yesterday and then I realized I had other things that I wanted to say. So I thought, Oh, you know, I'm going to split it into two episodes. So my first two-parter and in this part we are going to be getting into the escalation of violence and how I got out. And actually when I eventually left, I had to leave most of my possessions behind. I had left the house and then I sent him a letter saying the relationship was over and I knew that here's a reaction. His anger, his wrath was incredibly dangerous. And I was working in a bar at the time and the bouncers, the doormen they knew about this abuse going on because he had gone in and punched my boss, the manager of the bar.

And so they said that they would come round with me on a day that I knew he was going to be out and grab some things. And, I did that and I went around and I still had a key and it was terrified. They were like, one of them was at the door, you know, waiting to see if he came back, you know, for some reason but he was out with his friends. He did was go out with his friends on a Monday night and I frantically grabbed together a few things. Like I didn't have a van or anything like that. I don't even remember if I had a car, if I was just on my bicycle. But I remember I just literally grabbed things like my birth certificate or some of my artwork or a few clothes literally, you know, in there for 10, 20 minutes cause I was so terrified of him coming back. One of the bouncers, because they weren't afraid of him. They were like, this guy's an asshole. And cause my ex wasn't like some, you know, burly guy or anything. He was pretty, he was a dweeb basically, kind of like the way that I would picture him now, kind of like this sniveling kind of do we be pathetic? Not that being a dweeb is bad, but you know, he's not going to be. There's no way he would ever stand up to anyone who had any type of authority or power, like these bounces. And one of them came into the house and did a shit in the toilet and didn't flush it and then got his toothbrush and like rubbed it on his shit. And I was like so anxious about this. But now I'm like, yes. Fuck yes, you did it. You did that. Because my ex, he wouldn't let me poop. And the idea that he would come home and there'd be a poo in the toilet, I was like mortified because, you know, I was thinking like, what if he thought that I did the poo and I just gone wild and just came into the home and just pooed. Now I couldn't give a fucking shit. I'm so pleased that he saw a poo, but anyway, so my ex wouldn't let me go to the toilet. He wouldn't let me poo if I, if he caught me pooing, he would just be like, Oh my God, you are so disgusting. I can't believe you did that. Oh, you know, what is wrong with you? Which is just incredible that someone would behave like that. So him leaving a poo in the toilet was pretty simple, really.

So, you know, I couldn't poo, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. My basic human needs were not being met. And what a great position for him to have got me into where I was going mad. I was tortured. Imagine, not being able to sleep, not being able to go to the toilet, not being able to eat. These are basic needs. He smoked, I was asthmatic. He would just like smoke in bed and I wouldn't be able to breathe properly. Like Holy shit. And as well, like the sleeping thing got even worse because I realized actually we must've been together longer than two years getting on for three years because I had gotten into university and I was going to university. And normally when you go to university, do you move to wherever your university is? The university I went to was Darby, but he did not want me to move to a different city obviously cause he would lose control of me.

And so he said why don't you commute there and I will help pay the train fare. And I agreed. Of course he didn't pay any train fare or help me in any way financially. Instead he did the opposite. He would take my money, but my commute to get to university was from door to door, three and a half hours long. So imagine that like the amount of, you know what time in the morning I'd have to get up, walk to the bus stop, get a bus to the city center, get a train to a different city, then get another train to my university city cause there wasn't a direct train then get another bus and then walk all while carrying like loads of art equipment and things like that. And being sleep deprived, it was, you know, I was just hanging on by a thread really. So he could have and I would do anything for an easy life.

And so I was, you know, that he'd got me into a place where I was a perfect victim because I was so beaten down, so exhausted, so hungry, needed to do a shit so badly. Like I would hold in my poo for hours and hours until the moment he left. And I remember when he would go to work you know, saying goodbye to him at the door and then finally locking the door and then running into the bathroom so that I could go to the toilet. And I remember one time him coming back for something and just being like, Oh my God, he's caught me in the act of doing a poo. Like it's bizarre and sad and just goes to show like how much he controlled like my bodily functions now I poo whenever I want.

So there's an eight stage pattern that has been established that domestic abuse killers follow. And my ex pretty much got to six to seven, you know, in the pattern stage, six or seven before killing me. I'll link to it in the show notes. The show notes will be fiercefatty.com/029 for episode 29, fiercefatty.com/029. If you want to read the full BBC article about this. But these are the eight stages that they did a study of like 327 people who were killed by their partner and they identified every single one of these as something that was happening. So first is having a pre relationship history of stalking or abuse by the perpetrator. Now this one, this is difficult because you might not know that who you're with. They could be hiding it. I knew because you know, after a certain while he told me about how he stalked and abused his previous partners.

Next, the romance developing quickly into a serious relationship. That's exactly what happened. Within two weeks, he had told me that he loved me. We barely spent a day apart from the day that we met and we were living together within a matter of months. Next the relationship becoming dominated by coercive control. And so coercive control you know, being a bit of a bully making you feel guilty manipulating you. They're being coercive and they're controlling you with their behavior. So it doesn't necessarily mean that they're violence. Next, trigger to threaten the perpetrator control, for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty. So something happens, most likely the relationship ends. Next it's escalation, so an increase in the intensity or frequency of the partners control tactics such as stalking or threatening suicide.

So my ex did both of these things. He did threaten suicide. He did stalk me, stalked my family. And then the next stage is the perpetrator has a change in thinking, choosing to move on, either through revenge or by homicide. And so my ex chose to move on through revenge. He had told me all of the things he was going to do to me if I broke up with him and he did all of those things. The next stage is planning. The perpetrator might buy weapons or seek opportunities to get the victim alone. So my ex words hanging outside where I was living with my sister in at nighttime, watch where I was going. And all the times I wasn't alone, so he could have been looking for opportunities to get me alone. I don't know.

Next the final stage is homicide. The perpetrator kills his or her partner, their partner and possibly hurts others such as the victims, children. Now, he didn't get to this stage, obviously, because I am alive. But we don't know how far he could have taken it if certain things didn't happen. Like I got a restraining order against him. I didn't engage with him in any way. Not saying that, you know, engaging with them or not engaging with them is a factor. It's got nothing to do with what the victim does. But for me, luckily it didn't end in my mud. But this goes to show that you don't have to have actual violence in the relationship. You can just be with someone who is controlling and that could still lead to murder. And leaving is the most dangerous time because they're losing control of you.

And they're like, well, if I can't have, you know, and can they need to do something dramatic to either seek revenge or get you back. And so if you are thinking of leaving, please reach out to organizations that can help. A regular thing to say to people who want to leave is to have a plan in place. Perhaps if you feel comfortable, talk to the police and find out what your options are. Find out if they can help you in any way. And for me, I kept my ex thinking that he had a chance, even though I knew that I didn't want to be with him, because whenever he would just turn up at my sister's house, I would be like, Oh, yeah, maybe. And then eventually I sent the letter saying the relationship is over and I never went back to the house.

And I also, I left the city for a week or so he couldn't get me. I went to Scotland. So a reminder, if you've not experienced violence but you feel like you're being manipulated or controlled, it's still abuse. Or just because your partner may have only said or done a fraction of what my ex did. It's still abuse and it's not okay. Any single, one of the things I've said about what my ex has done, every single one of those things is abuse. So if you've just experienced one of the sentences of me saying, Oh, you know, him saying, why is your body like that? That's abuse. So there's no kind of top trumps on, Oh well my abuse isn't abuse enough because he's not, or they've not, you know, struck me. Or sometimes they're really, really nice and you know, it's only rarely that they are, say these mean things or, you know, manipulate me or whatever. Abuse is abuse and the impact that it has on you is totally individual. My ex was physically abusive, but his coercive control probably had a greater impact on me than his violence. And so just because you might not have experienced violence doesn't mean that the impact is not as great or even greater than someone who has experienced violence. And again, it's not top trumps of I've been abused the most or whatever. But just to recognize what you're feeling if you are not feeling good in the relationship. Is your feelings are valid and you still deserve to seek help if you want it. And you deserve support and you deserve to be treated well in a relationship.

So let's get back to the story and the reminder about the trigger warning, we're going to be talking about violence, sexual abuse, alcoholism, self-harm, and mention of suicide. This is quite brief that the self harm and suicide and this episode gets a lot heavier as he begins to get more abusive and more dangerous. And so if you feel like you're not in a head space for that or that might trigger you, then please maybe skip this episode. You can skip to the last five minutes maybe where I'm like, Ooh, that was hard. Or just you know, skip it altogether. I hope that you are well and safe and a reminder to Google, you know, to find resources if you need resources. And as someone who has been a target of domestic abuse and violence and also has someone in my family who is lots of people actually in my family who are victims of abuse and violence as an outsider, if you know someone in your life that is you suspect or you know, is experiencing something like what I experienced it can be really tempting to just be like, dump him.

He's a fucking asshole. Like, how can you let him treat you like that? I know I have felt like that so many times when someone I love is clearly being abused by someone else and I just want to, you know, shake them and be like good ally. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the most helpful thing that you can do. What you can do is educate yourself on how to support someone in your life who is experiencing abuse. And most of the time it is being a compassionate, open listener and saying that you're there from them, not judging them for not leaving. If they leave and go back not being like, Oh my God, I can't believe you're doing that. But of course you don't have to. If your person in your life is experiencing abuse and it's trickling out into you or you're being abused by that person as well in some way, then you also have the right to protect your own mental health. You're being abused. You know how complicated it is because you love this person. You know that deep down there's a good version of them. And that's kind of, for me, that was what I was clinging on to that there is a good version of them under there. But the truth was the version that they show to me, the most is there's a true version of them. And my ex just happened to be a complete and utter asshole.

Okay. So let's get into episode two. Then he started getting violent and so I think it was over a piece of, you know, missing slice of bread that he would get into a rage. And I remember one time running into the living room and shutting the door and he just got there just before I could like shut the door properly. Not that there was a lock on the door anyway, and slamming his body into the, into the door and managing to get his arm around the door and trying to punch me with his fist. And so I was creeping into the, you know, the edge of the door to, to miss his punches and creeping down to the floor of the door. And so then he would get more purchased to put more of his arm in to try and punch me. And all of a sudden he just stopped. And then he just started crying outside saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And, then I was like, I felt sorry for him. And he'd say, Oh, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, well, he didn't, you know, he might have like punched my elbow, my shoulder or something. He might have got a few punches in my arm or something, but he didn't punch my face, so, you know, and he was just trying to get into the room, you know, I wasn't letting him into the room and, you know, so, and then he stopped. So this is what my brain was saying to me. One Christmas, my mum visited from Ireland and I missed her so terribly, you know, I was being abused and life was fucking awful and I was very attached to my mum. She was a very kind of, she was the sweet one of my mum and dad. My mum was the sweet one and my dad was a mean one.

And so I had put my mum on this pedestal as being this perfect human being when no one is a perfect human being. So anyway, I missed her terribly and I had decided I was going to spend Christmas day with her. She was staying at my sister's house and not with this boyfriend, and he was really not happy about that, but I had kind of put my foot down and I said, I'll be back the next day. I'll see you in the morning and then I'll be back the next day. So I went to my sisters and we had Christmas lunch and by around four or five o'clock, we get a knock on the door and it's him raging drunk saying, I need to go home. And so I didn't want my family to know that he was an alcoholic or that he was abusive at this point. I don't know if they knew, I thought they didn't know, but you know, it was pretty obvious that something was going on. You know, just even the way that I speak about him, I'm like, I'm terrified of him. So he said, you know, we're going home and he gathered up all my little gifts that I got and we went home. And I remember walking and he had this bag of gifts and saying I don't want to go home and I would never say something like that. I would just go along with it. And, he was like, well, tough, you're going home. And we eventually did get home and I was just like, I don't feel good about this. I want to go and see my mom. Like I don't ever get to see her. And, so he was like, well, if you leave now, I'm going to smash every single one of your gifts that you got today.

And I had this like defiance in me and I said, fine, go ahead. And as I was, you know, putting my clothes on my jacket back on and my shoes on, he got the bag of stuff and I remember him opening up CD cases. This is when we still have CDs and bending the CD until it snapped and getting out something else and smashing it. And at that point, I didn't care because I felt this kind of defiance of I'm going to go back and spend time with people who love me and who don't abuse me. And I went back and it, you know, by this time, it was a little bit later and my family were like, what are you doing back? And I was just like, Oh, I just missed you. And you could see that they were suspicious, but they just didn't say much.

And we just, you know, had a great night watching TV. So I was starting to get a little bit more independent and you could tell that he was not happy about this. So he kind of amped up the pressure, which is often what happens. I remember one night we went out drinking and I wasn't really drinking that much. I wasn't really into it. And he wanted to get me really drunk. And when we got home, it was late. And I was like I want to go to bed. And he was like, you're not allowed to go to bed unless you drink a bottle of wine. And I was like, I don't want to, you know, after a night owl and you just like, I just want to go to bed. And he was like, well, you have to drink this bottle of wine. And so he poured me this glass and, you know, I was kind of sipping it. And eventually he passed out, which was like, I thought that that was going to happen. And so, I went to bed and left him passed out on the sofa and he woke up and he came into the bedroom and he must have been really annoyed because he came in and he raped me. He came in and he raped me vaginally and anally and I lay there and he laid on top of me and it was horrible and disgusting. And then he passed out and rolled over. And probably had no recollection of it. Now at the time I was like, this is horrible. I don't like this. But I didn't understand that what he did was rape. It was only till years later that I really process what happened.

And I was like, Oh my God, what he did was rape. And it that comes like, I think at that time my brain was so overloaded with everything else that was happening that I could not process, that this other thing was happening to me. And the bed was always a funny place for me because he was, you know, he'd always have that TV on and, and so I'd always be constantly woken up in the bed. And one time in the night he woke up and he punched me while I was sleeping and now he'd come in and raped me. And so the place where you should feel safe, your bed, I was really unsafe. And him coming in doing that because I hadn't drunk the wine or whatever. It was all about power, right. And I had retreated to somewhere where I could be a little bit more safe from him.

And he came and made sure that I was reminded that I wasn't safe from him anywhere in the house. So another time it was my best friend's and we were having a party at different friend's place and he had been drinking all day long. And so I didn't want him to come because once he got drunk, he got, you know, he was volatile and anything could happen. And so I was like, I don't want you to come. And he said, well, I'm coming. You've got no choice. And at this time I was getting a little bit more courage and stuff. And so I said, well, I'm going to leave. And I had a bag with the presence of my best friend at that time. We'd buy to the light loads of presence. And as I was leaving, he grabbed the presence I had bought from my friend and he threw them in the bin at the front and try to pour bleach all over them and I managed to grab them.

I don't know how and I just ran. So my friend was coming to pick me up at the house and I just ran. And this is the days where we'd have telephone box boxes and I ran to a telephone box. It was maybe five minutes away. And I went there because I knew that that telephone box had bushes around it. And so I kind of went through the blocks in different ways to try and shake him cause he was chasing me. He was running after me because he was drunk. He wasn't as fast as me normally he would be. And so I got to this telephone box and I called my friend cause I didn't have, this was before mobile was really, we had mobiles but not really. I probably didn't have any credit and I called her and I was like, Oh Hey, how you doing?

Oh, I just pop to the shop. So I'm at this phone box, so can you just pick me up from this phone box, you know, nonchalant and then head behind a bush, which was behind the phone box because he, at one point he walked by, not directly by, but he was at prowling trying to find me and if he had seen my friend, he would have just waved it down and been like, Oh, I'm coming in with you. And then he would have just ruined everything. And so my friend drove up to the phone box and I saw her car and you know, then I jumped up and got in the car and they're like, what are you doing behind the bush? And I was like you know, nothing and just hate everything. No one knew anything about what was going on. And I think I stayed out that night and you know, I don't know what happened next, but I had a great time.

I remember having a great time and being like, I'm so pleased he's not here. Another time I remember I wanted to leave the house for something. Maybe I wanted to go around my sisters. And I remember him saying, you're not allowed to because I'd be spending more and more time at my sister's, which is kind of what happens is you kind of become more independent. And he could see that me spending time at my sisters, even though all we did was, you know, have dinner, watch TV, you know, nothing, you know, we do. It's not like we, you know, went out and had sex with guys or something, but we're just watching TV anyway. So he didn't want me to go and in our place he would lock everything as much as possible. So the front door had like three locks on it and the windows had these really weird kind of screw nut things where you had to get this special key to unwind the screws to open the windows anyway.

And so I got to the front door and he got there before me. I managed to unlock a couple of the locks maybe. And so then I ran to the kitchen and I was like, okay, cause he was really drunk. I'm going to climb up the kitchen window. So I started unscrewing the two locks to the window and I turned around and he had a knife and his face was just pure rage of I'm going to kill you. He knew that I was, his grip around me was loosening and so he had to up the ante. And so I couldn't get these windows things unscrewed in time. And luckily because he was so drunk, we had a small kitchen, but I managed to get round him some way, run to the front door and get the final couple of locks and done grab my bike. The bike was in between me and him and he started kicking my bike, trying to buckle the wheel. And we were out in the street basically, and I remember screaming for help and we're in a colder sack. And so there was many houses that looked upon this place and no one came out. And I don't know if they heard me or if they did or not or whatever. But I remember feeling so sad that no one came out to help me. I managed to wrestle the bike off him, got on it and frantically cycled away. And he tried to chase me, but he was on foot and drunk and I was on my bike. I called my sister, I must have had phone credit at that point. I called my sister and I said, help me. He's trying to attack me. And she and her boyfriend met me half way to their house. He was brandishing his skateboard, ready to hit him. And we went back to her place. He didn't come around, which was a good idea. So this was like the beginning of the end. I kept defying him when he was saying, you better stay in. And you know, I was at my sister's more and I had struck a friendship with a guy I worked with and he was super kind to me and we would spend time together and he would, you know, we'd go to for coffee shop and he would like say, can I buy the coffee? And this was like something as simple as him saying, can I buy the coffee was absolutely foreign to me.

It would be a case of, you know, if I went to the coffee shop with that guy, he would be like, well, your coffee is like, yours is 12P because you know, your coffee was more expensive. We, you know, whatever. I remember one time he was like it's lunchtime and I got a salad. And he's like, do you want something else to eat? And I remember being like, what do you mean? Like I'm allowed something else to eat that, you know, thinking in my head, I wouldn't say out loud cause I was like, Oh, I'm a food addict. And I be like, Oh no, this salad is fine. That's all I need. So he would also try and manipulate me in other ways and say things like, Oh, if you ever leave me, I will kill myself. He would cut his wrists. He would lock himself in the bathroom and run the bath and you know, cut away as his wrist. But he wasn't actually cutting himself. He would just get a little bit of a graze, but enough for me to be like, you know, don't do that and I'll look after you and feel sorry for him. He's very manipulative. So after him chasing me with the knife, he was all apologizing and try to make it better and was like, I'm going to get better. I'm going to stop being an alcoholic. And let's like start from scratch and we'll just go on a few dates. And I remember saying, okay, and then we went on a date together and we went for, he took me for a picnic.

Now, this was wild because he had bought food with his money and he had bought food that he knew that I would like and he said as much as you like. And he also didn't bring alcohol, so I was like, Oh my God, he's really turned a leaf here. I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been from my sister to see after being chased with a knife. And I was terrified when we got back to her house. I was just sobbing and you know, it was awful to then be like, we know we're going to try again and you know, we're going to go for a day. And only it was really nice and she didn't say anything to me. She didn't say like, this guy is a fucking loser get rid of him. She just let me get on with it, which was probably best thing to do.

But you know, this, this date we went for a picnic and it was all great. And I was like, Oh my God, this is the real him but he couldn't last, right. He would turn up at my sister's drunk and I would like turn them away. And one time he went to the pub and he got into a fist fight with someone and he came, turned up drunk and with a black eye and I was just like, Oh my God, he's totally out of control. And so I knew that I had to break up with him. I knew like that was it. I need to break up with him. So I knew that I couldn't break up with him face to face because as he told me, he would punch the person straight in the face. So I wrote him a letter and went around to the place that we lived in and put this letter through the letter box. And I think he saw me through the window and he must have known that that letter was your dumped basically. And I remember just running, running, running, running. I remember looking from a far, I don't know how I saw this, but I saw him coming out of the house and going through the streets, like zigzagging through different alleyways and trying to throw him off my trail and I'm getting away from there because it wasn't safe. And he obviously read the letter and he said to me, if you ever break up with me, I will make your life a living hell. This is what I will do. I will punch your boss. I will throw a brick through your sister's window. I will stalk your sister. I will stalk your sister's boyfriend. I will stalk you. I will make sure that you can never live in this city ever again.

And he lived up to that promise. He stalked the house one time came home cause I'd moved into my sister's. He was passed out on the front doorstep and we all had to just go away and come back later when he'd gone. He watched me and one day I went out to the cinema with my sister. I came back home. Soon as we came out back home bricks went through the front window. He went to my place of work, punched my boss. Luckily, I worked at a pub. And so, you know, that type of violence was, you know, a little bit more. They were used to, you know, people, you know, that type of thing versus if it wasn't. If it was in an office he stalked my sister. He would go into her place of work.

He would follow and harass her boyfriend. When he threw a brick through the window, we called the police, thank God. And the police, I remember them saying like, asking me questions like, does he hit you? And I was like, no. Cause at the time I was like, well, he's never like directly punched me right in the face. Like he's never given me a bloody nose. Now I know, like he know he was violent towards you. He might not have punched you in the face, but he's punched you and other parts of your body. He's grabbed you. He raped you. Like and so I was like, no, but I'm scared of him. And the police were actually a lot more clued into domestic violence than a lot of stories that I've heard. And so they actually arranged for it to go to court to get a restraining order.

And so we went to court and by this time I had a new boyfriend cause I wasn't waiting around to get a new boyfriend. I was like new boyfriend within probably a week or so, cause I couldn't possibly be alone. I remember we went to court and I went there with my new boyfriend and with a guy friend from the pub. And I sat right in the back of the court and they sat like I was next to the wall and they sat next to me, like both of them protecting me from him cause I was terrified of this guy. And the judge was like, Oh, is the victim here? And I was like, yes. And they were like, Oh, you've got a restraining order against you for a year, don't contact her, don't do anything and as he left and he was like, you can go. And as he left my now ex-partner the whole way that he left the hole with him walking out, he just glared at me. And as he got to the, just before he left, the judge said, come back here. And he said, I watched you staring at her, trying to intimidate her. And then he gave him a blocking and was like, don't do that. And that was so satisfying that he wouldn't put up with his bullshit. And he's like, you walk back out here and you keep your eyes to yourself and that was so satisfying. I had really bad PTSD from this for probably a year. Very often I would cry myself to sleep. I was very, very, very damaged. My new boyfriend, he wasn't perfect, but he wasn't an abuser and he would be really confused as to why I would act in certain ways, kind of like preemptively terrified of him.

I remember one night making him spaghetti and bringing it in to him and I brought him at his end. And then I came in with mine and my stroke fat fell straight on the floor. And I remember that moment of it falling on the floor and expecting the same reaction of when I spelt the paint. And I remember just like, I'm going, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry and like picking it all up and then putting it in the bin and then scrubbing the floor and then watching the play and, then they're watching the play and he comes in, he's like, Hey, what are you doing? Just have half of my dinner. Like, you don't have to wash up now. Just look what's the problem? Why so stressed out? Like, and he was really confused by it. And him not being an abuser was really healing towards me.

He was a bit controlling, but compared to what I experienced, it was like one of a hundred. Now I wouldn't take someone like him, but at the time it was you know, a lot better for me. The best thing for me probably would be straight to go into intensive therapy after that. But, you know, that's not how life went. So years later, I did tons of therapy. It was a while before I got into therapy, maybe five, six, seven years after that had happened. I got out of the relationships, I was 19 when I got out of the relationship and realized then, you know, having this, I remember exactly where I was when I realized that what he did was rape. And then I went to counseling through a women's charities in Vancouver and we spoke about telling the police about what he did and they supported me and like understanding what it was like to report to the police what it would be like to go to trial.

And we went to like the courts in Vancouver to see what a court system is like. And you know, what could happen. Obviously it was a little bit more difficult because I would have to report it in the UK and I was in Canada at the time. But then the next time I went back to the UK, I made an appointment with the police and I reported the rape and they were so good. I'm really pleased to tell you that they were so good because a lot of stories I hear, you know, police being like, Whoa, what were you wearing? Well, you were in a relationship, it's not running ramp, you know? But they would just great. There was someone who was specialized in I think sexual violence, something like that. We did an interview in every nice room, you know, no, not like a traditional interview room with a table and hard chairs, but it was like sofas and stuff and they had cameras, but the cameras were like hidden.

So you, it wasn't invasive. And so it was just having a chat with a police officer who wasn't dressed in the uniform. They would just dress casually and they were really thorough asking lots of questions and they really made me feel like I was believed like what had happened was wrong. Me reporting, it was important. I didn't expect anything to come of it because it was years and years later. I couldn't even tell. I couldn't tell them what the date was. There was no evidence it was my word against him but they went round and spoke to him. Now, just the fact that they went around to spoke to him was so satisfying. And they called me after and said, Oh, he says that he absolutely didn't. And he says, call my other girlfriends, I'll tell you that I haven't raped them.

And I was thinking, yeah, I bet they've got some stories to tell. I remember him one time telling me that his ex-girlfriend, he says, one time I was having sex with one of my ex-girlfriends and she was just there crying. And so I had to keep having sex with her and she was crying. It was really annoying. And you know, me looking back on that now being like, Hmm, you're probably raping her is why she was crying and why are you still having sex with her if she's crying anyway? So, and I knew what effect the police going around to him would have on him. He would be terrified. He would be, it would really fuck with him. And so then I heard later that your mom is saying, Oh, you know, we can't pursue the case, which is what I expected. Then just, you know, me doing this years later. So it must have been 10 years after our relationship ended. It was so satisfying for me to know that he knows that I have put my foot down and said, it is not okay that you did that. And I know that now versus at the time me thinking, wow, you know one way the police were disappointing was after the restraining order that didn't stop him stalking me. He would come to my work now, I worked in a bar and so he would come to my work and then I would call the police and say, he's come to my work. And because it was a bar, they would say, well, we can't prove that he's come here to stalk you. He could just be coming here to have a drink. He was barred. He was not allowed to go to the bar because the bar had bothered him because he punched the manager and he also had a restraining order about come to see me. But they were like, well technically. And then it was like, well he's gone into my sister's work and threatened her. Well, you know, it's not a restraining order against your sister is against you. And so unfortunately there was nothing that could be enforced when it came to him breaking the restraining order. He would actually have to come and assault me or something like that. So, you know, eventually I did leave my hometown and when I do go back to my hometown, I am very legitimately scared because I think if I see him, he will be so angry that I dared to call the police and tell them that he had raped me, that he would probably assault me.

And the way that his stature and the way he walks, it's not distinctive or anything, but you know how you can tell when someone you can see them in silhouette and you can see that that's their walk and that's sort of what they look like. And I remember one time being back in my hometown and seeing him and just being like, Oh my God, and like darting into a shop and, being like, Oh my God, Oh my God, I'm in danger. But I don't know if it was him, but yeah. So we took a long time for me to heal my relationship with food and to realize that I actually wasn't a food addict. I was just so incredibly deprived of food and abused with food. That it was no surprise that I was thinking and dreaming and, you know, seeking out food a long time to heal my relationship with my body because he was so like, Oh, why are you so disgusting? You're so fat to grow my self-esteem and to overcome that. PTSD, I still have PTSD symptoms. It still takes a long time for me to feel comfortable in bed. If there's a guy in my life, even my last boyfriend who I was with for six years, although within six, 'm like, Oh, it's a long time. If he would come to bed after me and come to bed in the night, hug me, I'd be like, like really scared, like jumping up if, you know, I was asleep and he came and he hug me or he moved the covers or he accidentally like knocked my foot or something. It would be a real problem. And so I'd always be like, you have to be really gentle and quiet and, I noticed that, you know, with new guys not being comfortable with them being in my bed, like having to, you know, that is probably, you know, I don't know how long it's going to take to get over that.

It makes sense that it's hard to get over that. But not feeling like my bed when there's a man around is not safe. Now my bed, when I'm alone, I do feel safe in which is nice that I can be safe on my own. But to get over my PTSD, I did a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy and then after a few years of doing that, I did Pts. I did EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprogramming. I did an episode about what EMDR is and it is phenomenal. There was some things I just couldn't get out of my brain, like the silhouette of him walking towards me at the door or the image of him asking for money with his hand, his hand doing that give me money. His face when he was holding that knife and me trying to climb out the window and me hiding in a bush after and him trying to buckle my wheel and, you know, all of these things I just couldn't know, like in a loop because what's happening is my brain is like, this is a threat.

And wasn't able to process it as something that had happened in the past. And EMDR really helped me do that and cracked it. But still, there's still things that I need to work on, like, you know, the sleeping and I think I always will be affected by it. And the more I learn about what is not okay in relationships. The more I realized the extent to which I was abused. And if you had asked me at the time in the relationship, are you being abused right now? I'd say no. My boyfriend, like he might have a drinking problem, but that's it. He's the only one who when he drinks sometimes he might get a bit annoyed or whatever, but you know, no, he's fine. And I wouldn't have said that I was abused and it took years for me to be like, Oh, well, being terrified of your partner is not good. Being able to eat food is not good. Not being able to tell anyone in your life about what's going on in the relationship is not good. Being treated like shit is not good. Having my money taken away from me is not good, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, as the years have gone by, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe that I survived that. And I feel so sad that Victoria at that age believed that, that was okay. And the way that I saw it was his behavior is not that bad. I'd always be like, I'd minimize it. It's not that bad. You know, all relationships are like this because I'd seen my mom's relationship with my dad and that was normal. And you should be a bit scared of your partner, right. And you know, men are very selfish, right? Not true. You shouldn't be scared of your partner. Men are not inherently selfish. And I knew no one else could put up with someone who looked like me, who was also addicted to food like me. Like I was in my mind, broken. And so it was either be with this guy or never be with anyone else ever again. That was in my head. That the choices, you know, be with this guy or if I did manage to get another boyfriend, they'd probably be worse than this guy. I had it lucky, at least this guy was, you know you know, he was not punching me in the face every day. So he's not that bad. And that was a behavior, that justification and minimizing was a behavior that I had learned very well from my childhood of, you know, at least my dad was doing this and that and the least he blah, blah, blah.

So yeah, that is it. That's my abusive relationship in full as a heavy one, right. And it's a long one, like 90 minutes long. And actually I have started getting back onto the dating apps. So yeah, getting back into the dating world. I've been single for a few years now after my six year relationship and I was doing a bit of Tindering or OkCupid thing when I'm maybe a year ago, but then I found in rural Ireland, there's like three people and then like when you've gone through them and you're like, Oh, so yeah. So, you know, I'd have to expand my reach to someone who lived eight hours away, you know, to find people in Ireland. And so anyway, because of COVID, Tinder is let you expand your search radius. So I can search for people in Vancouver cause I'm going to be back in Vancouver soon. And so I've been doing some messages. I've actually got some messages while I have been on here. John sent you a message, Tim sent you a message, Cameron sent you a message, Andrew sent you a message. Oh my God, I'm so burnt. So yeah, but what I found is that, so I think that I'm a good conversationalist now. If someone like message me and says, hi, how you doing? That's fine. I'll be like, yeah, I'm doing good. And I'll give them a little bit like, yeah, I'm doing good. I'm just about to record a podcast episode. How are you doing today? And what I find is, Oh yeah, I'm doing good. The sun is shining. I just went to feed some horses. Like people would just message back saying, that's cool. And I'd be like, give me something here. Or they'll be like, Oh, horses. I'm like, yeah. And then, you know, they're not so far maybe I've spoken to 10 guys. They don't seem to be good conversationalists. And so I'm like, well, they're not interested because they're not giving me good responses. And so then I'll just send like a one word response and then they'll still come back or something. And I'm like, well, why don't you have like a better conversation? And then it'll take a day to get a message back. And then, so now I'll keep you updated on the dating stuff. But the choice of guys in Vancouver is a lot better than it is in rural Ireland because there's millions of people to Vancouver versus three eligible bachelors in rural in Ireland. And they're not necessarily so eligible because they're all like, I'm like starting my day. I go, whatever. They're not like that but you know, they're not my types of guys because, you know I want someone who is liberal and understands about feminism and not necessarily understands feminism, but things that women and men should be treated equally. All genders should be treated equally. And you know, if you say that to someone what I found in my experiences guys who were more in the rural parts here, if you're like, Oh, equality. They're like, huh, what's that?

You know? And so I want maybe someone who's a little bit more political, maybe someone who's a bit more funky or has something about them versus, you know, it's just like, Oh, I like going out and getting drunk at the weekend. But you know, I like doing that 10 years ago. But you know, not necessarily now. So yes, I'll keep you updated on my dating life. I am not going to be in an abusive relationship again, don't you worry. I think from a couple of episodes ago I told you some dating stories about confidence before when I had low dating before, when I had low confidence in dating, now I have high confidence. It means that I just have less suitors because when I see a red flag, I'm just like, I can't be bothered with that. You know, when they say something like, even in like a Tinder profile, someone will give away a lot if sometimes they don't write anything. But like a lot of guys would be like, don't message me if you just going to be like messaging forever. I'm not here for a pen pal. I'm just like, why would that be the only thing that you say? You make yourself sound like it was angry decade. Or someone else was, you know, writing, being like, Oh bitches do this or whatever. Or being like, you know, I like having those have sex. Why are you good at sucking my dick? What? Why are you putting this? Do you think that hundreds of people going to be like, Oh, he wants me to suck his dick? Oh my God, I've never heard that before. What I catch. I mean keep your pervy to a minimum and you know, after a little while say, Hey, do you want to suck my dick? And then you know, that's fine. But in your profile like channel bitch channel.

So, I hope you have enjoyed? This episode as much as you can enjoy about hearing about me being abused. Yay. but it'd been illuminating in some way or you know, who knows. Let me know if this was an interesting episode. If you like hearing about my experiences or if you just want me to shut the hell up. If you want me to shut the hell up, maybe don't listen to the podcast, but I'm presuming that you do like listening to me. I get a lot of messages from y'all by the way, and I absolutely love them. I messaged the other day, what did it say? I saved it cause it was so nice. Oh, someone mentioned Fat Gal. She really liked my podcast and I said, what is it you like about my podcast? And she said, I think I just love your energy, enthusiasm, and your accent. Thank you. You have a very soothing voice. Who knew? And it's calming. I hope I don't sound creepy. Not at all. I also think your podcast is great because you have great thoughts and you point out things that I wouldn't normally think about. I plan on writing you a great review and sending you an email to get your book, but I also want to support you by buying a copy. Thank you. You are by far my favorite podcast. No one even comes close. I just want to thank you for what you do. You have helped me build my confidence and made me laugh. You are truly a wonderful person. Thank you so much. Your messages saying that you love the podcast are really great to hear because it says something wonderful about you as a person, but also it gives me good feedback about what you enjoy me talking about what is useful for you. I did a year of doing a video every week and the videos were like three minutes long ish, and I want you to get like short, impactful content out, but I don't think that resonated as much as a podcast. I don't know whether, because the podcast is more a medium that is more easy for you to consume. Although I also put the podcast on YouTube as I did with my videos or because it's more relaxed cause I'm just talking to you and so we can really flesh out ideas or you know, you just like falling asleep listening to me. Who knows? But yeah, so I appreciate your feedback and the nice things that you say, and I haven't got any mean reviews recently, which is good. Remember, you know, when people say things about you, it's not really got that much to do with you and more to do with a person, you know, given the love or give him the hate.

So anyway, thanks for hanging out with me today. I felt this is cathartic for me, so thanks for listening. I appreciate it. Why don't you Google horses with mustaches and go and see some horse mustaches so you can elevate your mood into a positive space of juiciness right now. Yeah. And I'm going to go and have something to drink. Not, something alcoholic and when I'm talking too much, my voice gets a bit ahhh. Anyway, you don't need to know that and I stopped talking the longest episode I've ever recorded. Okay. I will see you in the next episode. Have a wonderful day, Fatty. See you later. Crocodile. Goodbye.

EP28 Transcript

Welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby and you're listening to episode 28 which is my story of domestic abuse. Let's do it.

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

Well, hello, hello, Fatty. How you doing? Nice to see you for another episode of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. So pleased that you are here. I'm still in quarantine boooo. When is this going to end. I don't know about you, but I'm like searching for some type of certainty which really has never existed because you know, how certain is life anyway, but I'm just like Googling, like, when is this going to end? What is happening with Italy because Italy is ahead of Ireland and the UK in regards to fighting COVID coronavirus and trying to work out what they're doing and when we might be able to go outside and stuff like that. So in Ireland, we're not allowed to go outside one hour a day within two kilometers of our house for exercising either alone or with people from your household and you're allowed to go to the shop, but it has to be like the local shop. So, they have like roadblocks up and the police were like, where are you coming from? Where you going? And they will send people back. It's all very strict in Ireland, which I appreciate actually when I hear about the US and folks just going to the beach and businesses opening and I'm just like, Oh God, the US I feel, yeah, that sucks. I'm sorry if you're in the US yeah. So with my two kilometers, I've been doing things like going this, so I live in the countryside. There's horses down the road cause there's like a beach near me and they do horse rides on the beach. Sometimes it's not very often that they do it anyway. Some of the horses most of the time we're just chilling in a field. And so one of the fields where the horses are going feed them horse food. Like I Google it and be like, what horses are out to eat? So they like grapes and satsumas. And yesterday I tried to give them some lettuce and they were like, what the fuck is this? They gave it a little nibble and they're like, bitch gave me some more of those grapes? And Hey, did you know that horses, not all of them, but a lot of them have mustaches like proper, you know, could enter a competition mustache. I filmed the horses are for my IG TV story. So check out IG TV stories if you want to see some horses with mustaches and it's really common apparently. And I started noticing it. I was like, Oh my God. Yeah, horses do have mustaches.

Anyway, so big trigger warning for today's episode. We are talking about some really heavy stuff. I'm going to be getting into my story of domestic abuse in detail. I've kind of talked about it like an overview of, of what I've experienced, but I'm going to go in detail and giving examples of things that happened. And so I'm going to be talking about emotional abuse violence, sexual abuse, alcoholism, financial abuse. If any of those things, and I'm going to briefly mention a pedophile. If any of those things feel a bit difficult for you at the moment, then please skip this episode. Maybe come back to a different time or just totally never listened to it at all because I will be telling this story in depth. And the reason why I want to talk about it right now is I've been really been thinking about my abuse a lot because with people being in quarantine being in the households. The of domestic violence has really gone through the roof and many people have been killed by their spouses. And it's just been on my mind a lot and I want to talk about it in case anyone listening is experiencing something similar. Perhaps my story might help you in way I know that being a survivor of domestic abuse, listening to other people's stories makes me feel and has in the past made me feel more validated and more like what I went through was not okay. Because at times I have kind of said, Oh, it wasn't that bad. You know, I didn't almost die. So was it obvious? You know, those types of things have been going through my head and after doing many, many years of therapy, realizing that to the extent that I was abused and perhaps some of the stories that I will tell you in this episode. You might realize, Oh, maybe the way that your partner is treating you is not maybe the best or able to look back on other instances that you've experienced or maybe just, you know, it's interesting to hear about these stories. I know that I personally seek them out because I'm interested by them. So yeah. So yeah, trigger warning. Please don't listen if you think that any of those topics that I mentioned before could be difficult for you to hear. I'm going to be going into detail and I'm not really sparing anything.

So I was with this guy for over two years and I met him when I was 17 and it turned my self-esteem into like minus zero, minus a hundred territory and I was incredibly vulnerable. And now looking back, it's not surprising that I ended up with someone like him because of my history. But I didn't deserve it and everything that I'm going to be talking about, I didn't deserve any of it. And none of it is okay, but I'll be talking about, you know, how I felt at the time and at the time I really minimized what was going on because that's how I coped. And also we'll be talking about, you know, how I got out and ending with some, I know a little bit of justice so it's not going to be all also sadness. So when I was 16, my mom said that she wanted to move back to Ireland where she is from. She had an accident while she was cycling her bikes and opened the door and she got brain damage and it kind of made her think, okay, what am I doing with my life? And I want to move back to Ireland because where we lived in the UK was really a shithole. And being 16, I had just finished secondary school and in the UK you finished secondary school and you can leave school then or you can choose to continue, either go to college or go to six form within the same school and then once you've done that you can then maybe go on to university.

And so it was always my plan to go to university. And so I said, no, I want to stay in the UK and continue going to school and finish my education. I could have gone to Ireland, do my education, but it has a different education system. So I probably would have been put back a couple of years or delayed in some way. And I was like, I've got great friends, you know, why would I want to move to Ireland? Ireland sucks because, you know, we would go on summer holidays and Ireland was not the greatest place. Our grandad was very authoritarian, very religious. Like every single night, people would be kneeling down to do the rosary after dinner. So the rosary is like, I don't know, half an hour or 45 minutes of prayers, kneeling on your knees and you know, he had to go to church and you have to do this and all that type of stuff.

And a lot of, you know, working in the field because it was a farm and if you weren't working, you were lazy that ever. And so I was not keen on the idea of moving to Ireland anyway. And so I was like, don't worry about it ma. I'll be fine. I'll stay at home. I'll just go to school. You don't need to worry about me. I'm really mature. And my mum, she had a lot going on at that time. She was, you know, her mental health wasn't in the best place. And so she said yes. Really that shouldn't have happened. I was not really as a mature 17 year old, but I, you know, wasn't an out of control 17 year old. So she she moved away and I was left in the family home, which was for sale. Now the family home was super unsafe as well. So we lived in an area where I had previously been targeted by a pedophile in my back garden and there was a rapist that had not long ago had struck and raped someone my age very close to my home. And my back door in my family home wouldn't shut. So like literally not that it wouldn't lock, the door wouldn't shut because there was something wrong with the plastic of the double glazing. And what I would do is I would just put a clothes horse next to the door to try and stop someone getting in, which it wouldn't, but maybe if I had heard them like jiggling the door, then maybe I could run away or whatever. So super dangerous. And so, you know, both situations wouldn't go move into Ireland, probably wouldn't have been good. It turned out I actually wasn't good. My younger sister went and my granddad went and trashed her room because she had a picture of Kurt Cobain and was convinced that she was in leagues with the devil. And so that wasn't a good place either. And, my family home wasn't a good place and so I was used to this level of fear of feeling unsafe in my home. And my family home, I'd come from very dominant. Now I would look back and be realized that my dad was quite abusive. He was certainly abusive to my brother and we're all terrified of him. He was not a good husband to my mum, just very dominant where, you know, very bully. He was an alcoholic, so my mum eventually divorced him, but I had learned a lot about what a relationship looks like.

Basically, you're scared of your partner, your male partner, and you should be very subservient and try to do everything you can to try and help them and fix them because they're troubled people. So that's setting the scene of where I was. I was at school and after school I would clean the school for money. And one of my colleagues, which was one of my classmates who also cleaned the school one day, we were like, Oh, are you going out on Saturday night? You haven't gone out Saturday night. Let's have a bet to see how many boys we can pull. So how many boys we could kiss and whoever won the bet got some sort of prize. And that weekend, I went out to this really grungy place called the Met lounge in Peterborough where I'm from, kind of like where all the rockers would go and all the goths would go. A lot of very young people were there. In the UK, the drinking age is 18, but I went out drinking from the age of 15, and that was relatively normal. I wouldn't say all 15 year olds did it, but you know, I didn't even have a fake ID. I just, you know, if the bouncer would be like, how old are you? I be like, look at my tits. They're big on must be over 18. That's weird, weird. Anyway, I almost always get him. Yeah. So I was at this place where there was a lot of young people and I spotted this guy who would turn into my abusive partner and instead of saying, Oh, Hey, can I buy you a drink? He was like, Oh, I'm going to go to the bar. And I was like, cool. And he came back and he had himself a drink and he bought me a lollipop. Now looking back, I'm like woo, red flags, red flags and you know, I asked him, how old are you? And he was like 30 I was 17 by that point, 30 years old. And he comes back with a lollipop. And at the time I was kind of like a little bit like, ah, but you know, this was kind of like first if I had higher self-esteem, a 30 year old, I'd probably be like, why is a 30 year old interested in chatting up a 17 year old? Why is a 30 year old in a club like this that is full of young people who are very much under age. But at the time I was just like, Oh my God, someone's talking to me. I'm like, God, I'm going to get off with someone. And I'd kiss like loads of other boys that night anyway, and then I'd kiss this guy too and we exchanged numbers. And so we started dating and at the end of the year, so that was probably October time. And by December, January time, my mum had sold the house and told me that I need to find somewhere to live. Now, as a 17 year old, you can't rent somewhere legally you can't. It's just, you know, you have to be 18. And even if I could, I would work two hours a night, 10 hours a week as a cleaner after school. And so there's no way that that money would have paid for any type of rent. And I was just like, I don't know what to do.

And so I went to the council, which is the government and I said, Oh, I'm 17, I've got nowhere to live. And they placed me in a homeless shelter for children, for young people, for not children, young people. What I guess, you know, we were children and this place was super dangerous. It was in a sketchy part of town, less sketchy than where I was from originally. Like where I was from was the one of the most sketchy places in the whole of the city. You had to really be strong and tough to be able to walk around the streets there or have some sort of street smarts. Like I wasn't like tough, I'm so tough. But if someone ever said anything to me, I'd tell them to fuck off or, you know, run away or if they try to attack me, I would try and fight back.

So this place was super dangerous. There was a lot of drug user there. There were gangs of kids that would hang outside my bedroom window. One time when I had a shower, a gang of kids broke into the shower and then stood around as I like, got out of the shower and like try to intimidate me, super vulnerable there stood, you know, with just a towel and you know. Some kids had keys to all of the rooms and would like, you know, say I can just come in and take your stuff whenever you want. And and the staff there were pretty useless too. Like I said, I had planned on going to university and so at that time I was interviewing to go to university. And so you'd I studied art and so I have my big massive portfolio with me.

And I remember going to a university interview and coming back later and they'd say, where had you been? And I said, Oh, I went to this unit reading. It was for an interview. And I remember the staff member was just like, don't lie to me. And I was like, I'm not. Oh, well. So their expectations of the kids that were there were really bad and they didn't really protect the children that was there. I probably would have been, I don't know if I would have been safer being on the streets, but I was not safe there. Anyway, so I had been there for maybe six weeks, a couple of months maximum. And this guy, the abusive boyfriend who I'd been dating for a few months said, why don't you move in with me and my mum and our four cats. Now, anything would have been better than where I was at that time being in that homeless shelter. And so I was like, I knew it was bad. Like in my bones, I knew, I remember I said to my dad lived in the same city. And I remember saying to my dad, he lived in a one bedroom flat that this boyfriend had said, I can move in with him. And he said, you're not moving in with him because I still quite young. And I said, well, can I live with you then? And I just remember it so clearly. He just said nothing. And turned away. Years later I talked to him about this, like, why did you not let me live with you when I was homeless? And he was like, Oh, I don't remember, but my dad really didn't like children. And I was a young adult, you know, I wasn't a child, but really there's no way my dad had serious mental health issues.

There's no way he could have coped with me sleeping on his sofa. Like that was probably not going to happen. So, you know, he was just silent. And then I was like, okay, well I know my choice now is I have to go and live with this guy. But I knew deep down it was wrong. And his place was disgusting. His home it just, it reeked of like cat piss and it was super dirty and dark. And his bedroom, he didn't have a bed. He just had two single mattresses pushed together. Like there was smashed window and at least it was in a better area. And so it was on the edge of a better area. And so there wasn't that much trouble in the streets. But it was like a not nice place to live, but that was at least of it was like the fact that it was horrible to be there. To begin with, this guy, he was gray. I thought he was, I was so lucky. I thought he was really good looking. He showered me with gifts and affection. Within two weeks of meeting him, he told me that he loved me. I remember exactly where I was when he told me he loved me. And I remember starting to cry because I was so filled with joy because my self-esteem was so low at that point. And this is before he, you fucked with my self-esteem. I didn't think anyone could ever love someone like me. I didn't think that someone would want to date someone who was fat like me.

And the fact that this guy was telling me he loved me and I was so vulnerable at the time, like being homeless and you know, being alone and all this type of stuff, like I wasn't homeless at that time, but I was still very vulnerable. It was just a dream come true. So to begin with, it was like a fairytale and I was just like, my boyfriend was so amazing. And I would think about the age gap and I would just always be like, age is a number and I'm super mature and you know, it's just 13 years different. Well, when you're back young, 13 years difference is a fucking shit load. He was almost double my age. The maturity level of a 17 year old versus a 30 year old. I remember when I turned 30 and I was the same age as him and looking back and being like, could I date a 17 year old now? And I was like, hell fucking no. Would I date a 17 year old? They're a child. I'm an adult. Like, no. So slowly within probably a few months, he started questioning me. So he'd be like, why does your body look like that? Like, why are your breasts not perky? Why are your cloves so horrible? Why do you eat like that? Why do you have a snack when you come home from school? You shouldn't be eating anything when you come from school, why don't we go shopping and you buy some new clothes? And so it'd be like questioning, but then he'd be like, cause I care about you. You know? And it's just, I do know the way that he'd say it and I'd be like, Oh well I don't know. You know, this is just my body. And you know, he was so much older and more experienced and like, there must be something wrong with my body. Like, and he'd always be like, I thought that you said that you like wearing nice clothes or why are your clothes so disgusting? Just things like that. And like if anyone said anything like that to me now, I'd be like, get out the fuck here. But it would just be like one little thing of, you know, and I'd be like, am I rolling? Am I disgusting? And I started noticing as well, the more time we spent together is that he drank a lot. And one day he said, yeah, I'm an alcoholic. And this behavior wasn't as alarming as it would be because my dad was an alcoholic. And so it was perfect for me. Like I was his perfect victim, really. You know, we're vulnerable girl whose father was also an alcoholic you know, a domineering alcoholic then, you know, I could, he like really scored when he found me. And so I was just like, I'm going to help him get better. Like this wasn't a red flag. He wasn't saying, I'm going to get better. He was just like, I'm an alcoholic. And I was just like, ah, I'm going to love him so much that he'll stop drinking. With my love, I will cure him. So he would stay up late drinking and watching TV on this huge TVs. You remember when TVs used to be like seven foot long in the back and he had this surround sound system and his room was small and the TV was all literally like right at the bottom of the bed. And so he would be staying up late watching TV and drinking and I'd be trying to sleep cause I'd have to get up early for school in the morning.

And it was a torturous, literally, the light from the TV and the noise, surround sound, but the speakers were behind the bed and all around obviously, literally it's a method of torture. And so I would be exhausted all the time. And sometimes in the middle of the night I'd wake up and he would be passed out from drink and I would try and sneak and turn off the TV. But remember, like older TVs, you turn it off and it goes toooot, like that. And sometimes that noise would wake him up and he'd be like, what the hell are you doing? And shout at me and put the TV back on. And it would just be, I'd be there waiting, trying to go to sleep and waiting for him to pass out again so I could try and do the TV and, sometimes I just mute the TV and hopefully that wouldn't wake him and then a little bit while later then turn the TV off.

And it was just, you know, constantly fighting to sleep and being exhausted, which is, you know, torture. He began then controlling what I ate. So he could recognize that food was an issue for me coming from a household where we were poor, so we didn't have food. It was also a diet focused household. And so I never, you know, I didn't have a good relationship with food. Like I liked food and I enjoyed eating it, but I wouldn't say that I was disordered around food, but I wouldn't say that I had an eating disorder. But what happened in this relationship is I believe that I developed a bingeing disorder because he would really berate me for the way that I ate and what I ate. He would do the same for his mum. His mum was this little old lady, but he'd be like, how dare you put a sweetener in your tea, you know, it's so bad for you and things like that. And he would bargain with me for food. And so say if it was ~ he would want to go to the pub and I'd say, I don't want to go to the pub because it would mean like going to the pub in the day and then him drinking all day. And then if he was drunk, he would, you know, get in a bad way and it'd just be bad news for me. And so then he'd say something like, do you want to go get some lunch? And I'd just be like, my little heart would be like, Oh my God, food. And he would say, we can have half a sandwich, but we have to get it from this pub.

And so I would be like, Oh, I'm so desperate for food. I'd be like, okay. And then we'd go to this pub and I'd be allowed half a sandwich and then he would then be like, well, I let you have half a sandwich. And so I'm allowed to sit here for hours and drink. So looking back at what I ate when I met him 100% normal, I was just a normal eater. And he really made me believe that I was addicted to food. And so I saw that I was addicted to food and he was addicted to alcohol. So we were as both as bad as each other. He would do things like on a Friday night, he would always order himself a pizza. In the beginning of our relationship, he would order this pizza and he'd let me have one or two slices and I'd be like, Oh my God. Because growing up, we wouldn't ever get like a takeaway pizza that would never happen. And so it was really special for me, but then eventually he wouldn't let me have any. And so he would order whatever it was and he would sit there having this takeaway all to himself, knowing that I was there, like salivating desperate for some and I would just have to eat some literally like a slice of bread for dinner. So I remember his anger was explosive and he had like, what did they say? Hairpin trigger. Like he would just explode at nothing. So I remember one Valentine's day he was coming home from work at like seven o'clock, I think. And so I had made him spaghetti bowl with garlic bread. I think that that was in my mind, that was the most romantic meal that you could make.

And I remember him coming home and he had a package that was delivered and it was a coat. And so you opened the package and he couldn't do the zip up on the coat and he just flew into a rage and he ripped this coat off and like ripped the coat, threw it against the wall, raging, screaming and eventually stormed upstairs and got drunk. And I was just kind of sat there with this meal for two on my own and wouldn't dare say to him like, Hey, come and sit down and eat some dinner with me, or, Hey, why are you being such a fucking asshole? Because I didn't want to deal with his anger. When his anger was that explosive over not being able to do up a zip. Imagine if it was anything else. It was just, you were kind of walking a tight rope of trying to keep him happy, trying to keep him sober so that he wouldn't have these explosive episodes.

So eventually he got thrown out of his mum's house. I can't remember why, but he was also abusive to her as well. And he had a sister and his sister wouldn't really stand for it and his sister would come around and be like, stop being a dick to her and stuff like that. And eventually he was told he had to leave. And so we found a new place, which was literally a ten second walk from his mom's place. Like he couldn't bear to be away from his mum. It was literally across the road which is weird. And he would still go around and make her iron his clothes and things like that. Basically we hadn't moved out. We were just like in a house just across the road. And this place, it had a couple of pieces of furniture. He had a bed and the bed on one side was completely smashed. The slats were completely smashed and the mattress would sink in. But the other side, it was totally normal and he was super selfish. So there was no question of who should have the good side or the bad side of the bed or should we take it in turns or should we buy a new bed? It was just, no, you get the shit side of the bed because you know, why would you get the good side? And I bought things like curtains and some, you know, things for the house and stuff. He would take money from me. He worked a full time job. And I was I was at school and I was working part time. So my wages, the money that I brought in was not even a 10th of what he made, but I was the one who was paying for everything.

And I would get grants from the government because I was so poor. So every three times a year I'd get a check for, I think it was about for 1500 pounds, so three times a year. So I'd get like four and a half grand from the government a year. And he would just take my money. He'd say, you know, I'd get this check of 1500. And I remember one time he was like, Oh, I really want to just buy a computer and you know, can I have that money and I'll pay you back? And I would just empty my bank account and give it to him and he would of course not give it back to me. And like for when we'd go grocery shopping, we'd go to the supermarket at the till. He'd be there calculating, okay, we got a bottle of milk. And so how much milk do I predict that I'm going to drink versus Victoria, okay, I'm going to drink 33% of this milk and the milk is a pound. Therefore Victoria owes me 66 paid for the bottle of milk. And he'd do these calculations of okay, well you owe me for, you know, there's 17 slices of bread and so you owe me for X amount of slices. And before we'd even left the store, he would do this thing. I just remember his hand movement. So clearly this hand movement of give me the money and we wouldn't leave the store until I had given him exactly like, say if it was 16 pounds and 75 pens, if I gave him 16 pounds and 50 pens he'd be like, absolutely no, you cannot shortchange me like this. This is ridiculous. This is just shows how irresponsible you are that you would try and shortchange me.

And then I just like, Oh, here's an extra 50 pen and he'd be like, Oh, you know, really annoyed by it. And then we'd walk home and he would make me carry the heavy groceries in my hand and he would he'd have a backpack. He put some things in his backpack and then he'd just walk, you know, with his hands free, just using me as like the donkey to carry the stuff home. Now I'm just like, I cannot believe this. Isn't this infuriating? I feel like, I wish I could go back to that. You know, those moments where he's there, you know, being like, give me my money, even my 25 p or whatever, treating me like some mule donkey to hurry his shopping and just go and just kick him in the face. You know, I feel so fucking annoyed about what a dick he was like, not only was he abusive, he was just a fucking dick head, you know, just the shit personality.

So he was such a conman. Say we'd go to stores, we'd go to like a charity shop, he'd come out and he'd be like, Oh, next loads of stuff from the charity shop. And I'd be like why? And like, stuff that he didn't want, like, you know, key rings or whatever, you know, just because he wanted to get one over on them and he'd be like, this fucking charity shop. What is wrong with you? And he would like write into companies and demand refunds and any way he could make money from others including me, including his mum, anyone. If he could make a 10 P from someone and it meant like screwing them over, he would do it. Another thing is he would tell me in detail about all of his exes and the relationships and the sex that they had. And he was a fucking creep like he kept the sheet that he had sex with his first girlfriend and there was blood on the sheet. He kept that bloody sheet in a bag in his room and he was just fucking disgusting, weird, creepy. He would like make me have sex with him in ways that I wasn't comfortable. Like I went from being had never had sex with anyone to dating this guy who was very experienced and he wanted all of his partners to be virgins. And if they weren't a virgin and they were a massive slut and he would be like, Oh my God, one of my girlfriends had sex with two people before I met her. I can't believe what a slut she was. And I remember at the time I was thinking, I don't know, like how don't you have sex with more people than that?

What that sounds like double standards to me. So another thing he'd say about his exes, I remember one time I asked him, do you have any regrets in your life? And he said, Oh yeah, I have one big regret. And I said, what is it? He said, I regret the moment that every one of my ex-girlfriends dumped me. I regret not punching them straight in the face. And I was at the time like, okay that sounds a bit weird. Or like, that doesn't sound really cool. I remember being like, questioning him about it and being like, what, why would you do that? And he says, well, you know, cause they, they fucked me over or whatever. And he told me about how in his most recent ex he went to her place of work, punched her boss, got her fired, did all sorts of other horrible things to her and he was like really pleased with himself.

Like I told her sort of thing. And they never actually did anything to him. They just ended the relationship. So yeah, from that moment I knew that I couldn't leave because I'd be in danger. He would literally punch me straight in the face. And as we all know now leaving an abusive relationship is when it's the most dangerous. And anyway, my brain wasn't with all these things, these things all started slowly happening. Slowly doing it, slowly doing that. This is over a two year period. And you know, one thing, you know, he's an alcoholic and I'm like, ah, well I can be like Mother Teresa and really help him. And so, you know, it wasn't that big a deal and he would be domineering and you know, I was used to my dad being domineering. So it wasn't really a big deal.

No, he was financially controlling. My dad, he used all of his money on himself. Even though we lived in poverty, he would all use all of his money to drink. So I was used to the guys being super selfish and like my dad, he would buy himself fancy things and whereas we didn't have enough money to put and he would have like gold top milk, like this fancy milk. And so I was used to that. So him being extremely selfish was it that much of a big deal to me, him all of these things, I would rationalize it away and I'd think, Oh, but you know, when he's sober, he's, I wouldn't say he's really nice. I would just be like, well, when he's sober it's not bad. And when he's sober, that's the real him and if only he could get better, then he would just be the normal real him versus realizing the normal real him wasn't an abuser.

So I was absolutely terrified of him and would be walking on eggshells for fear that if I did anything wrong, it would spur him to go on a drinking binge. And if he did, which was he was drunk, say 75% of the time, there would be days that he worked and he would work like 14 hour shifts or 12 hour shifts. And so he would only work three days a week, something like that that he would all be like cram it over like two nights. So he was able to be drunk pretty consistently and he just had to not get drunk on those two days where he worked through the night. So anyway, I just constantly terrified of him and he would always like make warnings, like, don't you do this? I'm warning you if you do this. When I went to university, I studied illustration and so painting was my thing and so I would paint and he would always be like, you're going to spill paint one day, don't you dare spill paint. And one night when he had gone to work, I got out of my paints to go painting and I spill a tub of paint, I'm going to say to have a paint and maybe a cup of paint on the floor. And as soon as that happened I was just like, Oh panic, terrified. And I spent hours cleaning it and you could see a kind of paint little thing, but also the carpet was wet because I'd been cleaning it and I knew it would come up. You know, the last little bit it would come up. I knew. And so if this was a normal relationship, I would just put the paint on the floor and would have just been like, Oh bloody hell cleaned it up, you know?

Oh, it's about painting silly Billy, you know, call the cleaner the next day. Cleaned the carpet, it's all fine. But in this abusive relationship, I knew I had to escape. This was unforgivable. Me, him coming home. So he would come home I think like four in the morning, something like that, four or five in the morning. I knew he would come home and rip the covers off the bed and be like, what the fuck is this? And so I was like, I couldn't cope with that. And so I ran away to my sister's house. By this time my sister had moved back to England. And so I went over there and I was just like, Oh, Hey, I'm just going to stay here for a bit. And I remember his friend was dating my other sister and his friend we like stayed up late chatting. And I was like, well, the reason I'm here really is because I spent spilled paint on the floor. And he was like, he's going to be really upset about it. And he was like, I doubt it. Like, it's paint. And I was like, no, really he will be. And he was just like, seriously, I think you're overreacting. And I spent a couple of days, I'd left a note as soon as he came in, there was a note on the floor that I left him saying, I've spelt paint. I'm so sorry. The apology that I wrote on that piece of paper, it was like, basically I had just, you know, done something heinous, something really awful. So I stayed away for a couple of days and when I eventually got the courage to go back home, I remember he had like locked all the doors so I couldn't get in.

So I had to knock and I just remember seeing his shadow coming towards the door and then him just opened the door silently and kind of like, get in there, you're in trouble. And standing there what felt like hours while he lectured me and berated me and was like, I told you this was going to happen. I can't believe that you're just, you know, you're this and that and me apologizing so much and saying I'm going to make it up to you and dah, dah, dah, dah. And literally, it's like I came home and said to him, Hey, I've spent that evening sucking some other guy's dick or something, you know, the way he reacted and even, you know if that had happened in another relationship, it wouldn't be as a big of reaction as this. Around this time too, he put me on a diet. So he decided that he had to take control of my eating officially versus, you know, just a general berating of you shouldn't be eating that and that's why, you know, why are you having this normal amount of food? You should be having this you know, less amount of food. And so he said, okay, I'm going to put you on a diet. And I was like, Oh, thank you. So he loves me so much. He's helping me stop being addicted to food. And so he planned out what I was allowed to eat and it was nothing. It was the most minimal, not nutritionally balanced ridiculous, the same meal three times a day, basically. And so this made me even more disordered around food because I was not allowed because I was on this diet. I definitely wasn't allowed to be eating anything that was outside of this diet.

And this diet was basically tens of beans or tens of spaghetti hoops, a slice of processed cheese and a bread roll. That was what I was allowed to eat. And for breakfast I was allowed one slice of toast. And at lunch I was like a lot of bread roll with a slice of processed cheese. So not enough food at all by far. And it was just bad. It was just bad, bad in every single way. And so when he went to work on the nights that he'd go to work immediately I would go cycling to the corner store and buy food to make myself something to eat. And this just reinforced this idea like, Oh my God, I'm so out of control. As soon as his back is turned, I'm just there running for the shop buying stuff. And I thought, Oh, the shopkeeper's going to be like, Oh my God, look at this girl. She's so addicted to food. When I just know buy it, go in there and buy a couple of bags of crisps or something like nothing. And then I would hide all the evidence of food that I'd eat him. And he would also count food when he left to make sure that I didn't eat anything. And so he'd count like how many slices of bread is left in the loaf. And I remember I had had two slices of bread instead of one that I was allowed and he came back and knows one slice of bread missing. And so I was like, Oh well I took out a slice of bread and it fell on the floor so I put it in the bin. So that's, that's what happened to that slice. And he, he went through the bin and there was no slice of bread and he was like, you're lying. Why you lying? And go in, you know, went into a rage and then he started getting violent.

In next week's episode, I will detail how he moved from coercion, manipulation, the use of fear into using physical violence to control me. Now my experience is pretty typical in regards to how abusers behave in relationships and how their behavior escalates into eventual murder. I want to share with you some stats that I got from WHO, the World Health Organization. Violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence is a major public health problem and a violation of women's human rights. By the way, it's not just women who are the targets of domestic abuse. All genders are, it just happens to be the majority of targets and victims are women. Okay. Going back to these who stats global estimates published by who indicate that about one in three 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. Most of this violence is intimate partner violence worldwide. Almost one third 30% of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime globally as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner. Men are more likely to perpetuate violence if they have low education, a history of child maltreatment, exposure to domestic violence against their mothers, half or use of alcohol, unequal gender norms, including attitudes, accepting of violence, and a sense of entitlement over women. Women are more likely to experience intimate partner violence if they have low education exposure to mothers being abused by a partner. Abuse during childhood and attitudes accepting violence, male privilege and women subordinate status. So stat show four women in the U S die every day, murdered by their partner or ex-partner. In 2018 in the UK, 173 people. So people of all genders were killed in domestic violence related homicides. According to data obtained by the BBC from 43 police forces across the UK, an increase of 32 deaths on 2017. So this problem is not going away. It's actually getting worse.

So my ex had a fine upbringing. He didn't experience abuse. You had an average education. There was nothing there from his childhood that would suggest that he would go on to become an abuser. He said that his problems started because his dad died certainly from a heart attack. But he was an alcoholic before his dad died and he was being creepy with women before that happened. I personally think that he was a narcissist or had antisocial personality disorder alongside being a misogynist. And this is me being an armchair psychologist. I don't know. I'm just guessing and you know, that kind of wanting to find an answer for why he behaved that I think is pretty normal. But you know, I will never know what really was going on in his mind. What I do know though, is if a parent dies suddenly or if you were abused as a kid, or you saw your mother being abused, it doesn't mean that you're destined to become an abuser yourself. And people can make a decision to end the cycle of abuse if they've seen it in their childhood or to make an excuse for their abuse. And I used to always think in this relationship, if only his dad didn't die, then he wouldn't be like this. He's had this terrible thing happened to him. And that's the reason why he drinks so much. That's the reason why he's such an abuser. And I would make that excuse for him because he would always be saying, you don't know what it's like to have a parent dies suddenly. If my mum dies, then I'll be an orphan and my life, I wouldn't can be able to continue living. My dad eventually did die suddenly and guess what didn't turn me into an abuser. I experienced abuse as a child. I watched my mum being abused, still didn't turn me into it and abuser. So there is no excuse for being an abuser ever at all. It doesn't matter what has happened in your past. Some people experienced terrible things and they turn out to be advocates against abuse, whereas some people experienced abuse and perpetuate the pattern or they've had no history of abuse like my ex and just complete assholes.

So next week, the second half of this will be released and I hope that you are safe in your home currently, in your relationship. I hope you're not experiencing abuse and if you are unsafe, then please Google what services are available in your country. I have listeners from all over the world and so there are resources out there and nowadays it's a lot easier from when I was in a my abusive relationship to reach out to different aid charities and be able to just text them or send them a message, an instant message over the, over the internet. And understand is this abuse, like if you want to find out is what I'm experiencing abuse, is this okay? And they can let you know, this is not okay or I think that you should contact the police or whatever and as well you can download this app. There's apps that are available. One app that I know that is for the UK and for Ireland is an app called Bright Sky and bright sky disguises itself as a weather app and you can even have it. So when you tap the app, it shows the weather for your location. But then there's a secret way to get into the real app that's behind this interface where you can track the abuse that you are experiencing, get resources learn more about abuse and come up with a plan to leave your partner if you want to. So maybe go and cause this is quite, you know, heavy topic. Go and do something fun right now or I don't know, maybe you're in the mood where you want to hear you know, things like this. I don't know. Sometimes when I'm sad and I want to go and watch a sad movie or because it's cathartic in some way and I can release, you know the emotions that I'm feeling like, Oh, do what you want. So if you want to go and watch a movie about domestic abuse or not, or just go and relax and do something totally different. You do you. Look after yourself. Make sure you stay safe and I will see you in the next episode. See you later, crocodile.

EP27 Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 27 of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby and in today's episode we're talking about, is fat positivity, anti-health? Let's do it.

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

Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to this new episode. I hope you're doing well and you're a surviving isolation, quarantine, whatever you're doing or if you're listening to this episode. In a year's time, you're like, what? I hope you're happy. I hope you good. So today we've got a listener question, which is something that a lot of folks are worried about and concerned about. And it's actually one of the biggest barriers that I see to people getting on board with loving that their fat body and that is health. And there seems to be a lot of confusion around what you should do and what's okay and what's not okay and so that's what we're talking about in today's episode. Now because we are still in the global pandemic. I wanted to update you on the news around fatness and COVID19 and whether fat people are just gonna spontaneously combust if they get COVID 19. Clue. No and it's exhausting seeing all of these fat phobic memes and fat phobic rhetoric around and Christie Harrison of Food Psych has curated and collated all the data and the studies that have come out and she wrote a piece for Wired. It's called COVID 19 Does Not Discriminate By Body Weight. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. To get to the show notes, it will be underneath wherever you're listening, but if you're driving or whatever, it's fiercefatty.com/027 because it's episode 27. So fiercefatty.com/027 for episode 27.

But let me read you a little bit about from this this article that Christie wrote. Christie is a dietitian, straight sized dietitian and she advocates for fat people in her work. She's anti diet and she's great. I was on her podcast maybe 18 months ago. I'm going to be on a new episode of hers coming out in the next month or so. But anyway, this is what a snippet of what Christie says in the article. This is the beginning of it. At this point, it's been made to seem like common sense, larger body people are at higher risk from this pandemic. Oh, and by the way, this is not in the article. This is me speaking. In this episode, there's going to be mentioned of the O words and so if you don't want to hear those at all, I'm going to be saying quote unquote. But if you don't want to be hearing those and maybe skip this episode because we're talking a lot about science and studies and things like that.

So anyway, back to the article. Larger bodied people are at higher risk from this pandemic quote. Those who are "overweight" really need to be careful. Francis chief epidemiologist declared last week. That is why we're worried about our friends in America. In recent weeks, many news outlets and a few scientific journals have sent the same frightening message. A study posted on a preprint server last weekend by researchers at New York University provided fodder for the latest round of this reporting. "Obesity" appears to be one of the biggest risk factors related to COVID 19 hospitalizations and critical illness. Newsweek claimed on Tuesday, yet this rhetoric is based on flawed and limited evidence, which only exacerbates the stigma that larger bodied people already face in a society and our healthcare system. That stigma is what truly jeopardizes their health, not weight itself. A fact that it's only more important to consider in the midst of this pandemic. The article continues. This is a quote that Christie picked out herself. Anti-Fat bias has been linked to subpar healthcare in a variety of ways, including providers spending less time with larger body patients, speaking more curtly and less compassionately to them and miss tributing symptoms to their weight instead of referring them for testing or offering evidence-based non-weight related treatment options. Discrimination against higher weight people is a known independent risk factor for all kinds of health problems that typically get blamed on weight, including diabetes and heart disease and COVID 19 is only amplifying this preexisting disparity. When you take that and then you throw a pandemic on top, it's like adding water to a grease fire says, Joy Cox. A researcher at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Health disparities that weren't addressed when there was an opportunity to address them have been magnified. That's the end of the quotes from that article.

So COVID 19 does not discriminate by body weight. Basically in a nutshell, there has been no evidence at all. These studies have come out, they are deeply flawed. And in fact, some of these studies show that having a higher weight is helpful against COVID 19. And so Chris has really gone in, looked at the studies, looked at the floors and said this is not what she wants is showing when you look at this evidence. There simply is zero scientific evidence to show that people in larger bodies and those who have a higher BMI and we know the BMI is total bullshit at higher risk for getting COVID 19. And if they do get it at a higher risk for death, for needing to have ventilators et cetera, et cetera.

So yeah, it's just sucky that if you're watching the television, I avoid watching the television at all costs. News and things like that. Don't get me wrong, I watch tons on Netflix. But to have, you know, people who are in positions of authority being like, Oh, we're scared for Americans cause that's like fact, you know, it's gonna be anxiety inducing which increases weight stigma. Weight stigma is just another word for fatphobia which in turn damages your health. So it's blah, blah, blah is what I've got to say to that. My frustration. So last week, I did a couple of webinars. I'm talking about how do you love your body and a lot of the questions I got were around health and often my Instagram, I get a lot of DMs and very often my DMS are either~I've been following you or listen to your podcast and you've really helped me. And now I feel really good about myself or I have this health condition and I'm scared or what if someone I love is fat and I'm scared for their health and what do I do? Like literally I just checked my phone and I had a message saying, my family has heart disease. And so am I fat phobic if I lose weight to try and protect myself from heart disease. And it's really heartbreaking for me to think about people out there just being really stressed about their health. And to me it's really black and white. It's really clear. And of course I'm not a doctor, but looking at the science around this, as you've heard me say many times in many episodes, there is no reliable way to reduce your body size.

There has never been one study in the history of the world to show a diet that works long term. Of course you can lose weight and you know, you can go and starve yourself or have a lifestyle change and lose weight. But in a year, two years, three years, four years, five years, are you going to still be at that lower weight? Studies show, no you were going to be fatter. And a byproduct is poor health outcomes, mental and physical health. So, dieting doesn't work to make your body smaller. It makes it bigger. And so if someone is saying you need to lose weight or that is not evidence based because there's no evidence to show what we can do to lose weight reliably. And even if there was having a smaller body will not necessarily protect you from things.

I'm like, this person is saying heart disease runs in her family genetic, genetic predispositions towards certain conditions or illnesses. Like type two diabetes, type one diabetes. It's so heavily genetic based on whether you're going to get it or not. That being, having a smaller body is not necessarily gonna do much. But as I have said in other episodes, sometimes people when they're trying to lose weight, they engage in certain types of behaviors, which could be helpful. Those behaviors could be eating different types of food could be moving their bodies in certain ways, but because they are tying a weight loss number to the behaviors. Those behaviors have been shown to be not sustainable because when inevitably the weight loss plateaus and they put our weight on, even though they're still eating in certain ways, even though they're still exercising in certain ways people stop engaging in those behaviors.

Whereas if you are focused on healthful behaviors outside of weight loss and a number on a scale, those behaviors are way more sustainable. If you're doing it just because you want to improve your fitness level or you want to happen to get a different variety of food into your life. They are studies show it's they're way more sustainable if you're not doing it when you're focused on a number on the scale. So side note on that. So in my mind is black and white. There's no way that you can reliably lose weight. And so what do people who are small body do in this circumstance? Do they take medicine? Do they move their body more? Do they exercise in a certain way? Do they build strength? Do they eat more of a certain food? Perhaps try that. Of course I'm not a doctor, but you know, I'm just looking at the science and what I would do personally myself.

Okay. So let's get to this question. It's half typed out and it's half audio. So this is from Brit and this is what Britt says and then we're going to listen to the audio of like the first half and second half is audio. Okay. So Britt says, Hey Victoria. So I wanted to kind of ask some questions. I have listened to some of your podcasts, so I know body positivity you originated from fat acceptance movement or rather it has been stolen maybe. What I mean is I believe all bodies deserve the same respect and no one should be told that their body is less or what to do with their eating the exercise habits, et cetera. However, as I've learned more about the various movements I am being faced or hearing more people being faced with the whole body positivity is health negativity. Now I happen to have recovered from an eating disorder and fix my relationship with food through saying fuck you to die. It's just letting go of all diet, culture, mindset, et cetera. But there is a line, but is there a line if you, let's say have diabetes, can't walk and numerous problems that are all said to be related to "obesity". Is it still okay to promote that now? I still hold my position that the imaginary person in this scenario is still as valued and their body should not be discriminated against, but if they would are genuinely unwell due to "obesity", should this be the point that they should seek help? And let me continue this in audio from Brit.

Sorry, I'm just going to finish the rest off in the voicemail because honestly it's so exhausting trying to type. But basically what I'm kind of getting at is if someone has got all of those conditions are related to obesity whilst we still value them. They should be looked at different society. Is it then right to say, you know, you need to look at your health. The same way we would say to somebody, you know, if they've got cancer or if just anything we'd say you need to get this look down because it could shorten your lifespan at that point. Do we need to encourage people to look at, you know, not, I wouldn't say this to say I still wouldn't say weight loss, but just fixing the relationship with food and education I suppose. What do you kind of answer to that? Cause that's the bit that I'm kind of feeling like a faith, most criticism for. If I get, I'm also don't get as much because I am in a smaller plus-size body and I am in 18 to 20, so I'm not that far out of the regular. But I'm more about self love and body positivity and body acceptance at any size. But I don't know yet how you just to follow how you look at the perspective of if someone is at that extreme and their beast is causing a lot of issues. The standpoint on that, on whether they should be seeking help for that because I have kind of heard a few opinions where people have said it doesn't matter. No, that they shouldn't start exercising, they shouldn't start changing their eating habits. It's completely fine. But obviously somebody is in, well then I'd never want to promote for somebody to, you know, miss out on all those lovely life opportunities due to that. However saying that or do you think that that percentage of people that fall into that category is very small. I think a lot of plus size people go about and have completely fine vitals and blood work and all that. They're completely healthy. They then get stigmatized with that very far money proportion of people. So yeah, I'd just love to hear your thoughts on what you kind of say when you come across that. Also thanks for your time. I know that was a really long message and then really long voice notes. Thank you.

Okay, so that was from Britt and I said to Britt I'm going to answer this question in my podcast because it's a juicy question and I get it a lot. So to answer this question, I want to share and an article that was published in BCMC med in 2018 and pick out some points in this article. That is going to inform how we think about how to answer this question. So this is from Tomiyama, Carr Granberg et al and it's called How and Why Weight Stigma Drives the Obesity ‘Epidemic’ and Harms Health are linked to the article in the show notes. And by the way, the reason why I said quote unquote epidemic is because, well, they do quote unquote epidemic because there is actually no such thing as the obesity epidemic.

If you don't know this, when there was a study published to say, Oh my God, we're all dying because we're also fat. A study was published, so I can't remember how many, it was like let's say a hundred thousand deaths in America or a year or a million deaths a year attributed to people having higher body weight. And then everyone was like, Oh my God, it's an epidemic. And they'd got the numbers wrong. The figures were wrong, you know Popeye and Spinach and we all, the Popeye has spinach because it's got iron loads of irons. That's another case of a study being published and they put the decimal point in the wrong place and that's finished, has got lots of iron, but it's not got this magic amount, but makes Popeye's muscles big. But you know, it's something that perpetuates. And so this idea of obesity epidemic is not based in science and it's just, it's simply not true. They got their numbers wrong and there was all sorts of other flaws in this study which has now been seen as fact and it's infuriating. And as well, if you're wondering why I'm saying "obesity", "overweight", I did a whole episode on the O words and why they are harmful and why we shouldn't be using them.

Okay. So in this paper, I'm going to summarize some of the things they say. So weight stigma is harmful to health by the way. Weight stigma is just another word, a softer word to say fatphobia. It's easier to say weight stigma because then people can be like, Oh, okay, well I don't want to perpetuate weight stigma. But when you label someone has having as being a fatphobe or fat phobic, this is me talking by the way, this is not the article. They get very defensive, but when we talk about weight stigma, it's a lot easier for people to get it and want to say no wasting. We don't want to do that. Okay, so wasted mine is harmful to help over and above objective body mass index. Okay, I'm going to break this down. What all of this means at the end. Weight stigma is prospectively related to heightened mortality and other chronic diseases and conditions. Most ironically, it actually begets heightened risk of "obesity" through multiple "obesogenic" pathways. Weight stigma~ obesogenic in case you haven't come across that word, it means tending to cause obesity. So multiple obesogenic pathways, multiple ways that's fatness is caused. Weight stigma is particularly prevalent and detrimental in healthcare settings with documented high levels of anti-fat bias in healthcare providers. Patients with "obesity" receiving poorer care and having worse outcomes and medical students with quote unquote obesity reporting, high levels of alcohol and substance use to cope with internalized weight stigma. In terms of solutions, the most effective and ethical approaches should be aimed at changing the behaviors and attitudes of those who stigmatize rather than those towards the target of weight stigma.

So basically, this is the beginning of the article what it's saying is that weight stigma is harmful to health. So being fat phobic is harmful to health of the general population over and above body mass index. So it's more harmful than anything that the BMI tells us. Okay. So that's basically what that is saying. Okay. So the next section, I'm taking bits out by the way so I'm not reading it for full. But the next section says weight stigma, triggers obesogenic processes. So again, obesogenic is tending to cause obesity. Common wisdom and certain medical assert that stigmatizing higher weight individuals and applying social pressure to incite a weight loss improves population health. We argue the opposite. The latest science indicates that weight stigma can trigger physiological and behavioral changes linked to poor metabolic health and increased weight gain. In the Boratree experiments when study participants are manipulated to experience weight stigma that eating increases their self regulation decreases and their cortisol brackets own obesogenic hormone. So cortisol is something that makes people fatter and their cortisol levels are higher relative to controls. Additionally, survey data reveal, but experiences with weight stigma correlate with avoidance of exercise. So that section is saying if you are shaming someone and not even shaming someone, just saying, do you have that person? Have you heard about exercise and eating less food? Just something like that or a weight stigma. Fatphobia can be in many hundreds of different ways and it could be something that's very slight and it can be something overt. Anything which is weight stigma has a poor effect on someone's health and makes people fatter. Now they are two separate things. Poor health and fatness doesn't mean that fatness equals poor health. Okay? That's not what they're saying. But if you want to make people thinner by stigmatizing them and perpetuating weight stigma, you're making them fatter. And another byproduct is not because of the fatness, the physical health is damaged and it makes fat people, it makes people not fat people. It makes people less likely to exercise. Isn't that interesting? So shame does the opposite effect. Okay.

So next section, the harmful effects of weight stigma may even extend to all cause mortality. Let me just explain more what mortality means. So the word mortality it means death, the term all cause mortality is utilized on reading from something I got from the internet is utilized in reference to a disease or a harmful exposure such as to radiation or dangerous chemicals in a statistical context. It is typically expressed as a total number of deaths due to that condition during a specific time period. Okay. So let's go back to the article. The harmful effects of weight stigma may even extend it to all cause mortality. From two studies, which total 20,000 people they say people who reported experiencing weight discrimination had a 60% increased risk of dying independent of BMI. The underlying mechanisms explaining this relationship which controls for BMI may reflect the direct and indirect effects of chronic social stress. Biological pathways include, this is a difficult word. Dice regulation in metabolic health and inflammation such as high at C reactive protein among individuals who experienced weight discrimination. Okay. So what that section says is you will die sooner if you experience weight stigma no matter what your weight is. Okay. So this affects everyone, straight sized people and fat people. Weight stigma affects everyone. And so if you have been stigmatized, so say if a straight sized person was constantly told or you're, you're already fat, you should lose some weight, you should really exercise. They have increased risk of dying just because of that and not because of the size of their body. Now we do this to fat people to say, Oh, you should lose weight but it doesn't matter if you are actually fat or not.

Okay, so next section. It's juicy stuff, isn't it? So weight stigma also has profound negative effects on mental health. National representative data from the United States show that individuals who perceive that they have been discriminated against on the basis of weight are roughly 2.5 times as likely to experience mood or anxiety disorders as those who do not. According court accounting for standard risk factors for mental illness and objective BMI. Also in the article, they say it's not just the US it's studies across the globe has showed the same thing. So weight stigma, so we've established hurts your physical health. It also hurts your mental health. So next section, a rapidly growing set of studies now shows that these associations cannot simply be explained by higher weight individuals, poor health, or greater likelihood of perceiving weight related discrimination. In fact, the mere perception of oneself as being "overweight" across the BMI spectrum, I even among individuals at a quote unquote normal BMI is prospectively associated with biological markers of poor health, including unhealthy blood pressure, C reactive protein, ACL cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose and HB1 and HB1 C levels.

So what that is saying again is it's not the, what it's saying is it's not that they are fat that is making them unhealthy. It is weight stigma. Okay? Next health care is a setting in which weight stigma is particularly pervasive with significant consequences for health higher weight patients. A sample of 2,284 physicians showed strong, explicit and implicit anti-fat bias. High levels of bias are observed even among clinicians specializing in quote unquote obesity related issues with the proportion endorsing explicit anti-fat bias sentiments. For example, fat people are worthless increasing in recent years. The nature of healthcare provider bias encompasses endorsement of negative stereotypes of patients with quote unquote obesity, including terms like lazy weak-willed and bad feeling less respect for those patients and being more likely to report them as quote waste of time. So fat people are stigmatized by healthcare providers, very well established. And what do you think that does to the health of fat people? Not only exactly what this article is saying, when fat people go to the doctor they are seen as noncompliant. They are seen as having caused whatever ailment they're coming into address and then are prescribed weight loss versus if a straight sized person came into see a healthcare provider and so have the exact same thing, they were are more likely to be looked at as a human being and given appropriate treatment. So the conclusion of this article is weight stigma is likely to drive weight gain and poor health and thus should be eradicated. Yes. Thank you very much. It should be okay. So let me summarize the article just in a few sentences. Fatphobia can make you physically and mentally unwell. Shame makes you fatter. Not that being fatter means you're more unhealthy.

You're more likely to die if you experienced weight stigma slash fatphobia. Having more adipose tissue. So adipose tissue is just fat on your body, isn't why people are experiencing health, worse health outcomes. And finally, doctors are hella fat phobic and so people, so fat people avoid the doctor and when they do go, they get shitty prescriptions of weight loss. And they go and they have they're in a later stage of their illness or whatever it is because they have avoided going therefore having a poor health outcome because of that, avoiding the doctor. Okay. So, why am I talking about this? This article will, I want you to get all of this information out around. I've spoken about, you know, shaming people on how it is, it's not helpful and how it hurts people. And so I want it to tie it back to Britt's question now. Brit has asked a great question and it sounds like being a fat person herself or be it a smaller fat person. And in the stage of embracing Britt's body and embracing letting go of that eating disorder and all that type of stuff. Questions are coming up from people in Britain life and also questions that she's been seeing, you know, maybe from people that she's getting information from. And I want to address that. So I've broken down some of the key things that's in Britt's question so we can look into and break down some of the maybe assumptions or, you know, look at a different way of looking at a different way of looking at it. Okay. So the first thing that jumped out to me is Britt's saying I'm being faced or others are being faced with BOPO is health negativity. Okay, this is great. This is so good. I'm so glad you brought this up because this is so wrong. This is wrong. It is literally the opposite and I kind of love it when people bring this one up cause I'm just like I can just tell you know, you know, whoever's told you that is, you know, misguided, misleading, whatever. Okay. So body positivity, fat positivity is saying what it is. It's saying that people's value as a human being is not dependent on their size and we should raise up marginalized bodies so that they are discriminated against less and are not further marginalized, full stop. So there is no message in there of fat positivity and body positivity is saying fuck you to health. Let's all be as unhealthy physically and mentally as humanly possible and die. That's not what body positivity is all about. Positivity is just not. So whoever told you or gave you that idea that it's anti health has a very limited and skewed idea of what this political movement is about. And I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. Because a lot of the imagery that you see around fat positivity, body positivity is fat people doing things that society have told them they're not allowed to do. For example, eating a donut. A lot of donut imagery in fat, positivity, body positivity. And the reason for this is not because to be body positive, you have to only ever eat donuts for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that if you don't, you need to be thrown out and your goal is to eat a thousand donuts a day. The reason is it's political as a fat person, being able to eat something that society has told you that you shouldn't eat in public on social media is saying a massive fuck you to diet culture, which is what Brit has done, said fuck you to diet culture and everything that it entails.

It is being rebellious. The truth is fat people just like straight sized people eat a variety of things, but it's not so controversial or shocking. If you saw a fat person saying, Oh Hey, I'm just having a nice bowl of soup, you know, he'd just be like, okay, cool. Because you know, it's not one of those controversial type foods. So, you know, fat people have been told to be ashamed of what they eat. And so, you know, if someone comes into body positivity and they see a picture of a fat person eating a donut, they could clutch their pearls and be like, Oh my God, that trying to tell me to only eat donuts. They're trying to tell me that I should be unhealthy. That is what body positivity is about, but it's not. It's literally not. It's just not at all. At all, at all. And the reason why it's actually the opposite is because when you embrace and love your body, when you say, okay, I'm not going to further marginalize other people, I'm not going to further marginalize myself. Things happen, things like having a higher self esteem and then you're able to do things like potentially if you need to heal your relationship with food which is obviously wonderful and that's something really healthy physically or mentally because diets hurt us physically and mentally. You could do things like heal your relationship with movement, not that you need to because who knows what your relationship was, but you're more likely to then want to advocate for yourself. For example, go to the doctors. And so when people say it's anti health, they are so far from rights and they've just interpreted a political movement into something nefarious, you know, fat positivity, body positivity is just saying, Hey, let's treat fat people like they're people. Weird, I know, but it's not saying, Hey, let's treat fat people like they're people and also help fat people become unhealthy for whatever reason. Fat phobes think why? Why would people think, Oh, anyway. And so any kind of, you know, a little bit of research into fat positivity we'll kind of come to show. No, that's not what it's about. Okay.

So let's go on to the next bit that I picked out. Britt says, is there a line where if you say have diabetes, can't walk and have numerous problems said to be related to quote unquote obesity, is it still okay to promote that? So is it okay to promote fat positivity when someone is unhealthy? Is my question like, is it okay to promote fat, positivity, body positivity when someone is unhealthy? I would say fuck yes. That's when it's especially important because of the healthiest society we live in. Health is healthism, valuing someone's health, viewing the body as a machine. In our healthy society that says that people who are unhealthy, people who are disabled are less worthy than those who are able bodied those who are healthy. That's when we need movements that help people who are marginalized. So, yes. But I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's what you mean when you say is it okay to still promote that if someone is has health problems, we'll get into that a little bit more.

So the next point you've said is if someone is genuinely unwell due to quote unquote obesity, should this be the point they seek help? Is it then right to say you need to look at your health the same way we would with cancer as it could shorten your lifespan? So that's something that has said that. So there's lots of assumptions here that I want to break down. Now a lot of people have the same questions. Like, this is such a good question. I'm so pleased that Britt has brought this up because we can break down these assumptions that we have and realize, Oh, okay, that's not necessarily helpful to think like that or to have these beliefs. Okay. So some assumptions, not necessarily saying that Britt has these assumptions, but some, you know, sometimes people have these assumptions and these are some of the things I picked out. Assumption number one is that fatness caused whatever condition that they have. That's the first assumption. Number two, that having these conditions leads to a shorter life. Number three assumption that the fat person doesn't necessarily know that they're fat and that they don't know that they have these conditions. Assumption for that fat people are somehow unable to look after their health without the intervention of a thin savior or a well meaning fat friend to tell them to go to the doctor. Number five, assumption that we are able to assess someone's health by looking at their body or knowing a little bit about them. Really the only person who knows about their health is, is them their lab reports. You know number six assumption that we are more qualified than the person who owns the body when it comes to what to do with their body. So is it right to what Brett said, is it right to say you need to look at your health the same way we would say to someone who has cancer, you need to look after your health. And if someone is genuinely unwell due to obesity, quote unquote obesity. So referring back to that article that I picked information out from what we've established is a lot of health conditions that are linked, big word linked to having a bigger body are caused by weight stigma.

So type two diabetes, here is an example. Type two diabetes look into it yourself, but I've looked into it already because I'm interested in this stuff. Fat people are more likely to get type two diabetes. Having more fat on your body is not necessarily the reason why. In fact, no one knows. No one knows why fat people are more likely to get type two diabetes. There's just no science to show us to tell us, Oh, it's because you know you know, the extra fat tissue on the body does this. And then it does that. And that's why fat people are more likely to have type two diabetes. There's just no science to show that there is science to show is that fat people have poor health outcomes because of the stigma that they experience. What we do know is that type two diabetes is massively, massively down to genetics. Also, there's certain types of ethnicities that are more likely to experience type two diabetes.

So, you know, it's complicated. And so we can't say, okay, well it's because they're fat that they've got type two diabetes. What does anyone in their family have type two diabetes, just do straight sized people ever get type two diabetes. You know, it's just not as simple as that. And so by saying like, you need to look at your health the same, they, you know, whatever way that you might say it, what you're doing there is increasing weight stigma, which is increasing poorer health outcomes. It's assuming that fat person is like, huh, I'm fat. Oh my God. I didn't realize. There's some conditions that are linked to, you know, weight and stuff. I'd never heard that before. I should look after my health. What's health? Health? Never heard of that before, right? It's assuming that fat people are just wickedly ignorant to everything that they've heard their whole life, right. And so why would you want to, why would you want to increase weight stigma for them? Now, I'm presuming like if there's someone in your life and you're like, Oh my God, they're so fat and unhealthy, and if I don't tell them that they're fat and unhealthy, then they're just going to continue to be fat and unhealthy. And the reasoning behind that is mostly probably because you care for them, you love them, you want them to live for as long as possible. Well, if you care for them and you love them and you want them to live, live as long as possible, you will stop stigmatizing them by thinking of them in that way.

And you will work to eradicate fatphobia. You will not perpetuate fatphobia by saying, Oh Hey, by the way, I don't know you've noticed, but you fat. Don't know if you know this, but you've got diabetes or you know, don't know if you notice, but you're probably going to die any minute now because you're so fat. That's not helping them and if you love them and you want to help them, then become a fat activist. Don't tell them that they need to behave in a way that you've decided is best for them. Next thing in this question is, should we encourage people to fix their relationship with food or education? So this is, as I'm saying, is this a solution to when fat people are unhealthy? So I think, yes, having a healthy relationship with food is great. It's lovely. And when I say healthy, I mean being free from disordered eating being able to feed yourself with joy, being an intuitive eater. But what I hear from this is, should we encourage people to fix their relationship with food or education? Should we coach them to fix it because it is broken? It feels like there is an assumption here that fat people all have a disordered relationship with food, which is not based in reality. Fat people are fat for literally hundreds of reasons, literally hundreds of reasons and to say, okay, all fat people are disordered around food and so they need to fix that eating disorder or disordered eating pattern that they have, then they'll probably lose weight and they'll become more healthy. Is this not helpful, right. It's not helpful thinking now I used to, I remember so clearly sitting in the car with my then boyfriend saying to him, I think every fat person has some type of eating disorder now. This is years ago. And he was like I don't know about that which looking back I was like, I'm pretty impressed that he said that because he had some fat phobic beliefs, but he was like, I don't know. And I was like, yeah, you know, because how would they have got fat if they didn't just eat loads of food and why were they eating loads of food and there must be something wrong and I was so misguided. That was, no, that's not. No. Now of course there are fat people who have eating disorders. Of course, of course there are fat people who have disordered relationships with food. The most, the most common way that people, fat people have a disordered relationship with food is dieting. Dieting is increasing your chances of having an eating disorder or having a disordered relationship with food. So another layer to this is we're presuming that fat people don't necessarily know how to feed themselves.

When I was in the, Who Are You Calling Fat TV show house, one of the fat photos. Like we need to educate people and tell them to eat fruits and vegetables and tell them that processed food is bad and blah, blah, blah. Is that news to you? That fruit and vegetables are something that are good for you to eat? Is that news to you? Oh no. Is it something that you've heard hundreds of times in your life? Yes. Of course. Like, duh. We know, you know, everyone knows I'd say everyone, you know, most people know that, you know, having a variety of food in your life is good. And sometimes that's not possible for people and that's fine too, right? So, you know, education like education in what way? Education. Hey, fatty. Have you thought about eating a carrot? Well, you know, fat, he's going to be like, no shit Sherlock. Have I thought about eating a carrot? You know, did you not see me try that carrot soup diet when I was 23 and all I ate was carrots and my skin turned orange like hello. So, but if someone does have a difficult relationship with food, then yes. You know, encourage them to fix it if they want to. They don't have to like I promote intuitive eating because it was a great way for me to stop dieting and heal my relationship with food. But I'm not going to force it on other people and say, I've decided because you are unhealthy that you should be an intuitive eater. Not that is what I'm saying in this fitness section, but just FYI, although it was a big part of me, a big one of my so I have a diary. It's like a five year thing where it asks every day asks a different question. Like, if you're a song, what if you're a song? What song would you be today? And things like that. And the question a couple of days ago was, what is your worst habit or your worst trait? My worst trait is trying to get people to do what I think is best for them. So, you know, like say if a friend is dating a loser boyfriend, I'd be like, dump him. That guy's a loser. I would also be, you know, empathetic and all that type of stuff, but I really be like, let's take action here. You know? And so that's my worst habit is trying to get people to behave in ways that I personally think is best for them, which is wrong because I, I just believe that's what's best for them. I don't, you know, they know what's best for them. It's their lives, right. Okay. So moving on.

So Britt said that she had heard people say no, they shouldn't start exercising or changing their eating habits. It's completely fine. So what Britt is saying is that she's seen comments or heard comments from wherever when someone said a fat person is unhealthy, that no, they shouldn't start exercising or changing their eating habits. There's one part of this that's correct. The part it's completely fine. It is completely fine not to exercise and to eat in a way that you want, right? FYI is totally, you can do what you want, you can do, you cannot exercise. So fat, positivity, body positivity has nothing to do with telling people not to exercise or telling people to only drink melted butter milkshakes. It's just not, it's just not. A part of healing your relationship with food could be eating certain foods that foods that maybe you classes unhealthy. I'm a part of healing. Your relationship with movement could be to not engage in exercise and harmful workout routines for a bit or ever again because your relationship with movement has been damaged. That could be your journey, that you just don't move your body because it's harmful for your mental health and that you eat in a certain way because you need to rebuild your relationship with your body and food. So it's not like I've never seen anyone in fat positivity ever say, listen up here, no one should be exercising. No one should be eating in this way or that way or you should eat this way. You shouldn't eat that way. That whoever said that, I don't know. I don't know like this, just let's just know what fat positivity is. It's all about choice. What you want to do with your body, you know, like not fat positive is all about choice. But a lot of things around this political movement is doing what's right for your body. And if you happen to be a fat person who loves exercising, great. If you're a fat person who is not interested in exercising gray. So it's hard to imagine. So if someone said, Hey, so whoever this person is, it's hard to imagine. Well this is my experience. If someone said to me, Victoria, I am unhealthy and I am fat. Should I exercise and change my eating habits? I can't imagine a world in where I'd say, no, no, no, no, no. You should never move your body exercising is bad. Or no, you shouldn't explore food. Eating different foods is bad. Like it does not compute. That wouldn't happen in my world anyway. And so who knows who this person is but, or what happened here, but it doesn't align with, you know, feminism and, and body positivity and health at every size and all that type of stuff.

So next Britt says, I never want to promote anybody to miss out on all of those lovely life opportunities due to that. And due to that, I think that was due to being unhealthy or, you know, not being able to move their body or whatever. So that sentiment is, you know, I want what's best for them because if they are unwell and if they're not able bodied, if they're disabled in any way their life is not going to be as good and they're going to miss out on lovely life opportunities that sentiment is healthiest and ableist. So to say that someone who is less mobile or somebody who has type two diabetes that they are going to miss out on life opportunities. It's not true because people who have all different types of illnesses and abilities have incredible lives. And to say that they not is problematic and yes, absolutely, things can be more difficult. If you've got things that you need to deal with. So for example, in my life, I am not healthy by the way. But I've got a whole thing about health and what is health and blah, blah, blah. So I have asthma, IBS hypothyroidism, depression, eczema. So life is slightly more difficult for me because of those things. Like, you know, I have to go out of my way and take medicine. Sometimes, I don't feel good but I'm not missing out on any life opportunities because of that. And of course there's, you know, there's a spectrum and things could be harder for you know, different things going on. But to say like, Oh, sorry, not that you're saying this, Britt, like, Oh, sorry, you're unhealthy. That's it. Your life's over but you know it's not some, it's not an idea that we want to perpetuate, right. Okay.

So next thing I want to pick out is it says a lot of fat people are healthy and get stigmatized with the tiny proportion who are not, what do you say when you come across that? Okay. So it's not accurate that only a tiny proportion of fat people are unhealthy. A lot of fat people are unhealthy. A lot of thin people are unhealthy. What, what I think that you're getting at is that a small portion of fat people are unhealthy because of their fatness. I think that's what you're getting at and that some people will say that that is the fat person's fault. So you know, some people who say, okay, well they've got a high blood pressure and they're fat, therefore it's their fault. I think that that's what you're talking about fatness, which is the fault of fat people. Not that, you know, you're saying that, but I think that's the idea. And a reminder that the conditions that are linked, remember that word linked is not caused by correlation is not causation. Remember that correlation is not causation. But it's not caused by fatness, even if it was caused by fatness, even if it was self-inflicted. Whatever it is, that person still is valid and you know, deserves treatment and all that type of stuff. And also something to think about is about this. There's, you know, there's only a small fraction of fat people who were kind of like, you know, the bad fatties who were, you know, causing it themselves. And most of us fatties are good and our blood work is good and all that type of stuff, which is, you know, not true.

There's lots of unhealthy fat people, there's lots of healthy fat people, unhealthy thin people, healthy thin people. Think about the ways where it's okay to be unhealthy. So for example, if I go out and I break my arm riding my bike and I break my arm, that I seen is way more acceptable. If I go out and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm having a heart attack. They'll be like, mm, look at her. She's fine. Whereas if I'm riding my bike and good for her, she was riding her bike, she was trying to get thin, right? Health is not black and white. It's not on or off. You're not either healthy or unhealthy. It's a spectrum. You can't arrive to this destination destination of health. Now health is it, you know, the idea is being free from disease, you know, if we look at like the definition of it, but really it's about what's going on with our bodies and how we're our brain is working, how our body is operating. And, I would struggle to say that anyone's body is working 100% perfectly because we're not machines. You know, we're human beings. And as well, a lot of times our health outcomes are out of our control. I've mentioned this before, but a lot of what, you know makes up the chances are, or us having better health outcomes are, is associated economic things like the color of our skin, the country that we're born and how much we're paid. Our access to healthcare, how much we are marginalized, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we don't have as much control over our health as we like to believe. It's nice to think that we, you know, we just need to eat seven salads a day and we will never become unwell. It's nicer to think like that because it feels like we're in control. But the truth is, you know, not as close to that as we like to believe.

Okay. So getting to the core of this question, what this question is about? I think from what I've heard and listened to is should we tell people who are sick because they're fat, they're sick, their fatness has caused their sickness, that they should not be sick and become healthy, right? The core question is, should we tell people who are fat and unhealthy to be healthy? The answer is no. The answer is no. We shouldn't. The more nuanced answer is if a fat person came to me and said, Hey, Victoria, what do you think to this? I have XYZ condition and I want to feel better, but I know that dieting doesn't work. What should I do? I'd say, well, I'm not a doctor, but what I would do in this situation is I would learn about health at every size. I would read the book health at every size, but by Dr Linda Bacon. I would find a health care provider that is aligned with health at every size. I would tell them to talk to a professional who can help them with this specific issue outside of telling them to lose weight.

That's if someone approached me and said, what do you think? I'd say, Hey, well you don't have to lose weight to address this health issue because weight loss doesn't look. And that's what I would do. So say if I I had type two diabetes. It's very tempting to be like, okay, well I need to lose weight because that's what a lot of people say. But I would then go to a provider that specialized in managing type two diabetes without prescribing weight loss. And so telling someone, anyone that they need to be focused on their health and they have caused their health issues because of their size or their behaviors as we have seen, increases weight stigma, which increased weight stigma leads to poorer health outcomes mentally and physically. So it is not fat positivity stance to say we reject health is got nothing to do with it. You know, at all. They're two separate things. So you've got fat, positivity, body positivity. You've got health at every size and health at every size. Basically, if you've not heard about health at every size, health at every size says surprise. You can be healthier every at any size. The work that Dr Linda Bacon has done the studies that she has they have done to to show this. The outcomes, the better outcomes that you have like I mentioned before, if you focus on improving your health outside of decreasing your weight you're more likely to scent sustain those behaviors long term. So absolutely, if you want to become healthy or improve your health or improve your mobility you can do that. It doesn't mean that you are not fat positive, just do it. You know, no one who's fat positive is, you know, going to no one that I know. I don't know why someone would say this is going to say, Oh, you, you don't feel good now, don't you exercise person just don't do it. They would just probably say, you know, have you heard about how every size, cause if you want to pursue health and that's cool. And if you don't, that's cool. You know. So I hope that this has helped you and thank you Britt for sending in that question and kind of being, you know, cause I was, you know, saying a lot of challenging things there, so hopefully you know, it's a great question from Britt and something which is I can tell Britt is, you know, that sent with love and caring for Brits and caring for those around Britt and what to say to people who are approaching Britt about this subject. Whereas I get a lot of questions, which I'm like, this is not someone who is caring. This is someone who is a troll trying to be a knob. Like I got a lot of messages saying I'm dying and I weigh 5,000 pounds, but you should say that I should never lose weight. And I'm like, ah, yeah, okay, this is a troll account. And, even if you do want to try and lose weight, go for it. I mean, seriously, if you believe that you found the magic diet that works and it does work for you, go for it. Like I'm not the boss of your body. Do what you want. But I'm just here to present information so that you can make an informed decision. Okay.

So, I tell you a little fact about me today. I've mentioned it before, but bike riding, my favorite way to currently move my body is to take Dougal my dog on a little bike ride. And what we do is because I live in the middle of nowhere and the roads are empty. Dougal will run next to me. He's on leash. And so I have my leash in one hand and then I cycle with the other one. Not with the other hand, but have the other hand on the handlebar. He runs alongside me. He's so good at it and then when we get to like a more deserted road, I take his leash off, and then he just like runs next to me. He's so good at it. When I first got him, I took him to a, like a racing track and I would run, he would run next to me riding my bike because I have a bike in Canada, which has a basket in the front that was made for him. So I would put them in the basket and cycle to a place which was enclosed and so he could like run around and chase me on the bike. So, that's something that I've been doing that's been really helping my mental health during these lockdown days in Ireland. We're only allowed to go two kilometers. And I'm so lucky that within two kilometers of my house is two different beaches and one of them is this spectacular, breathtaking beach which is it takes like an hour to get across. Like it's like a C shaped beach and you can climb a Hill on one end. And so I can cycle down to that or drive down to that and walk around it. So I'm very lucky. So yeah, if you've got a doggy, why not try and another a doggy fund, but be careful because sometimes before Dougal got used to it, he could try and like run in front of the my wheel and I'd have to be just watching him very carefully for him to not to do that. But once he got trained on how to do it, he knows to stay on a certain side of my bike and not to go near my wheel. So, and he's very athletic dog. He likes running and doing all that type of stuff.

So yeah, listen, that's my adventures around around my two kilometer area area. If you want to go to the show notes then to get the links to these articles that I have talked about to do, then go to fiercefatty.com/027, 027 for episode 27. And yeah, I shall see you in the next episode. Reminder, if you want to ask a question, feel free to send me a voice note that was over Instagram or go to the show notes and there's a little form there. If you want to do something anonymous or you can just email me. And thank you for all your reviews. A reminder, if you write a review for the show, take a screenshot before you submit it, email me that victoria@fiercefatty.com. Then I will send you a digital and audio copy of my bestselling book, Fierce Fatty. Okay. Well thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope this was helpful for you and enjoy the rest of your day and I will see you next time. Okay, goodbye. Fatty.

EP26 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty podcast, episode 26. In today's episode, we're talking about can you be a vegetarian or vegan and also be an intuitive eater. Who knows? Let's do it.

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

Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode. I'm so pleased you're here. Thank you for tuning in. Hey, guess what? This quarantine well, not quarantine this self-isolating fatty cut her hair this morning. Yeah, I cut my hair with, what are they called? Buzzing, those buzzing razor trimmer, you know, those things, those things. God, why can't I think of the word? I think I did a pretty good job. I watched a couple of videos on the internet webs for guys cutting their hair and a couple of hairdressers saying how to do it. And I just did it and it doesn't look horrendous. There are so many like little bits I can see you. I'm like, Oh, that shouldn't be the, and the more I look at it, I'm like, yeah, there's like long bits here and there. How I give it another go over but a no, you're not going to hear me complaining about having wacky hair anymore because I cut it. I'm so proud of myself, but I have such deep respect for hairdressers because yeah, they make it look so easy to make your hair not look like a big bag of dog shit. So yeah, I can't wait to go back and see my hairdresser to fix this whenever we're out again.

So, Hey, did you know, did you know, I've told you before, but did you know a reminder that you can ask a question for me to answer on the show? So if you have a question about anything to do with loving your fat body, stopping dieting, intuitive eating, being a fabulous power bitch boss, whatever, then go on over to the show notes. The show notes are fiercefatty.com for this show, fiercefatty.com/026 cause we're episode 26 but any of the show notes which fiercefatty.com/podcast has a link for you to ask a question and it can be anonymous or not. And yeah, just go on, go on over though. We'll know of a fatty go and ask a question. I will really like it. Yeah. So I'm going to stop singing. Hey was that come on over come on over fatty. Shania Twain was it? Who knows.

So today we're talking about intuitive eating and vegetarianism slash veganism. And I've got a workbook that is going to help you out if you are at all struggling with intuitive eating. There's a workbook in the show notes. It's Why Intuitive Eating Isn't Working for You and this is one of my workbooks that a lot of people would like and get a lot of clarity from absolutely free. Go download it in the show notes. Why Intuitive Eating Isn't Working for You?

Okay, so let's answer this question and I've had this question a good few times, people wanting me to answer this and I did a short video about it and maybe 18 months ago, but I want to expand on it here for you. So, disclosure, I'm a smelly vegetarian. Yes, I am a vegetarian. Now, don't let that, the fact that I'm a vegetarian sway you or influence you about what we're going to be talking about today. Okay? I'll get into more about what I'm talking about there. But this is important for me to say that I am one of those vegetarians that we're talking about. So my experience is I've always been super sensitive about animals and suffering and things like that. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into some morality thing about why you should be a vegetarian. No, no, no. That is not what this is. But anyway, I would always be kind of thinking a lot about me and stuff. And so as a child, I try to be a vegetarian and I lasted for probably a week being a poor family and no vegetarians in sight. It was not going to happen. It was not going to work. There was no way that I knew how to eat as a vegetarian. So Bernard Matthews, Turkey, ham, Turkey slices is what lured me back into eating meat at that point. But it was always in the back of my mind of I am a bit weird about meat. Anyway, when I say I was a bit weird. Like I would gravitate towards eating a steak versus a hamburger because I'd be like, well, the steak, I can see the meat and hamburger, I can't necessarily see it. And I didn't necessarily desire meat as much as the average person out there. And so just because I say that I, I'm sensitive about animals and their feelings and that type of type of stuff doesn't mean that I don't think meat-eaters are also sensitive towards that.

Absolutely you can love animals and be meat-arian and think about them and hope that they have nice lives and all that type of stuff. And you don't have to be a vegetarian to also feel like, I know a lot of vegetarians or vegans are like, well, you can't love animals if you eat them. And no, I don't believe that. I think that is a bullshit. Of course, you can love animals and also eat them, but we're not talking about the morality of eating meat or not eating meat. We're talking about. Is it disordered? Is it something you can do while being an intuitive eater? So I became a vegetarian again, can you remember when like six, eight years ago. It's been a while. I watched a documentary and it turned me vegan and I couldn't, vegan being vegan was too difficult for me because I love cheese. I love yogurt, I love milk. I like having milk and tea and all the alternatives just wasn't cutting it for me. And so I became a vegetarian and I have been happily vegetarian ever since. And so when I started learning about intuitive eating, I was like, well, can I still be a vegetarian? I don't know, because when I saw this documentary that I watched. It wasn't about if you become a vegetarian or vegan, you'll become healthier. It was more about an experiment of can you do it and is it enjoyable and do you feel deprived? That type of thing. And, but also I think they, at the end of it, they weighed the people or whatever. And so in part, my vegetarianism probably was influenced by believing that maybe I would become thinner. Maybe I can't remember feeling like that at all. But you know, eight years ago, say if I watched this documentary eight years ago, I was still in diet land. And so I can imagine thinking probably in the back of my mind of, Oh, maybe I'll get thin, but honestly my driver was not, that was not my big driver because if it was, and because that didn't happen, I stayed fat. If it was a driver then I probably wouldn't be a vegetarian style, right. Because it didn't make me threaten. And so, you know, what I'm saying is that my driver for being a vegetarian is the, I just have a preference for not eating meat. But my vegetarianism, I've really questioned it and I've really gone into is this disordered in any way? Because a lot of people who have any type of restriction, any type of way of eating, a lot of it is informed by diet culture.

And a lot of it stems from wanting a smaller body, believing having a smaller body will make them more healthy. Of course, not everyone who has any type of restrictive diet. And a lot of times people might have a restrictive diet because they need to for whatever reason. And sometimes it is just an excuse for engaging in disordered eating or even an eating disorder. You cannot know someone's reasons and beliefs just if they have like a label. But say if someone's like a vegan and a raw vegan and doesn't eat like counts macros or doesn't eat gluten, and it kind of becomes more and more like, is, Oh, is this like, what is going on here? And so it becomes even more~ something that you need to look into.

So here is an example about how I knew that intuitive eating and for me a vegetarianism worked. So when I one time I went to Ireland and I became really sick. I got gastroenteritis and for what felt like forever was shitting my pants was throwing up. I couldn't even, I can even have a sip of water because I would just immediately throw up. I was really sick. And after days of this lying on my sister's couch, it was a Sunday and she was cooking Sunday dinner and I was coming out of this sickness and I could smell the chicken cooking and my body, my brain just said, you need some chicken. And I just knew it. I just knew my body was like, whatever is in that chicken that you can remember that has in the chicken. And she was cooking other things like vegetables and things like that. You need it. And so I said, okay, body, you've asked for chicken. And previously my body had not said, yo, I really want some me, you know, just doesn't happen for me. And so I said, okay body, I'm going to listen to you. You've asked for some chicken, go get some chicken. So I went into the kitchen and I said to my sister, going to have some chicken. She's like, yeah, sure. And I had some chicken and I could feel this. I dunno, like fell like magic was just being restored to my body and you know, any food probably would have been amazing cause I hadn't eaten in days, but my body was telling me that that chicken was what I needed in that moment. And so I had the chicken. It felt good. I think I had you know, I just had a little bit cause you know, I wasn't feeling that great.

And then later I think I had a little bit more and before I ate it, I was like, you know, thank you, chicken for me, you sort of thing kind of thought about the chicken and then just like the chicken. Now I listened to what my body needed and I didn't deny myself in that moment if I had said, no, you can't have chicken because you're a vegetarian and if you eat chicken then you're a bad person or whatever label that, you know, someone might put on meat eating if you're a vegetarian. I just listened to my body. And the reason why for me, you can be an intuitive eater. I can be an intuitive eater is I'm never thinking I really want a steak or I really want a chicken nugget or I really want, you know, whatever it is, I just don't think like that. I'm just not that bothered or interested. And you know whatever, our tastes like, some people love one type of food and other people just not bothered. Like, so for me, ice cream, you know how people are like, Oh, I sit and I eat like a tub of ice cream and stuff and I'm just like, I'm just not interested. I've just, I've never done that just because I ice cream doesn't really do it for me and ice cream is great. Like I taste it and I'm like, yeah, that's great, but I can take it or leave it. And the same with croissants and a lot of people are like, Oh, croissants, so good. And I'm just like, nah whatever. And someone else might think about that, something that I absolutely love and it's just personal taste, right?

And so that's how I feel about meats. It's just, I'm not that bothered. I also am thinking if there is an alternative where an animal isn't her, then that alternative is just as good. I'll just have that. It's just not that much. Not a big deal. But of course sometimes it is annoying and frustrating being a vegetarian. So I'm in Ireland at the moment in rural Ireland, they actually do quite well for vegetarian food just down at a local store. They have a couple of things which is mind blowing to me. But if you go out to eat in a restaurant, the vegetarian food will be pretty much either goats cheese tart, which when I first got here I was like, Oh goats cheese tart, very nice, but every fucking way or his goats cheese tart or pasta or something like that.

And for me, pasta is so fucking boring. I only ever eat pasta, any type of pasta just to feed myself. Like it's not anything that I ever desire or want. I know he's con controversial who doesn't like pasta, but for me it's boring. Right? And so I like preferences. So does that mean that everyone can be a vegetarian or a vegan and they can also do intuitive eating? No, no. Maybe you know, it's an individual thing. What is the intention behind it? I mean, you could have started being a vegan or vegetarian and it came from a very disordered place. But now if you've healed your relationship with food, it could be something totally different. Only you know the answer to that question. So are you eating in whatever way it is outside of, you know, vegetarianism, whatever it is. Are you eating that way because you want to lose weight or because you know, you want to manipulate your body size or the, or how your body looks in some way.

Are you doing it because of guilt because of negative emotions? Are you doing it because that's just the way that you've always eating and you know, say a part of your religion is you don't eat pork for example. It could just not even be a thing. You could just be like, I'm not interested in pork, but say if a part of your religion is to not eat pork, but you're actually really curious about pork and you want to eat pork and you're feeling guilty about it, and feeling weird feelings around that, then maybe you should eat pork or whatever it is. And so if you are currently not eating meat or whatever is that you're not doing is there room for you to experiment with it? Is there room for you to say, I gave myself permission for me to listen to my body and if my body says I want this, then can you play around with that and just allow yourself whatever it is you want. And the big thing about intuitive eating is allowing yourself anything you want. And a lot of people might say, well, but what about the animals?

In some, yes, maybe in a vegetarian, yes, I totally get that. But also what about your mental health? What about your mental health and your relationship with food? And you're going to be alive for a long time. And if you have a disordered relationship with food, it is going to have such a dramatic effect on your life. So what can you do to relax around that? So another way that I more relaxed about vegetarianism and so is like miso soup, miso soup has, Oh, I can't remember what it is. I think it's a fish sauce and I don't. I'm not interested in fish either, but I just don't eat fish. I would never really liked fish and I don't care. Like I'll have miso, and I will have candy if there's like some gummy thing that have gelatin in like I'm just not that strict about it. You know, I'm just relaxed about it. And you know, some of the bit saying like some of the people, if you are a vegetarian you might say, no, I'm not into having miso or whatever if it has like trace elements of animal products in it. And if that comes from a place of you know, not feeling disorder and not feeling anxiety around it, not feeling stress around it, not feeling restriction, then that's absolutely fine too. Only you know the motivation behind it.

So massive disclaimer here is that I don't think that other people should be vegetarian or not vegetarian or vegan or not vegan. I don't care if you eat meat, it's not my place or anyone else's place to say you should eat in a certain way because of my beliefs. So a lot of times when I have dinner with friends or say if I go on a date, if I go on a date and I say I'm a vegetarian, then if they order meat, they're like, Oh, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, I don't fucking care. Like eat, enjoy your food, eat as much meat as you want, like go wild. Really it's got nothing to do with me and I do not at all judge you for a millisecond if you eat meat. And if you are a vegetarian, any, you are judging others because they eat meat, then I want you to challenge that because it's super classist. It's racist, it's elitist. And I'm on people like, well, you can, you don't have to be rich to be a vegetarian. You can, you know, get all these staples and things from the store. And I'd say, well, yeah, technically, but it's, if you're all low income, you're not going to go to your corner store and find a plethora of vegetables and all the different types of vegetarian food that there could be. There's probably no vegetarian meat alternative. And if it is, it's probably one of those nasty veggie burgers that are just vegetables. I hate those. And as well, think about, you know, first nation communities who only eat meat who can't grow vegetables because the climate doesn't allow for it. And they might be cut off from getting different types of foods, and it's just a part of their culture and it has been for years for them to be really reliant on me. And so if you're like, listen, you're bad because you eat me, well, what are they going to do? Die, stop. And a lot of it, so I used to work for an organic food company. And organic is bullshit by the way, if you didn't know that, but even the people that are going to a food company, they were like, wow, organic is not really whatever, but you know, rich people want to buy organic so we're going to give them organic food. And before that I was like, I didn't really know much about organic, but then I was like, Oh damn. It's just with the rich people. A lot of times more affluent white middle class people will eat in a certain way being like, or organic or this type of stuff. You know, raw and all that type of stuff because it makes them feel morally superior.

Is the way that you are eating, making you feel superior to others that don't eat like you? If it is, I encourage you to question that. I really do. And yes, it's, you know, I would like animal suffering to end that. That would be great for me but also human suffering is tremendous around food too. And it's just not possible for a lot of people to be a vegetarian. And anyway, being a vegetarian doesn't mean that you're a better person. It doesn't mean that you're going to go to heaven and God is going to be there and be like, Oh, you're one of those vegetarians. Oh my God, go jump to the front of the queue. You know, a lot of vegetarians and vegans and people who have any type of way of eating do a lot of harm when they make other people feel guilty for not eating in the way that they have decided is the best way to eat.

In my TEDx talk, I actually made a joke about vegans and the joke was I was saying, follow people that don't make you feel good and I said, unfollow vegans. Like, doesn't sound funny. Now in the TEDx talk, it was a joke and it got, it got the biggest laugh there. And the reason why it got the biggest laugh when I said unfollow all vegans is because the perception of vegans and vegetarians not as much but is that they are militant, that they are angry, that they are judgmental. There's not a lot of positivity around veganism and flexibility and understanding of the social issues in regards to why people eat the way they eat. And the way the people that eat is perfect. It's fine. It's, you know, in the best way that we can, and I got a lot of shit from vegans.

Like any criticism about my TEDx talk is always, well she says that you should unfollow vegans and actually if you're a vegan, maybe if she was a vegan then she wouldn't be so fat. And why do you have to hate on vegans? Like, you know, you're hurting animals and yes, I get it. But the joke that vegans are really uptight and stuff and then messaging me saying, Hey, no, don't talk shit about vegans is kind of, you know, this is what we're talking about. And so I'm offering you being vegan or vegetarian and it being something that is wonderful in your life and positive and, but if you make others feel guilty for not eating the way that you're eating, then it's something that needs to be reassessed.

So one of my most favorite person people to follow on Instagram is actually a vegan account. So it was literally a joke about not following vegans because I follow vegans because this one vegan account is is a Vancouverite vegan and I've met her before and she makes her stories or her making vegan dinners for her and her family. And I enjoy it. But I have pretty much only one time have I ever made any recipe that she has shown. And it's because it's really fucking hard. And she says, Oh, it's so easy. It's so easy, you can feed your family and be and feed them vegan and it's so easy and all you need to do is make your own oat flour and blend cashews and sauté this and all sorts of stuff. And I'm like, my fucking way. I have not doing that. And so for me, if vegetarianism was hard, then I wouldn't be doing it because the way that I eat vegetarian is I would just eat the same way I ate before as a meaty to put, have like meat substitutes and make things as easily as possible. And I'm not fucking blending cashews. It's cool. If someone else wants to do that, it's cool if someone wants to do that and give it to me, that's cool. But I'm not doing this whole palaver of every single night she's cooking and every lunch doing all these different things. I'm just like, Oh my God. No, I still like watching it though because it's interesting to see what you can do. But never me and I, no, no, no, no. And another thing if you are a meat-eater or whatever, are you in any way saying that certain types of meats are better than others? So I'm saying a hot dog or chicken nuggets, they're the devil's food because that's just like disgusting reclaimed me and things like that. That's not the best way to go because a lot of times those meats are affordable.

It doesn't mean that they are bad, that they have no nutritional value, that they do not feed people because they, they do and they're great and they're perfect for the people who like them and they're a part of their life. Just because you're getting, you know, farm raised, free range massaged, you know, be from Japan. What does that called? Go on, whatever. You know, there's fancy, this fancy like beef less massage. Anyway, that doesn't mean that that is better or you're a better person because you get that meat. It doesn't mean, you know, ethical meat is better than a hot dog or, you know, a chicken nugget or whatever it is. Just be careful about the way that your relating to the food that you're eating in regards to feeling morally superior because you eat in a certain way.

And that's the reason why I don't really talk about me being a vegetarian. I think I've mentioned it once before on the podcast because I don't want anyone to think that I think that they are bad because they meat like no eat meat. It's delicious. It's great, it's nutritious and wonderful. Eat it and eat dairy and eats yogurts and cheese and anything that you want to eat that brings you joy. And if you eat in another way and that's joyful for you to do that. So that's, I'm always hesitant about telling people that I'm a vegetarian because I don't want them to think that I'm like, how dare you eat meat in front of me. You are an animal murderer, you hate animals and you know, all of these other things that are, why vegetarians got a bad rep.

Yeah. So in answer to that question, can you be a vegetarian and or vegan and also be an intuitive eater? Maybe, maybe, really you need to explore what is going on with you. When you are choosing to not eat meat or animal products. What is your brain saying? Is your brain happy? Is your brain guilty? Is your brain longing for meats? Are you, you know, at a restaurant and looking over at the person next door to you who's got a lobster and being like, Oh my God, I really want that but I shouldn't. If there's any type of like, Oh, I shouldn't and I want that but I think if I eat them, I might put on weight then they're really good clues that are maybe a vegetarianism or veganism isn't right for you at this moment.

Now you can eat meat, heal your relationship, and then decide, actually I want to try again and try this way of eating and see if it fits in with me now. And it could do and it could not. So just be curious and be flexible and don't shame others for the way that you eat. But I know you all won't because you're fierce fatty is you don't shame others for the way that they eat. It's just other people who the other people who might be listening in the background. Don't be shaming people. There, people in the background, don't you be shaming people? Yeah, so, so maybe be curious and that goes for any other type of eating. A lot of times people might eat in a way you know, like say they can't have gluten and it's tricky.

So I have IBS and there are some things that I think trigger my IBS and so I have to decide, am I going to have that thing that I desire or am I going to not, I not experienced the symptoms. And sometimes I decide to not have the thing, but other times I decide that having the thing is more important for my mental health and for my relationship with that food and so I will weather the consequences. And that goes for anything. Like if you can't eat any type of food, you're in charge of deciding do I want to handle the consequences or do I want to allow myself the food? So it's a juggling act between potentially your physical health and your mental health. And there's no right or wrong answer. You’re in charge of that, right.

And I can't tell you what to do because everyone is individual and I'm not a doctor and you know, I'm not the boss of you. It's all about you and how you feel and what you want and what you're willing to put up with in regards to denying yourself a food or allowing yourself and maybe experiencing symptoms. So say if you were to eat something and the result is that you automatically die, then maybe you're going to have to deny yourself that food. Like I was watching Breaking Bad and you can make raisins in our beans like raisin as a poison. You probably can't do Average Joe can't do at home, so don't worry if you beans, you're not going to die. But you know, if you were like, maybe I eat raisins today, I'm really drawn to some raisin. I would advise, maybe don't have the raisin because you will probably die. Most definitely die and so, you know, be realistic. Like I saw someone a review on Christie Harrison's podcast. Someone wrote, she said that you should eat food even if it makes you sick and she's killing people because what if you decide you want to eat poison and then you're going to die? And I'm like, no, it's a bit hyperbole there. She's not saying you should eat poison and die and then, but Oh, who cares about the consequences? So just an FYI, don't kill yourself with eating poison should be pretty obvious. But just in cases that one person who is ready to write a review being like, she'd told us to eat poison. No, I'm telling you to avoid eating poison. But a lot of times these foods that, you know, if they do have a consequence for your body, it's normally something minor, right? It might be like some acid reflux or it might just be, you know, for me I might just have an ache in my belly and, so it's not like I'm deciding to really damage myself in order to eat that food, right? You know, what's best for you, but just a FYI. A little side tangent on that.

Hey, if you want more help with intuitive eating, then go to the show notes, fercefatty.com/026 And get that workbook. Why Intuitive Eating Isn't Working For You, some really great prompts in there. And Hey, I want to share with you my three favorites Chrome extensions. Google Chrome extensions that make my life better because I tell people about this all the time. I'm like, do you not have this extension on your browser? Oh my God, you so need it. Okay? So listen up here. If you have a computer and you have Google Chrome, then I'm telling you these extensions are really good. So the first extension, if you I'm just so excited for you, if you haven't heard of this first extension, it's called Honey, you know, like bee honey. I'll link to it in the show notes. Honey Chrome extension. And what honey does is that every time you go to a checkout on your computer, you've got Honey in the browser, you go to the checkout and you know, it says, it will be like, do you have a coupon code or anything like that? Honey automatically pops up and scans the internet for any coupon codes that other people have used at that site, that work and I'd say 80% of the time that I am buy something online, Honey will get me 5, 10, 15 or even been like 50 bucks off depending on the size of the order. Like sometimes massive discounts and this is free. This is a Chrome extension that's none of these costs money. And so every time I'm like getting to the checkout and be like, Oh, how much are they going to cost when Honey is going to pop up? And it just does it automatically. You don't even have to think about it. And when you're not doing online shopping, you don't even, notice this on your browser. So Honey, you gotta get. That's the first one.

Next one is Grammarly and Grammarly, there's a paid version, but I've don't need that. Grammarly really helps with spelling, you know, cause like if you're in email or if you're in if you're on Facebook, on your computer or something like that, there's no spell check, right. Grammarly has picked up so many of my mistakes and made things way better and made me look way smarter when I'm just, you know, when you'd like, you can't spell a word and it's so bad that even the spell check is like, what the fuck is this? Grammarly will help you with things like that.

And another one I just got is called a Video Speed Controller and anywhere that you're watching, a video, Netflix, YouTube, anywhere, there's a little thing in the corner of the video for you to be able to speed it up or slow it down. And so, you know how some people they might not get to the point or you need to like re you need to for some reason watch a video. And the person is rambling on and you just want to get the information but you don't want to have to listen to an hour of dribble. Then you can just do the video speed up and then for them, but like, well look them and you can still hear it and stuff. You know, the same way that you might do with podcasts. So ya'll, so Video Speed Controller, Grammarly and Honey. Honey, if you get none of them, honey. I'll tell you what, you're going to be thanking me when you get to, you know, doing any of your online shopping anywhere and Honey pops up and is like, listen up here. Now I'm going to save you 15 bucks. You're like, Oh thanks Honey. And sometimes it doesn't. They didn't. There is no saving. There is no but at least you know that you've got the best price.

So reminder, ask questions for the show and if the question is good, then I will answer it on the show for you as you get direct access to me for free. Oh my God, dreams come true. If you want to see my hair cut, I have a haircut video actually did a video of me cutting my hair, so I'll link that in the show notes to show notes on fiercefatty.com/026 cause it was episode 26.

Hope you are handling the COVID 19 all right. Coronavirus, quarantining. It's April 8th when I'm recording this and there's no ending site and the British prime minister is in intensive care because he's got COVID 19. And yeah, so there's my, I hope you don't like it. I hope you're doing okay. I hope everything's all right for you. And if it's not, then just remember nothing ever lasts forever.

So now thank you for hanging out with me. I so appreciate it. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and if you would like to be rewarded for that review, then take a screenshot of your review and email me victoria@fiercefatty.com and I will send you a digital and audio version of my bestselling book, Fierce Fatty. Until the next time my gorgeous Fatty. I will see you then. Goodbye.

EP25 Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby, and in this episode we're talking about how life changes when you love yourself, the good, the bad, and the weird. Let's do it.

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

Welcome to episode 25. Oh my gosh. Quarter of the way through to a hundred. Imagine a hundred episodes of this bad boy. I started recording in November. Now it's just the beginning of April. So pretty, pretty happy with myself. It's pretty good. And today the sun is shining which makes my brain happy. I don't know about you but when it's a bit gloomy outside, I contend to feel a bit gloomy in my brain. And actually something I've learned since I've been in Ireland is that the countries that don't get a lot of sun like Ireland where it's gray and raining 97% of the year, a lot of people actually have to take vitamin D tablets because they don't get enough vitamin D cause there's not enough sun. So I'm taking vitamin D tablets and hopefully it's, I don't know what it's going to do. Give me all that vitamin D or you know, I like a bit of vitamin D, different type of vitamin D though numb thing.

I'm on video as well recording this podcast. I have been doing it for a few weeks now. So if you want to see my gorgeous face, which obviously then go and check out my YouTube channel to listen to the podcast there and you can see what's happening to my hair as well as time goes by however long we're going to be spending quarantining, self-isolating and me not being able to get a haircut. I've got a like, it's like a crimping. It looks like a crimping tool, but it's kind of, I don't know if it's called a chopstick hair curler. So it's a really thin hair curler in the shape. The kind of the size of a chopstick is a big chopstick. It's not actually the size of a chopstick, it's like a maybe two chopsticks together and it kind of makes them more of a different type of curl. So that's what I've done to my hair to try and make it look vaguely presentable. I was thinking about, I don't know, just shaving it all off, but my shaver is not working and I want to try and get some growth on the top as well. So sorry, if you're just listening, you probably, you're like, wow, what does your hand look like? I just don't know. Oh my God. So yeah, he's going to have to find a picture of me or not. You're probably not interested.

So today we are going to be talking about what happens like when you have confidence, when you have confidence in your body, you have confidence in who you are as perfect person. You feel you have higher self-esteem, you feel more self-assured. So what happens? The good, the bad and the weird things. So you know what to expect if you're on that adventure to feeling more confident in your body about who you are as a person, what you might expect in the future. And if you're at that place where you're like, yeah, I feel like fucking Beyoncé every day, then let's compare some notes because what I'm talking about are, these are my examples of what I have experienced and everyone is going to be totally different. But obviously there's sweeping themes when it comes to when you have more confidence what goes on in your life and how things change. And just a big disclaimer, the way that I express myself is totally individual to me. And so I want to do things like wear a string bikini and do lunges, right?

So that's me. I want to do that because it's fun and I'd enjoy it and I enjoy being a dick and just prancing around. Someone else can be confident, super, super confident and they just did their thing, right? So don't listen to my stories and my examples and be like, well if I get really confident, does it mean that I have to show my nipples to everyone at work? Cause I don't want to show my nipples, but if I don't want to show my nipples, does that mean I'm not confident? No, I've never shown my nipples to people at work. But if that's what you want to do and that's your expression of confidence, your authentic self and you do you show those nipples, just go wild.

So let's go through the good, the good and the weird and then we'll do the bad. Cause there is some bad things, you know, it's not all roses and unicorns and glitter raining down from the sky and all that type of stuff. So the first thing that I mentioned how life changes. I mentioned this just then happily wearing a string bikini, literally a string bikini and prancing around. So I'll link to the video, but they'll have a video of me. There's loads of videos of me in a bikini, just I say dancing, but it's really just me waving my arms. I have limited dance abilities, but this magazine, and there was a competition to be on the cover of the magazine. You just have to submit a video and then people would vote on the video. And I was like, okay, what can I do that represents me and my personality? And I was like, well, I like being a bit of a knob and being ridiculous. And so I went to, there's a pool in Vancouver, which is like in a place called Kits. Kitsilano, Kitsilano is very kind of yoga, very West coast, very, Oh, I'm training for the Olympics. It's a big long pool right next to the sea. It's gorgeous. It's absolutely beautiful, but very intimidating. When I first came to Vancouver, when I went to Vancouver, it would be 11 years ago now. That's when I was just kind of beginning to work things out. Even going to the beach, just standing there fully clothed. I felt intimidated. And so this is the type of place and it's a pool, you know, people are being very serious and swimming and you know, have lots of equipment and Speedos and stuff but it's beautiful.

And the backdrop is mountains and stuff. So I said to Summer Innanen, my friend, she was on last podcast, podcast before who lives just down the road from me. I said, let's go to that beach to that pool and film me just knob in about in the pool. And she's like, yes. Done. Absolutely. And so I went and I did things like dead lunges and rolled around in the shallow end of the pool and put my leg up high on a thing and just being a knob basically. And people were looking at me and guess what? I didn't care. I didn't care that people were looking at me. I didn't care that some people would probably like, Hmm, what is she doing? She probably needs to lose weight or whatever. I don't care if some people were like yeah, she's amazing, you know, because whatever people think about me isn't really none of my business.

I was just having fun and laughing with Summer and it was fine. This is weird, right? This is weird, as in my life not to have been expected because previously I would want to be wearing a T shirt if I went into the water to hide myself and running from the changing room to get into the water as quick as possible because I didn't want anyone to see me, but also not running too fast because he didn't want to slip and fall and have more people look at me. And this feeling of just not caring what other people think is weird, right? It's weird. But that is one way that my life has changed now that I am more confident. So the next thing is you know, when you're on a night out or you're just with friends or someone says, let's take a photo before I would be like, okay, so either I'm uncomfortable being in this photo, even being in the photo. Or I would be like, okay, well make sure that I pose in such a way. So like stick my chin out. So when people can't see my double chin, put my arms out as far as possible and hunch my shoulders forward so that my arms look thin and try and do that thing that Tyra Banks taught me in the in the two thousands about, I'm looking like I have a thigh gap by putting my knees together and like doing a little squat thing and contorting my body and trying to get the best angle. And then when the photographer would say, do you want to look at the picture? Immediately, the only thing that I cared about looking at was me and how I looked and if I look good or not. And then if I didn't look good thinking, saying like take another photo and you know, not caring if it was, if it was a good photo for everyone else, because if I looked not like a glamour model or something like miraculously the very best angle, a humanly possible with the best light then it would make me sad and I'd be like, Oh, do I look like that?

And now, I just honestly think if someone's taken a photo of me, it's good. It's good. Like it's a true representation of who I am. And I know that there will be some pictures where the angle will be where things will make me look even more fabulous. And then sometimes that will be angles or compositions of the picture where it looks slightly less fabulous, but still it's fabulous because I'm in the picture. So even as someone was like, right, I'm going to take a picture from below, I'm going to really catch that double chair and I'm going to zoom in on, you know, whatever feature that previously I would have said was bad. I be like, cool. It's just a representation of who I am and I'm not constantly looking like a model.

I know how to believe. I'm not constantly looking like a model, but the truth is that we have so many different angles and some ways we look more pleasing to ourselves, which is all just a construct from diet culture and patriarchy and all that type of bullshit. But now, so when someone says, Oh, do you want to look at the photos? I be like, yeah, we know. I know, I know look good. And I remember when I was in the BBC show, we had a professional photographer coming. He's like really incredible photographer. And he sat down afterwards and showed me the photos and I was just like, yes, yes. Oh my God. Oh my God. And he's like, do you like them? I'm like, they're amazing. Oh my God. In each one. And he could, you could tell he was like, Oh, this is cool kind of. cause I was just like, Oh my God, this is great. And even in like photos where maybe he caught me with my eyes closed or whatever, I'm just like, yeah, like why it doesn't matter. And hearing from the other people in the house about their experiences of going through the photos, just looking at them on his camera screen. And that was really difficult for them. And they were just like, I don't like any of the photos. I look bad and all of them. And in my mind I'm like, how can you look bad because it's a representation of you and your not bad. But obviously in their head they thought that they were bad. So now photos, I'm like take photos of me. Oh my God, I'm amazing. Or don't cause I don't care cause I'm amazing either way. And it's fun to take cool photos. Like you say, if I'm wearing something interesting or there's a cool background, that's cool, but if I don't look like a supermodel in them, I don't care. In fact, I think it's important to share those types of photos because that's a true representation of who I am as a person, you know, an imperfect person.

So another thing is the clothes that I wear. I remember during my exams at school when I was 15, that's when we do GCCS in the UK. That's people leave school. And you can choose to study longer if you want. But anyway so when I was 15 and in the UK schools on the whole we wear school uniforms and so which is good because it means that there's less kind of bullying because someone doesn't have the right clothes. And obviously there's still, because people will have like fancy shoes or whatever. And, in some ways it's bad because then maybe not all school clothes are made in all sizes. But anyway, for me, I thought it was good, but then the exams at the summertime in the school whole, which had no air conditioning because the UK doesn't do air conditioning. And anyway, the only clothes I had because we were poor, but also because I wanted to cover my body was a giant hoodie and like these three quarter length cargo trousers, which they were probably called at the time, but anyway, and so, you know, wearing this massive hoodie and it was like hot days and I was there not to look a certain way but to take exams, but I couldn't possibly go in and wear just a T-shirt with my cargo, three quarter length pedal pusher type things.

It was not an option for me because I was so deeply ashamed of my body that there was no way that I could do that. And so I probably struggled way more because I was so deeply uncomfortable and sweating my fucking tits of wearing this hoodie to try and cover myself up. And now I look back and I'm just like, it's funny because you know, not funny, but for as funny as in interesting that we wear these things to cover ourselves up. Like, you know, dark colors and all this other stuff. People could still see that I was fat. Me wearing a hoodie, people weren't like, Oh my God, Wow, Victoria is like a size 0. She's like, must be like an extra small cause she's wearing that hoodie and she's covering herself up. Oh my God, she's so skinny. I know it was, you know, this security blanket. And it was like, Oh well maybe they won't see my fat rolls or something. People could see I was fat and so I wish I could have gone back and been like, Victoria, just wear something that will keep yourself cool and people know you're fat and it doesn't make a difference cause you're amazing. Just the exams go on, it's going to be fine. So now I wear things that make me comfortable and wear things that authentically represent who I am. And I tend to like bright colors and I tend to like things which are maybe a little bit more dramatic or as before I would be worried about wearing anything like that. I'd be worried about wearing a crop top or a tight fitting dress or whatever it was. I would just be, it was always just be a battle in my mind of wanting to be fashionable and express myself.

But deciding that those fashions weren't for someone like me, you know, like when crop tops started coming out and, before when crop tops are a thing, like in the 1990s, late 90, early 99, whatever, whenever crop tops were around before and then I was just like, no, that is not something for me. But now when they came around again, I'd known maybe like four years ago when they started coming out again and I was just like, cool, this would be interesting to wear something. Which previously I had decided was not for someone of my size crop tops or for thin people who have flat stomachs is what I had previously taught myself, which was a belief which was not based in fact. So now I whatever love, fuck I won't and just bricks, press myself and it's all good.

So next thing is I will do stuff that previously I would have put off doing or simply not ever have done. So an example of this is I went on vacation to Mexico on my own. So an example of this is I went on vacation on holiday to Mexico on my own and I was at for 10 days. The reason why I went on my own is I had just split up with my long-term partner and I wanted to get away and I want you to go somewhere hot. And so I just, I just booked him not in a bajillion years. Previously when I had low self-esteem, would I have booked to go on a vacation on my own? It just absolutely no fucking way. Like, what are you gonna do? Like I would've just hid my room the whole time, maybe snuck out to the hotel pool or something. And this was a little bit of a challenge because for 10 days I was going to be on my own. I don't speak any Spanish. And I had never been to where I went before. And I just did it and I went and I would have day trip excursions and chat with the people on the bus and I would go and have dinner on my own and relax and have some drink on the patio and just relax by the pool and, you know, talk to waiters. And then I got food poisoning. I hang out in my hotel room alone for three days until I got better. But I did it and I survived. And it was fun. And there would have been points where it would have been more enjoyable if there was someone else there. But then there were points where, cause I'd just broken up with my long-term boyfriend. That was a day where I went to this rooftop pool bar thing and he paid to get in and then all day the waiters serve you and move your umbrella and things like that.

I just, it feels fabulous. And I just spent the whole day there eating food, drinking, sleeping when it got too hot, getting in the pool, coming out, reading, sleeping, drinking, eating. And if I had been with my next boyfriend, he would have after about half an hour or an hour being like, I'm bored, let's go. But I could just do exactly what I wanted to do and I didn't feel weird or all day. I was on my own. I didn't feel like people were like, Oh my God, she's on her own. What's wrong with her? Cause that's where, how I felt before that people would be like, Oh, there's someone on their own. She must be weird or have no friends or there's something wrong. And now I don't feel like that at all and because of that, then I can just go on adventures like going to Mexico on my own.

Now, another thing is having sex and not caring about if the lights are on or if I'm under the covers or not under the covers. And being able to express myself and just be comfortable with who I am. So when I was, I mentioned this before about me being in an abusive relationship, I probably told you about 50,000 times you're like, yeah, shut up, whatever. But when I was 17, I was dating that first year old abusive alcoholic, you know, and I remember he one day said to me, why are your breasts like that? Like, and he was referring to them like saying, why are they like that? Like saggy and droopy, like what is wrong you? And he wanted me to explain my body to him and explain why I looked the way that I did at 17, which the way that I looked was absolutely fucking perfect. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. How I should have looked and still look. And so in that moment I was like, okay, there is something really wrong with my body. This guy has been around the block longer than me. He's 30 years old and he saying, what is wrong with you? Now, if you would put current Victoria in that situation, I would have probably just had bud him. But if someone said that to me now, so if someone said something like that to me now, I would just be like, Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed for you. Like clearly you have not seen human bodies before. Like, what is going on here? Have you only ever seen women on the internet? Have you only ever seen women represented in a stereotypical porn like hello? What's wrong with you? You know I would just be like, wow Oh, this is awkward. Like these are just tits, you know human tits what is wrong with your brain that you would say something like that?

He was being abusive in that moment, obviously. And he was, you know, trying to destroy my self-esteem. And so for years it was like, Oh my God, I'm fat and you know, if I'm fat, I could at least have big bouncy tits to make men happy. And is what I thought. But my tits aren't like my nipples don't point towards the ceiling. Like, Oh my God, this is so embarrassing. And, but that's not how I feel anymore. I'm just like, my body is just what a human body looks like. Last week, I went to get a mammogram cause I found a lump in my breast. I don't think there's anything wrong, but anyway, and so there's lots of times you have to, you know, you do that with your tits out basically. And when you get a mammogram, you're standing and they put your tits in. Like this vice thing doesn't, it sounds horrible, but don't, it's fine if you haven't, you need to go. And I was thinking like, Wow, I could be stood here fully clothed and this is how I feel exactly the same. Like in regards to, you know, I feel like I need to cover myself. I'm just like these people, these, so maybe like five people on my tits that day, just that day. Normally it's like 500. And I just did not care. It was not even a thing. And imagine if it was a thing before, it would have been a thing of me being, you know, embarrassed and having to stand in a room with my top off and embarrassed and top hole of feeling like, Oh my God, is there something wrong with me cause I'm having to have all these tests done and I don't got time for that.

Like I don't care. You know, they've seen every single type of tits that has ever existed. Right. So you're like a mammogram technician. And then the doctor, we were like laughing. I was there with the doctor who did a ultrasound and I'm just that chatting away to her and she's like, it looks like she's close to retirement or and, you know, just there hanging out with my tits out. She's on a scan where I'm going to chat about like funny stories and stuff like that. And you know, it makes it so that something like that is not stressful. It's not, you know, a thing. And when it, when it comes to a new partner taking my clothes off and walking around naked, it's just not a thing. Like, I just think they're so fucking lucky that they have me in their beds or wherever it is behind the dumpster. Wherever they have me. They are so fucking lucky. Like the last guy that I had sex with, I was just like, Oh my God, you have a naked woman in your bed. How awesome is that? And he was like, yeah, and really that's what people are thinking. They're not thinking cool, you know, unless they're a knob or unless they're like incredibly inexperienced because now that we're getting older, we're, you know, I'm not in my twenties. I'm, how old am I now? 35. I always forget how old I am. Now that we're getting older, like I don't want to be messing about with no guy who has never seen human women bodies before, right. I don't want to be fucking around with a guy who's like, why are they not like round like a robot simulation like porn, I've been watching like what is wrong with you?

I be like, see you later Louisa, what's wrong with you? Yeah, so and because of that, because I'm not in my head thinking, Oh, well if I'm having sex in this position, my belly fat is going to be rolled up and scrunched up. And so if he's like doing it from here, then I will look thinner and you know, it's all about him and for me, him and his pleasure and how he was viewing my body. And that was nothing to do with me, right? I was basically having sex just fit the guy that I was with like, hello. You should be having fun to previous Victoria. And because of that now, because I'm not like, Oh, what does my body look like? Whatever. I'm just there just to have fun. And if a guy is all about himself, I'm like, hmmm don't think so motherfucker.

So finally another good is just feeling comfortable in my body and not having to constantly fidget and adjust things and pull my top down to hide my bum and make sure that my belly is haired and all that type of stuff. And it's like a general, like before it was like a general just hum of feeling uncomfortable in my body and feeling my fat and just being like, Ugh. And you know, walking around and thinking I caught people, can people see my stomach and kind of like a day really grinding me down and now never kind of body checking. The only time I'm like adjusting my clothes is, I don't know, is this normal but so often and my trousers is a falling down. I'm not trying, this is a not too loose. Like, I wear a bell. It's not just normal trouser usage my jeans is that what normal humans like anyway. And I tell him, I'm like adjusting things is, you know, from a trousers before now and I'll pick them up or as before. I'd be like constantly like, Oh, you know, if the wind blew and blew my jacket open, I'd be like, Oh, this zip up jacket. I don't want people to see this. And I would always be wearing jackets, you know, coats that zipped up to hide my body. Versus just, you know, walking around in a TV show or whatever. And as well, now I say if I'm walking around naked, getting ready and I catch my body in the mirror, if I see my body and my brain says, cause sometimes if there's difficult situations, like right now during COVID 19 my brain is somewhat trying to find control, right?

And so trying to, if I control all of the times, if you have a history with dieting or hating your body your brain will go, okay, why don't you lose some weight because you have control over your weight and you can control what you eat and then you're going to get thin. And if you thin and then you're happy. And so you know, noticing the other day that it looked to me like my body was a lot bigger and there was a lot of bulges and places that the previous day there wasn't. And so now I can be like, Oh that's interesting. Clearly my body hasn't doubled in size in a day because that is impossible. Those new, you know, the new bigness that I'm perceiving in the mirror is in my mind and that is diet, culture, fatphobia penetrating my brain for that moment and now I'm able to be like, Hmm, interesting. Something else is going on and it's not my body and I can continue just going around feeling comfortable in my body. Okay. So if I had listed off those goods and that's not all of the good, but if I had listed off those good when I was not confident, I would have been like, who does this stuff? This is not real, this is not realistic. There's something going on. Like this person has some, you know, something in their brain that's different from mine. That is never going to happen for me. But like I've mentioned before, when you decide that you're going to change your relationship with your body, it's not like you decide one day you wake up the next day and you're like, I'm Lizzo, I feel like Lizzo I'm going to wear some assless chaps to the basketball game and do some twerking and it's going to be amazing.

That doesn't happen. The govern from nor feeling good about your body to assless chaps is probably, it's different for everyone. But for me it was probably a couple of years. And obviously in between no confidence and assless chaps, not that I've ever worn assless chaps, but send me some well I'll wear them where small increments of change. And so, you know, that tiny change of I didn't go from wearing T-shirts when I was in the water to wearing a string bikini. Like that's fucking weird. I went from that to wearing just a black swimsuit that covered me up to wearing a swimsuit that had maybe some color on it to wearing a high waisted bought on bear and then a halter top bed. And then to, you know, a bigger bikini to a more revealing bikini to a string bikini, right? And so it's these incremental changes that leads up to this place where you're like, wow, I don't fucking care what people think of my body. I don't think about my body much. I am just neutral about it. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, I'm a fucking queen. And so all of that stuff can be seen as weird, right? Just going on vacation on your own and, mucking around with your bum hole out around your new boyfriend. Like what? But it is 1000% achievable, I promise. And to get there, if you want to get there, if you do want to be walking around with your bum hole out in front of your new boyfriend, you don't have to then you can get there. If that's one of your goals, bum hole showing to new partner, then you can get that, believe in your dreams, you'll get there.

Okay. So let's talk about the bad, the bad about loving yourself, feeling more confident, having higher self-esteem. So you were going to have higher expectations for yourself and what you accept. And that fact alone is hard. It's so much easier in the moment to be passive. It's life is easier. It's just, you know, your life is more of a straight line versus ups and downs. It's comfortable. It's the easier path to take. It's not as challenging. So the way that I like to view it is, I've used this analogy before, but if you're on a trail, so you walking on a trail through the woods or something and there's two paths and there's one path which is just straight ahead. There's no ups and downs. It's not going to be that challenging. It'll be fine. You know, it's just a path you can take.

And then there's another one and it's like, this path is rocky and it's is unknown. And I can see there's some steep bits, so don't worry, you want to do it. But if you go on the other path, by the end of the trail, you'll be on a more experienced trail walker and you will be better for it because you're able to manage to go on other trails and not be scared of the unknown and all that type of stuff. So it's difficult, you know, in the long run it's better. Well, I decided it's better for me to have higher expectations for what I will accept in life, but in the moment it fucking sucks. Not always, but it's hard. It's really hard because it's easier just to be like, you know what, I'll just accept that it's a bit shit and I’m a bit shit, so I'll accept shit.

You know? It's like, you know what it's like, it's like if you're in a restaurant and your meal comes and it's shit like really shit, it's all even just moderately shit. Or just like, I know you find a hair in it. Like, are you gonna say something to the waiter? And so a life where you're not where I wasn't confident, I wouldn't say anything to the waiter. In fact, when I was working on becoming confident, one of my things I wanted to do was complain to a waiter in a restaurant. And there's actually a picture of me that I have of me with my hands around the neck of a male waiter, pretending obviously to take a picture of me achieving this and I complained like the food was late or whatever. What is easier to, in that moment to just be like, you're the person you're with or if you're on your own or in your head, just be like, Oh God, look, there's a hair.

Oh, this is disgusting. Well, their soup isn't hot enough and Oh, this is not cooked the way all of this is not what I expected. And then when the it comes or the way you know the person serving you comes, is everything okay? Oh yes. Oh, it's delightful. Oh lovely. Best soup I've ever tasted. And money. Oh, compliments of the chef, right. That's way easier than being like, do you know where all actually is a bit sucky? And that is, well, I'm feeling more confident is for me having to, because you know that you're worth more to say I changed, this is a bit sucky and obviously not every time you go to a restaurant, do you have to complain because it'll all the times you food is going to be great, but this is an analogy. Sometimes in life you have to because you are compelled to because you know that you're worth more have to do difficult things.

So another bad, I say bad in quotation marks, but it's just, you know, life being a little bit more challenging. Dating is harder. So much harder. Before when I had low self-esteem, I would date any mother fucker. He would send me a message any, anyone, as long as they weren't, you know, borderline serial killer. Even if there was, I probably like, Oh wait, he's charming. And so I'm disappointed more often and I don't get as much D and I don't date as much. You know, before when I was single, I'd been fucking day in every fucking day of the week. I was thirsty. Oh. So here's a couple of the stories of my dating before and after. So before, this is when I first got to Vancouver, like 11 years ago I was dating on, ah, plenty of fish. Remember that? Plenty of fish don't think that exists anymore. So plenty of fish. I there was a guy, he said he was in publishing, so I set a date with him and the moment I met him, the first thing he said to me is, you're taller than I expected. And honestly, he was shorter than I expected. Not that I really cared, but he had lied about his height on his profile and then he was like, well, you'll take a tall. Cause I went back and I was like, hang on a minute. Like why am I taller than him? And he must've been probably 5'5. But I think in his profile he said he was like 5'9 or something like that. I'm 5'7. And so he was like, you're taller than I expected. And I was just like, mm, not really. And you know, the first thing someone says like that and it's kind of like, Hmm, was a bit of a desk because it's kind of, I don't know. Anyway, so that was the first thing. And then he had this job in publishing and so is what he said and I was like, Oh, so tell me about your job. His job in publishing was in Vancouver and I know a lot of places. I know in London, in the UK there is people that hand out free papers. And so he handed out the free paper and so, which is fine, whatever. But he had said, I'm in publishing, which is not a lie, but not necessarily a true representation. I went on maybe like three or four days with this guy. So after like the first 10 minutes of this day, I would have been like, ah, okay. See you later. If it was me now he said, Oh, I only date girls who are like model good-looking. Oh, they're kind of ugly, but they have a really good personality.

And I was like, which one am I then? And he was like, I'm just saying some like that. Like you want a fucking dick. Anyway, he knows I'd be complaining the whole time about how he used to have a really high paying job, but now he's so poor and he was like so hard done by, and he was like screwed over by someone, but you can tell from his personality that, you know, he probably wasn't real. And yeah, he just consumed about himself. And the last date that I went on him with, we were in his area and he said, Oh, I'm just going to pop into my apartment to pick up something. And so he said, Oh, he can come up with me. So I went up with him and I stood in his living room and he's like, I'm just going to go get to my room, pop, get something.

So I stood there. His apartment was a dump, obviously. I stood there, I'm like waiting like one minute and two minutes, five minutes. I'm thinking, what's wrong? Let me see. Did he get lost? And so I stopped, like, we'll come back and I'm like, Hey, whatever his name was, let's call him Dan. Hey Dan, are you alright, and I walked back into a find his room. Eventually he's there, sat on his fucking computer and his like wearing headphones, doing like the computer stuff, like playing a PC game. And he's like, Oh yes, yeah, I'm just playing the game. And he just left me, stood in his living room saying I'm just going to pop to get something. I'll be back in a sec and he starts fucking playing a video game. And I was like, I'll just be a minute to spare minute. I can't remember what I did. I'd probably just stood in his living room again. But yeah. And so I just thought, you know, that's a bit weird, but you know, you know, what do you expect? That's just how people are. Any of those single things happened. Then I would have been with higher confidence has been out there in a second and we'd been like, Oh my God, this was a hilarious dating story. But I spent I think, yeah, three or four days with this guy. And I probably stopped dating him only because he probably didn't respond to my messages. Like I probably was not the one that ended it. I can't remember though, and that's probably.

In my TEDx talk, I talk about me finding out the guy that I was dating at the time had like 17 other girlfriends and I was the one who busted him. And of course, it's not my fault that he cheated on me, but I don't think I would have gotten into that same situation where I was cheated on in that way if I had higher self-esteem because there were so many red flags that I chose to ignore. So we had a long distance relationship and he would just go missing for like a week. Like when I say missing, his phone would be off, he would not respond to any texts, any calls and we were like probably dating. Like we were together. We were, you know, it wasn't just like a casual thing. And so, and instead of being like, what the fuck, I would just be playing it cool and eventually he text me and be like, Hey, how you doing? And instead of being like what happened there? I'd be like, Oh, I was worried about you. I didn't hear from you. I'd be like, Oh, play cool, play cool. You don't want to be clingy. Just playing around and relaxed. And you know, he'd just been like, make up some bullshit excuse and be like, Oh, I miss you so much. And then just like love bomb me and shower me with affection and all the things I needed to hear in that moment. Now I'd be like, if my boyfriend just went missing for a week, I be like, what the fuck happened? And if it happened again, I be like, okay, something, something is wrong here. And that was just like so many fishy things that I totally played off and was like, well, you know, just be a cool girlfriend. Just don't ask him about that. Just, and obviously like afterwards when I met up with two of the other girlfriends, we pieced together timelines and worked out, but he would be like on a vacation with the other girlfriend at the time, you know, that week that he went missing.

And we weren't, you know, worked out, but there were reasons to be suspicious because he is all for, you know, jetting off. Like one time he took me to Paris for the week and the other one or the other girlfriends was like, where were you like when you with him between this week? And I was like, yeah, I was in Paris with him and found out that he, you know, would sneak off. He went once and he was like, Oh, I'm going to pick up some something for us to eat. And when he went off, he was gone for like a couple of hours. And I was like, well, why are you, and he was like, Oh, I got lost and stuff like that. It turns out he was on the phone to one of the other girlfriends. Anyway. So we, if I had higher self-esteem, any of those red flags, I would have been like, this doesn't feel good. And so I'm not going to stick around to try and work out if the guy's not going to be up front. And so now I've been dating, Oh gosh, maybe I've been single for three years. I don’t know. I can't remember. It feels, I don't know. Anyway, I'm single. I'm single and ready to mingle and I'd been on the apps. I'm not plenty of fish. I don't think that's around anymore, but a Tinder and OkCupid. I like OkCupid better because you know, you get a sense for the personality. Anyway. So one guy that I met on the apps was this really quirky lawyer guy. And he was I think it was like from Syria or something and like, and he was like, super interesting and you know, a little bit weird, a little bit nerdy. And I was like, cool. And he was like, I think he was a human rights lawyer anyway, like so many.

I was like, Oh, it sounds so interesting and so we met for coffee. First thing that he did is he hugged me and his hand went to my bum and I was just in that moment, I was just like, did that happen? Cause it wasn't like he didn't squeeze my bum necessarily, but it was kind of like, was that an accident? Like you know, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, like one time and accidentally. One time I remember like one of the most cringy moments from my teenage hood is when I was, I used to play the trumpet and I came second in this trumpet competition and my dad was there watching. And afterwards he came to me and this was when I was like, I don't know, 12. And my tits were just starting to grow and you know, when your tits starting to grow in puberty they’re really hurt, right. They're really achy. Anyway, my dad came and he tried to do a little like punch on the shoulder, like good job Victoria. But instead of punching me out, you know, gently on the shoulder, he punched me on the tits, on the tit and it was so awkward because like my mum was there, my trumpet teacher was there. I know some of official. This is how I remember on my head and my dad just came along was like, good job Victoria, and then just punched me in the tits and I was just like, ah.

So anyway my dad always, he didn't deliberately punch me in the tits as a teenage girl. But so this guy, he touched my bum and so I was like, okay. And so we went and got coffee, I bought it, we sat down and it was summer, so he was wearing shorts and he was just sat there looking at his legs and finding like spots and he just started popping his pimples on his legs during our day. And, I was like, Whoa, who is like, well that'd be fine if we'd were dating or whatever, I'd still be like, dude, like we're out in public. But he started popping spots on his legs and then so I was like, mm, not really. And so he was like, Oh, do you want to like after we finish our coffee, do you want to go and hang out on the beach? Cause we were at the beach and you know, I spent some more time together and I was like, no, it's okay. No thanks. And he was like, Oh Hey, did you know that the best time if you were to murder a woman, the best time is on the first date? Because, and I'm like, what the fuck? Because on the first day, women are not necessarily excited about the guy. And so they don't tell their friends, whereas on the second day, they're more likely to have told their friends that they're going on a date. So it's first day is best time to kill and so I was like, Okay, see you later and off I went. So if this had happened, this whole sequence of events had happened when I had lower self-esteem, I would have been like, so if he touched my bum, I would've been like, Oh, he obviously finds me attractive. If he's touching my bum, good sign. If he was there popping his spots, I would probably be like, Oh, you probably so comfortable around me that he's able to do that. And like the murdering women thing, I probably would, would've been like, Oh, he's so quirky. And like, yeah, he's probably joking. Like he probably doesn't want to murder me. But I mean, raise your audience. Like maybe you don't joke like that on the first date.

So another one, my day before last, my last day in Vancouver. I mean this guy and he was new to the city. He was from, he was from somewhere in Africa. I can't remember which country. But anyway, see he seemed really cool and we chatted on the phone and stuff. And so we had the date set up and being on time is a big deal for me. Like it's a deal breaker for me if someone cannot consistently be on time and not have like a good reason for me, it is a deal breaker in a relationship. And so I get to the place and I'm like 15 minutes early. So I went in my car and so we're meeting in front of this pub. And so let's say we're meeting at seven, so seven, I'm there on the dock waiting, looking through the crowds for him to emerge and nowhere to be seen. So five minutes goes by like no messages from him. And at this point at seven, I had text him saying, I'm here outside the front no text messages from him. And so like 10 minutes past, I'm like, okay, well how long do I have to wait to not get a text for me to realize I've messed it up?

And so I'm like Googling like how long do people wait? And the, and the internet told me wait for 15 minutes and if they not arrive by 15 minutes, then you know, and so I think it was like minute 10 or some somewhere before 15 minutes. And he's like, great, be there soon. And so then when it got to 15 minutes, I was like, do you need. Are you lost or something? And he's like, Oh, I'm just leaving my home and I'll be there soon. Now where he lived was an hour away from where I was. So when he was like, I'm just getting on the bus or whatever, I was like no. Whereas before I would've been like, well, he's new to the city and so I just said, no, this is not gonna work. And I took myself off and had some, got some sushi and he was just like bombarding my phone with text messages, calling me being like, don't be like, don't be like this baby.

Why you gotta be so uptight? And he didn't even say sorry, like, Oh, I'm so sorry I'm late. Like something happened. He was just like, Oh, I'm leaving now. And it was already like quarter past. And so he was going to be there like an hour and 15 minutes late. And he's like, well, I'm coming, like, I don't want to waste my time coming if you're not going to be there and I'm still coming. And you know, before when I had lower self-esteem, I would've been like, ah, well, you know, he's coming so I'll give him a second chance. But I mean, like, that's a fucking red flag if there was ever one. So yeah, give me some dating stories there.

Another thing is that I have to set boundaries and you know, I love a boundary, but what I was mentioning before, it's just easier just to not to have to do these things. And, you know, secretly let people walk over you and not correct them and not say, Hey, this is what I like and want a need in my life. And you know, when someone says or does something shitty, I have to work out how I want to handle it. Like a goddamn adult sucks. I can choose to not do anything, but I know because I have now because I have a genuine desire to stand up for myself. You know, I can't You know, lets things slide whereas before I would let things slide, like say for example, I don't know. A friend says, Oh my God, I'm so fat and I'm disgusting. Whereas before I would have just been like, Oh, you're not fat. Don't, don't say that. You'll be enough. Or as now I'd be like, Mmm, that's not cool. And I'd say something and then that means that the next bad point is I have lost friends, family members and the boyfriend that I was with for six plus years our relationship ended. And a big part of that was because I had higher confidence. I couldn't accept the way things were any more and he was not able to change. And a lot of friends couldn't jive with the new version of Victoria that was more confident in the would say, Hey, that's not cool. You know, that's racist. That's sexist, that's fatphobic.

And so a lot of my friends from my childhood, a lot of the friends I made during my younger working years when I was working at a bar and I was working at a call center, a lot of those friends I would have, you know, long-term I would have had like lifelong relationships with a lot of those people. But I have changed so much that for most of them it's not possible for me to have a relationship with them, which is sad because I love them. I had so much fun with them. I was just literally on Facebook before recording this episode, looking at this group of friends I had when I was, when I left the UK friends from working when I was in a working in a call center and we'd go out every weekend and we'd get drunk and eat kebabs and you know, laugh and cry together and help each other and all this stuff.

And now, like one of them, one of them on Facebook was kept posting racist memes, like saying, don't come to England and things like that. And I'd be like, dude what? And so she was like, fuck you. And like blocked me and stuff. And yeah. And then when Brexit happened, the Brexit happened before Trump was voted in. And I said, I may just stay saying I'm embarrassed that Britain did. That just shows how racist a lot of people in the UK as racist, as a Trump led America thinking Trump would never be president. And yeah, and then a friend would be like, I'm not racist. I just hate immigrants. People who are not. Why? And I was like, dude, that's racist. And yeah. Anyway, imagine if I went out and I out with them now, not all of them obviously, but safe. You know, not all of them are racist, but one them on a night out now. And they were saying these types of things, like within five minutes I'd be like, ah, don't want to hang out with you anymore. So it's sad because I wish I could go back to my hometown and have, you know, a massive group of friends, like what I used to have that I would have loads of fun with. And it's just not a possibility if I, unless I bend on my morals and trying to be a better person. Right. yeah. And so the same with the same with the boyfriend. Not that the boy, the ex-boyfriend was racist or whatever, but it was a small, subtle shift that happened. And so I was with him for six years. We went ring shopping, we talked about having kids and getting married, all that type of stuff.

And he just couldn't get behind the idea of the science around about, around weight loss and all that type of stuff. And he couldn't, he couldn't take that next step in evolution that I was taking. And so the next point is it can be lonely. So now I've lost all my friends, which is not true, but no friends, no boyfriend, no family. Everyone hates me. Not true, but you know, sometimes that's how it can feel in real life or real life in day to day life when I'm around meeting people, I have not met a single fat positive person in the wild, like out in the street. You know, it's been very hard, you know, for someone to be like, Oh yeah, I'm like, you know, fat poster person. Yeah. You fat or anything like that. I have had to go seek them out. And so I mentioned Summer Innanen, one of my friends. So Summer, years ago I sent her an email being like, Hey, we live in Vancouver, will you be my friend? And we went out and had dinner, laughed low, just spoke about penises, did some high cakes, literally and became friends. And same with Louise Green who was on the episode before, literally was like, Hey, let's be friends. I have emailed so many people being like, Hey, let's go and grab a coffee. Like you seem cool. I've had to actually build relationships that would not have been built unless I went out and found these people. And a lot of people as well, they're not in Vancouver because I think, you know, rare for people to be fat positive and anti-diet. And so you know, a lot of my relationships are over the internet as well, which is, you know, obviously it's nice to be able to spend time with people face to face, but you know, that's the way it is.

And finally the bad is that you can get angry with the world and with individual people. And so when you see people who are behaving in ways that you've decided that I have decided is not in their best interest, you know, dating loser boyfriends or you know, not standing up to people when they're horrible to them and you know, all the things that you now do as a more confident person, it can be really frustrating because you just want to shake them and say, you deserve better. Why can't you see that? Why are you dating this loser guy? Why you hiding your body? Like it can get frustrating. And that's a momentary emotion because then you get into like, okay, well that was me a few years ago and I totally understand why they are like that. But you, you get, you see the people around you not demanding what they are worth and because you love and care for them, you want them to just do exactly what you've decided is best.

This is something that I struggle with is wanting to tell people to, you know, dump that boyfriend or whatever. It's not my place to do that. And you know, wanting what's best for other people. Now that you're more able to see what is possible for them. When you get to a place where you feel more confident, you know what is possible for other people, you know because you've been on that journey of being in that same place of not feeling like you're worth more, not feeling like, you should show your body, not, you know, doing the things that will make you happy and you know, what is on the other side. And so sometimes you can get angry and frustrated, but also there's the other side of deep compassion and understanding of where people are at and the reasons why they're at, where they're at and not being able to change for many different reasons. And, you know, it's complicated. It's complicated, right? And so, you know, although I wish I could wave a magic wand and make everyone feel confident, it's just, it's not life, right?

So the final one I want to end on is something beautiful, something beautiful about feeling more confident. If you work on your confidence, if you say no to diets, if you say yes to fat positivity, you will change the world. So you are able to break the cycle of body shame and dieting in your family, in your community. You are the brave pioneer that standing up to oppression. And when you make a difference like that, then you affect those around you. It's like the virus. It's like the virus. You will have an impact on those around you and they will have an impact on them. It spreads like the virus. I wish that there was some statistic to say for every confident person they positively impact 1.2 people or whatever it is.

And then see how about one person's action to say, no, I am worth more and no, I am not going to accept shit and no, I'm not gonna fucking diet for the rest of my life and make myself small. How that ripple effect is hundreds, thousands of people being a role model. And you don't have to be, when I say being a role model, do you use, not like you have to stand on a stage and talk, but it's those small moments like when you were at work and someone says, Oh I need to eat a salad cause I had some cake yesterday. And you say, well, you know, I don't believe in that. I believe that you can have salad and cake and all of the foods that you want. That is being a role model for those around you. And think about if you have children or any children in your life or children in the people around you's life, you might not even know the people around you that you were affecting, right? So your sister could be saying to her, work for and do, I heard this thing from my sister. And that work friend could be then saying, do you know what? I fucking had enough of dieting. I've had enough of hating my body and then affect their children. And then in the future, their children are not then dieting and hating their bodies. And it's just an exponential positivity. When one person decides, no, I've had enough of this bullshit. I'm not dieting. I'm not hating my body anymore. Life is too short. And you change the world as an individual. You change the world and it is beautiful. It is incredible. And of course not everyone that you come in contact with is going to be like, yo my God, I'm going to change my life too and fuck diets and fuck the patriarchy and stuff.

But you are going to influence people when you are passionate about something, when you make a change and people can see, even if you're not even talking to people, like people who are on my Facebook and I posted on my Facebook so infrequently on my personal page. My business Facebook, I post often but my people who are my friends from school will message me out of the blue and I'll be like, who is this? You know, we added friends in like 2009 or something. And, they'll say something like, wow, seeing you do this, and seeing you becoming body-positive and all that type of stuff has affected me positively. I'm like, wow, that's, wow, that's really interesting. And maybe I've, you know, not even shared that many posts or maybe there's, I shared one post and then they followed me on Instagram and dah, dah, dah, dah.

And so don't forget the power that you have if you decide enough is enough. And you break that cycle of shame. And don't forget the power if you don't write the, and we've all seen it. We've all seen generations, you know, of fatphobia being been passed down, you know, generation after generation. Because no one above us, no other family member said, fuck that shit on putting the end to it. And I'm changing our family's legacy. I'm changing the world. I'm changing this community with my one act of bravery. So yes, that's the good, the bad, the weird and landed on the be yellow fall for you.

So, Hey, I want to share a little something along the way. I'm used to working from home, right. And so if you are working from home something that I like to put on in the background is something called Low Fi Hip Hop and it's something, it's on YouTube live and it's just like really nice relaxing hip hop beats and you can listen to it 24 hours a day. I really like it. And so if you're working from home and you need, I don't know, some type of noise distraction or if the kids are like going mad and screaming and you need to drown them out, but you don't want to have like some really loud music then go check it out. I'm going to put a link for that and a link of me being attractive at the poor thing in the show notes to get the show notes, you can find it, like wherever you're listening, if you just scroll down, but if you just want to go to it now, it's fiercefatty.com/025, because we're episode 25.

And another thing to keep you entertained if you're at home is something I watched on Netflix was Unorthodox and it's about Debra Feldman, her true story about how she left her acidic Jewish community in New York, in Brooklyn. And how she escaped from an oppressive situation. And then it was so good. So it was a full pipe thing is so good. Debra Feldman wrote the book in 2012 and then they've made this Netflix series out of it. But I went and found the book and you can read the book for free if you go to Scribed. So C R I B D, Scribed because of COVIS 19, they're doing 30 days free and you can get an unlimited amount of audiobooks, articles books that you read on your phone. All sorts of different things. It doesn't have the most comprehensive selection, but I've been able to find maybe 50% of everything I'd want to read or listen to. And so I've been busting out reading and listening to books because it's free. So I will link to that Scribed as well in the book so that if you want to go and read the book. Yeah, it was good. It was good. It was good. And really it was made me want to learn more about Hasidic Jews and she's from the satsuma community and how like, I've seen like documentaries about the Hasidic Jew community before. And it's just so different from look. So I was brought up Catholic and obviously there's a lot of shame and guilt in, that's the big thing that I took from Catholicism is you have to behave in a certain way and, and if you don't, then you're bad and you're going to go to hell and things like that. And that oppression that weight on top of me just from a mild form of Catholicism and was a lot, and hearing all of the rules that this particular community has, you know, you're not allowed to use the internet and you're not allowed to read secular books and even books like kids' books, if there's any girl illustrations in there, they black out the girl's faces. And you know, you're not allowed to do this on a Sunday and you know, all of these different rules that must be difficult to live under if you're not into that. And obviously a lot of people enjoy that and that's good for them. But Debra Feldman didn't, and she escaped.

And so anyway, that's what that's about. I'll link to it if you want to go and check them out. Yeah. But thank you for hanging out with me today. A reminder to write a review for the podcast before you submit it, take a screenshot and then send it to me. And I will then send you a copy of, an audio copy of my book Fierce Fatty and digital copy too. So you can either listen to it or read it digitally. No questions are asked. So yeah, do that. Email me victoria@fiercefatty.com. Go to the show notes. You could submit a question that you might want me to answer on the show and the show notes. There's a little link there to say ask a question, do that as well, and just have an amazing fatty rest of your day, and I'll see you in the next episode. Okay, bye.

EP24 Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 24 of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I am your host Victoria Welsby and in today's episode we're talking about physical and mental food insecurity. Oh my gosh, let's do it.

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

Well. Hello there. It is April Fools Day. There's not been any April fools stuff around the internet today has that probably cause we're like, don't fool us. We can't handle any tricks right now. So hello, welcome. Hey, did you know that as of a few episodes ago, I started recording the video for the podcast and I'm putting it on YouTube because I know a lot of people like to consume the video and look up my gorgeous photos. So if that's you, if you want to see what I look like or where I'm recording the podcast or my wonky hair at the moment then go to YouTube. The link is in the show notes. The show notes for this episode is fiercefatty.com/024 for episode 24 fiercefatty.com/024.

And my hair is wonky because before the pandemic came, I was late and getting my haircut and I had made an appointment like the Monday before everything close. I went to the store and it was closed. And so my hair needs to be immediate cut like three weeks ago and it was like maybe a month overdue for being cut. And because I work from home and I'm in the middle of nowhere, then it's really easy to not get your hair cut because not that many people see. Now my hair is like so long. The longest it's been in a year. Yeah. And cause it's super short my hair is really short it was shaved. If you want to see the video of me getting my hair shave, go to my YouTube channel. And so any type of length feels insanely long. So I've probably got on the side of my head and inch of length and all the top of my head a few inches. And I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to style it. Someone tell me how to style it. I've never had hair this length before. Yes. Help me. Someone help me.

Yeah. So, Hey, thank you for your reviews that you keep sending me. I so appreciate it. If you leave a review and before you submit it. So if you do like, you know, five stars and then you write something take a screenshot and then email it to me at victoria@fiercefatty.com I'm going to send you a digital copy of my book, best selling book, a Fierce Fatty, a digital and audio version for you. And if you're in quarantine and some free stuff to keep you entertained. So I'm so do that. And the reason why I say take a screenshot before you submit the review is when you write a review, once it's submitted, it goes into this black home and then it will come up and be on the internet in God knows how long it feels like, you know, 10 months later the neighbor like, Oh, there's other review that I got 50 years ago. And obviously I'm exaggerating because I've been only doing the podcast since November, 2019 so it's actually probably just a couple of weeks.

So today's episode, we're talking about food insecurity and this is very timely with COVID19 going on and something that's quite close to my heart because this is something that I experienced. I grew up in poverty and so we didn't have an abundance of food. Now we weren't starving. I say we weren't starving. There was lots of times where we didn't have appropriate food. So yeah, we weren't starving. But there was lots of times where I would do things like there was nothing in the house apart from one dry Weetabix and then doing something like I remember putting butter on a Weetabix to try and make it edible, you know, cause there was no milk and there was no bread and there was no, so, you know, that type of thing sticks out in my mind.

And on top of that I also lived in pro weight loss fat phobic household where we should be losing weight, we shouldn't get fat. And that was very confusing as you can imagine, because when food did come into the household, when we know we had food come in, when we did our weekly shop at Quick Save and UK, those we know, remember Quick Save. It's not a shop anymore, but it was like the cheapest of the cheapest of the cheapest places that you can go and buy food. And it was all very low quality and you wouldn't want to be caught in there if you were like, you know, as a young person, you wouldn't want your friend from school seen you in Quick Save cause it was like really embarrassing. Anyway, and on top of that, one of my sisters had bulemia and so we didn't have food often when we did, we were told, don't eat it because one, we don't have food and we need to make it last and two, you don't want to get fat.

And on top of that, having a sibling who because of the mental health issue would take the food for herself. And so it meant that we had to, it was really confusing, right? This is really for a child. You've got to get the food but don't get the food because if you do, you're greedy. Your taking it from your siblings and you're going to get fat, which means you're greedy, but if you don't, then you won't get any food. So that was unique. That was a unique experience. And the reason why I've called this episode food insecurity physically and mentally is because I'm apart of food insecurity, is not having access to food, not having access to food that we like. And food that is nourishing and all that type of jazz. But also we impose food insecurity in a way in a different definition of insecurity.

We impose that on ourselves because we all say, Oh, we can't have that thing in the house because I'm gonna eat it all up. I shouldn't be eating that thing. I'm feel out of control at the moment around food because of COVID19. And so I'm not going to buy it because if I do, then I will eat it. And then that makes you, it triggers you into those old dieting type behaviors thought processes. And it's very hard for the brain to distinguish between a self-imposed food insecurity environment versus one which is because you don't have enough funds, all that type of stuff. So, let's talk about it because a lot of us will be having a lot of different experiences around food. At the moment because of COVID19. And a lot of things are making us feel weird and like what's wrong?

I seem to have regressed back to my dieting days. I'm eating all the food. I feel out of control. I'm greedy. There's always a means on the internet saying COVID15, don't put on weight. And I'm saying that I should be exercising and taking up a new sport of marathon, running in between looking after the kids and all that other stuff. And also dealing with the global pandemic is really confusing. So I want to talk about that today. So in case you don't know what food insecurity is, let me read a definition for you. Household food security exists when all members at all times have access to enough food for an active healthy life. Individuals who are food secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Food insecurity on the other hand, is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA as a situation of limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. Let me read that last bit again and see how this mirrors potentially your current experience being isolated. If you are social distancing going to the store and then not being all the food that you want. Food insecurity defined by the USDA is a situation of limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods and socially acceptable.

That sounds very familiar to situations that a lot of people are going through right now. As an example, I live in the middle of nowhere in Ireland as you know, the Irish government have just announced that we are not allowed to travel further than two kilometers to get food. Being in the middle of nowhere, two kilometers away is the local village. I say village, I'm like village. It has one grocery store and it's not like a grocery store, like a grocery store. It's, you don't know one of those little places. I don't even know what that word is, but it doesn't have a lot of stuff. And so knowing that, that it doesn't have a lot of stuff, it will have, you know, maybe you know, one packet of pasta and maybe one pasta sauce or something like that.

Irish people love bread. And so when you go in, there's not really any bread the milk, you can only buy maybe one pint of milk versus the big things. There's not going to be a lot of variety. So I wanted to get mushrooms to put on a pizza and there was no mushrooms. And so it's not like there's not stuff, but it is potentially nutritionally not nutritionally adequate and uncertain ability to acquire food. Because this has happened a couple of days ago. I don't know how much the locals are going to ransack the store, you know, because what we tend to do around this area as we'll travel an hour to get into the city to go to the big supermarket grocery store. And now we're not allowed to do that. So who knows if the locals are gonna panic and just, you know, buy everything, I don't know, right. So it's, you know, it feels uncertain at the moment.

Now there are different levels of food insecurity. There's two different levels. So there's low food insecurity, so low food insecurity and that means that there isn't many choices or the choices aren't good. So that is probably where a lot of people are right now. There isn't many choices or the choices aren't good. There is also the next level of food insecurity is very low food insecurity. And that's when you don't have enough food or you have to eat less. And so it's, there's no food to buy at the store. Now, depending on what country you live in. Like I live in Ireland currently, the UK is next door. It's an narrow way. The UK is narrow way. That's where I go to get my groceries. When I was allowed to and Canada and the US there, there is enough food.

Okay. There is enough food. We are not in a place where we're any type of actual food crisis. It's just people at the moment buying a ton of food because people are feeling food insecure and a way to help overcome food insecurity is to buy more food and other types of insecurity. You know how people are buying toilet paper, you know, I don't think as much now, but when it first started people were like, well, toilet paper and it's because other people were buying toilet paper. And so you're like, fuck, I need to get toilet paper, right. So the reasons why people are food insecure, there's lots of reasons, but nothing on my research for food insecurity had pandemic pandemic global pandemic could be one. Most common reason is money. For my family growing up, my mum worked part time in a corner store and so made definitely made minimum wage. I know she, she made minimum wage and only part time basis. My dad was an alcoholic. It didn't work. And any money that you got from the government he would spend on alcohol. So money was the reason for us that we were food insecure and mental health issues because my dad had a mental health issue. Other reasons change in employment. That could be a big thing for people listening. If you've lost your job or your job is not paying you what it normally pays, it's just, it's so mind boggling to me that companies will do this. Companies who have money will lay people off well reduce their salaries. Like my brother in law, he's worked for the same company for years and years and years and they're like, Oh, we're a family company. We really value you. And they'll put on like a yearly thing to say, Oh, we love you so much.

And they do really well. They're not struggling company. And the Irish government have said, you have to stay home his job is non essential. He makes cabinets you know, like a woodwork, that type of thing. Definitely non essential. And his company was like, well, if you will, we've got big project we need to finish. So if you go home then we're not going to give you any money. And he decided to go home and the only money that he's going to get is from the Irish government. The Irish government are going to pay him 80% of, of his salary, but his company are paying him nothing. They're taking away his sick days and so he's going to have no sick days or holiday days or the end of this because his, his company are not doing anything to help the employees.

How fucked up is that? There's going to be so many stories of this where, you know, companies show their true colors and so his company are like, Oh, we're just such a family company. But you know, when it comes to time that you need help from us, fuck you, right. It's just so fucked up. So yeah, change in circumstance, changing location. So a big thing is, so this is my example is where you live. Maybe if you change location, you're not close to a big store, you don't have the transport to get to a big store you don't have a car, et cetera. And with my change in location is a change in distance that I'm allowed to travel. Other factors, disability, illness, mental health issues abuse. And so you could be experiencing food insecurity because whatever situation you're in, your parents, your spouse, whoever is abusing you and not allowing you to buy food, not giving you access to food.

And that was also another experiences experience of mine. Whew. My relationship with food was complicated. When I was 17, I met a 30 year old abusive alcoholic creep, stayed with him for a couple of years. And he wouldn't let me eat food. The food I wanted to he decided a meal plan that I should stick to. If I ever deviated from it, there would be consequences. If I ever wanted to say if we're out and about and I would say, let's get some lunch, he would only let me have half of the lunch. And so I experienced food insecurity due to abuse. So it took a long time for me to fix all that in my broken. Now the effects of food insecurity, basically it's bad. Forbes article I will link to talks. Basically you have worse mental and physical health because of food insecurity. Now it doesn't matter if your food insecurity means that you don't have access to food or if it is like in my example where I have enough food but it's not as, you know, it's not the normal variety that I'm used to. You still have negative consequences.

Now, this Forbes article says, lower overall health status, poor physical health, poor mental health, greater mental distress, lower cognitive function, depression hyper lipidemia, hypertension, diabetes. And as I mentioned, this is not just a lack of food, but other factors are at play now because in COVID19 I don't know the factors that you potentially are experienced and you could, you could be experiencing so many different factors that are at play. You could be in a very difficult situation and you could be in a lot better of a situation. And so the amount of negative impact this could have on you is we don't know. We don't know, right. but if you think about some, a child who is living in a food insecure household, what else is going on there? It's not likely that the child who was living in a food insecure household has, you know, the best household experience.

And so, taking me as an example, not only will we food insecure, but the was an alcoholic parent. There were you know, living in a terrible area. There was all sorts of other things going on, which was not just the fact that I didn't have enough food, which could lead to these outcomes. And it's not a, definitely you're gonna, you know, you're gonna experience all these terrible things because of COVID19. But you know, this is what could happen. Now, Cindy Young, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at University of Michigan says this is in the Forbes article. And I read, I quote, my research has focused on the role of chronic stress. My hypothesis is that food insecurity, they experience of not knowing where your next meal is coming from is inherently stressful. The chronic level of stress associated with being food insecure changes the way that we think about food and acquire food changes how we eat and metabolize food and leads to worse physical or mental health outcomes over time. My research has shown that food insecurity is not just stressful, but it's associated with other elements of psychological, physiological stress. It includes feeling isolated from one's community, embarrassed or ashamed of being food insecure or using federal food programs, feeling sad or depressed about not having enough food, no free for food, angry and frustrated about their situation. So a big part of that what Cindy Young is saying is stress and the way that we feel about the fact that we are food insecure, which is what is very difficult, is what she's saying her hypothesis is, that's why it is bad on our mental and physical health.

So let me read this another bit from a paper from Elsevier Health Sciences. I'm going to link to that as well in the show notes. And it says food insecurity can affect your mental health. So food insecurity affects nearly 795 million people worldwide are though a complex phenomenon encompassing food availability, affordability, utilization, and even the social norms that define acceptable ways to acquire food. Food insecurity can affect people's health beyond its impact on nutrition. A new study determined that food insecurity was associated with poor mental health and specific psycho psychosocial stressors across global regions, independent on individuals, social economic status.

So taking from those two articles is that a big part of this is it's a complex issue and we can do things to support ourselves of supports those stresses of not having access to enough food at this time. And that is to help with stress and to not isolate from our community. And obviously we're isolating basically from our community, but we can still connect with people online, which is incredible. So that is the physical side of food insecurity. And let's talk about my version of the mental aspect of food insecurity. And this is something that I've been thinking about a lot, but there's nothing that I can find on it. And basically it's, it's the self idea or the idea of self-imposed food insecurity. So AKA living in a fat phobic diet focused home, having experienced that which is technically straight up food insecurity.

So if for example, the home that you grew up in your caregivers were like, Oh, we can't have sugar and we can't have this and we can't have that. You do not have access to the foods that are going to keep you mentally well and you need also, you need, you know, a variety of foods to keep you healthy. And so that could be, you know, is that abuse your getting down but your mental health has been damaged. But as adults we continue this trend, even if we didn't learn it in a home environment. If you've had any type of experience with trying to shrink your body or become healthier with the foods that you're eating in a disordered way, then you have engaged in a self-imposed food insecure environment. And you know, like when you go to your cupboards and you don't have anything that you fancy eating, like if you're going on the upswing of from brief binge to restrict cycle and you're like, I've got nothing in because everything is like boring diet shit.

So we know food insecurity and dieting or diet culture can damage our mental and physical health. So it's bad news, right? Self-Impose food, food insecurity is bad news. And we also know that our adventure to heal ourselves from the damage that we've experienced through diet culture and dieting it's not linear. It's not a straight line. We're not going to one day say, okay, I've decided I'm not going to diet anymore. And the next day you wake up and you're like, Oh, I remember those funny days when I used to diet. I feel so good about food. It's not learnin, right? And what right now, what is happening for so many people is you're being dragged back into a place where it feels like the world has been turned upside down and it's massively triggering and it feels like you do not have access to all the foods that you need or the foods that you want.

And even for those who have been doing the work, this work to heal themselves for years and years and years. This is extreme. This is an extreme situation. So know that if you are feeling weird around food right now, you are in the company of many many many people. I wouldn't want to hazard a guess of what percentage of people are feeling weird around food right now. But I'd say it is the majority of people because literally we're not sure if we have access to food. You know, when we know that if you live in a country that has all these systems in place, that you know that you're not probably going to starve, you're know that you're probably just going to have to choose a different brand of chips that you normally have. And, but that still makes you feel weird. It is weird.

It's weird. It's, you know, how many times have you gone through this before? How many times have you experienced COVID19 before? Never. Never. None of us have experienced exactly this before. And so with a disruption to our usual schedule and our usual things that make us feel safe and make us feel good our relationship with with food and how we relate to food and how we relate to our body is going to be just re-upped it. And on top of that, say if you are, if you have been let go from your job, if you don't know if the government is going to give you money or not, that adds another layer onto it of what is the future gonna be like. So, by the way, I have seen many people say that many people in leaders in this industry talking about how they are feeling weird around food and I am one of them too.

And so for me, my experiences are that's randomly throughout the day I will just have a desire for something that I don't normally have a desire for like something which is different, you know. So halfway through the day I'll be like lunchtime. I'd be like, okay, I need, I need some popcorn. And so what we do in those situations when our brain is saying, I need this thing is you give your body what your brain is asking for. You know, if you don't have popcorn, obviously you might need to, you know, buy, have something else or whatever to try and do it as well as you can at that moment. But not denying yourself the things that you need. And this is really important. It is 1000, 1000000%. Okay. If you are using food to comfort yourself now or any time and now you have to be in a place where you expect that because all of our coping mechanisms are our ways that we have.

Maybe if you don't use food to heal to soothe yourself currently. Maybe you did in the past, but maybe you've found different ways which were more useful for you. You will be doing it more and it's absolutely to be expected because everything's changed. You know, maybe you would have, you know, if you were not feeling great before you might have gone and gone for a swim or gone and saw your friends or went to see a therapist and maybe that is not available right now. And even if, you know, normally you'd go for a swim and see your therapist and see your friends and whatever and you still would use food to comfort yourself. That is still 1000000000%. Okay? It is one that is so okay to use food to comfort yourself. Anyone that tells you that you shouldn't, even if we're not in COVID19 is wrong because it's okay.

It's absolutely okay. Whatever you do to help yourself survive is okay, right? I mean, what's alternative? You don't use food to comfort yourself and you feel absolutely fucking awful. You can't get out of bed in the morning. Your mental health is absolutely destroyed. Whereas you could have had a little bit of comfort, a little bit of soothing by eating food like hello, eat the food. So whatever cravings, no matter what time of the day, no matter what is going on, please listen to what your body is telling you. Because either way that I think about it is my body is, you know, my brain and my body, the fucking scared at the moment. They're back to a place where I was being abused, back to a place where I was living in a household when I was young. I didn't know if I was going to get the food and if food did come into the house a family member would take it and I wouldn't have anything.

And all of that stuff is rushing back now. It not, might not necessarily be as powerful, but because of this weird situation, it's still, it's they're just, they're just simmering. And so I need to go back to what young Victoria, if I could go back to young Victoria and young Victoria was like, I want some popcorn, but it's kind of a weird time of the day. I don't normally have popcorn now. Like should I have popcorn? Should I just not have popcorn? Adult Victoria can go to young Victoria and be like, bitch, here's your fucking popcorn. Here is a gallon of popcorn. Here is a room filled with popcorn, please. Eat as much popcorn. You would want to go to that younger version of you, that child version of you and sweep them up and be like, Oh my God, we're going to eat all the food. It's gonna be so much fun. You don't have to worry about it. I'm gonna trust me, I'm going to get you the food. And you're an adult now. And probably if you're listening to this podcast and you're an adult now, and so you can do that. You can heal yourself and say, instead of having a debate like, Oh, should you or should you not? Would you have said to your younger version of you who says, Oh, Hey, can I have some popcorn? Whatever it is. Oh, but would you say, Oh, but you really shouldn't be having that. You don't normally have that. Do you know how many calories that has? Do you know how many blah, blah, blah. Do you know? No. Cause you would know that would fuck up the younger version of you. You would just be like, here, have the absolutely have the popcorn and give them the big kiss and hug. So you need to do that for yourself. Now you need to be quietening those thoughts and reassuring yourself that it is important. So important for your mental and physical health, for you to allow yourself to have the food for you to buy as much food as you can to make yourself feel secure. So right now, my fridge and my cupboards are so fun. We held with food. So to the point where I'm just like, okay, I feel very, very secure around food at the moment. Maybe there was a week where I was like, Oh my God, am I God, you know, this feels weird, but I feel a lot better now because I've gone back to that place of healing, which is allowing myself access to as much food as my sweet little young Victoria heart needed.

So speaking of that, what I am doing in that moment is intuitive eating as best I can. That is not always possible right now because say if I wanted a popcorn and the local store just doesn't have popcorn. And I'm just like, but I need that thing. That one thing is what I'm craving or what I know will help me right now. And I can't get it. And Oh my God, I feel stressed out about it. I want this thing, but I can't get it. It's not at the local store and dah, dah, dah it's not in my house and I can't go out for another few days or whatever it is. What do you do in those circumstances?

So something that I wanted to talk about is Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. I've spoken about this in the past, but I want you to understand a little bit more about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you, if you don't know about this already or you don't know how this relates to intuitive eating but What Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Imagine a pyramid. And at the bottom you will have different levels. There's, there's five levels in total. I'm going to link to this in the show notes. And so you can see a picture of it. You can see what it is exactly. But from simple psychology, this is what Maslow's higher the definition, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising of a five tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchal levels within a pyramid needs lower down in the hierarchy, must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up from the bottom of the hierarchy upwards. The needs are, so the first level is physiological, safety. So the next level is safety, next love and belonging, esteem and self actualization. That's the end of the quote. So physiological, so first thing, humans need air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction is apparently one of them. Ah, I don't know about that, but I guess you, you need it to sort of for the human race to continue. So the first thing is they are what you need the next level. So when you have those things and you feel secure that you have those things, then you move into safety. And so that's personal security, employment resources, health, property. The next is love and belonging. So that's friendship, intimacy, family and sense of connection. Next. Once you've got all that, then you can move into esteem. So respect, self esteem, status, recognition, strength and freedom. And the final level, right at the top is self actualization. So that is the desire to become the most that one can be. Now normally who knows where you are on this period, this Maslow's hierarchy, who knows where you are.

But most people would be in either self actualization, they would be in esteem or they would be in love and belonging. So they're the top three layers. The bottom two are, you know, having safety and security and the bottom one, air, water, food, shelter. Now just because of COVID19, you could have been knocked down to the bottom layer because you don't know where you're going to get food from. Maybe you don't have a job. And so do you have somewhere to stay? Luckily a lot of places that are banning evictions and so, so that's good. And so hopefully most people are not on the very bottom there on the safety needs. So the next one up, which is personal security, employment resources, health property. Now, if you're in North America, not North America USA, if you're in the States because Canada is not like this how you don't know if you're able to pay for health necessarily because of your absolutely horrific health care system.

And so what I'm saying with this is you could be exactly where you are. You know, you could not have moved in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but if you are unsure if you can get food, if you are unsure, if you have a money or a place to stay, it is very, very difficult for you to be in a place where you expect yourself to be self actualized, actualizing. So set self actualizing the very top of the pyramid desire to become the most that one can be. And so that is heating. You could lump intuitive eating in with self-actualization or the one below which is esteem. So, respect, self esteem, status strength freedom. And so either way, intuitive eating is going to be on the top, top of the pyramid there. Those are something that you can do when you have a safe home environment. When you have all the food or the money that you need to feel safe, it doesn't mean that you have to have all the money and all the food, but enough for you to feel safe. And so if you are not able to intuitively eat at the moment, then no shit. Like obviously when you look at it like this and obviously you're not going to be able to do that. Like imagine if you were on remember that Book Life of Pi and it was a film and they get stranded and you're on a boat with some rations and a tiger and whatever. And you were to try and intuitively eat when you're on a boat with some rations and a tiger and some other people. And so if you were trying to intuitively eat day one, you'd be like, well, I all the rations because you know, I was listening to my body, my body said he was hungry then that, you know, shortly you would die.

And so you cannot intuitively eat when you are not secure around getting the food. Now how much security you need to be able to intuitively is different for everyone, right? so I don't have the answer for that. And for me, I have access to food, but it's not necessarily my most favorite food. You know, the foods that's going to be like, Oh my God, this is the most delicious thing in the world ever. So saying that, eat as much as you can and the variety of food that you want and you desire and that you need. But if you can't, don't beat yourself up and be like, Oh my God, I'm a bad intuitive eater. I'm going back. I'm undoing all this work. No, this is a traumatic time in our life, in our personal history. This is absolutely our traumatic time. You're probably going to look back in a couple of years and be like, Ooh, wow. I just, wow, I was so hard on myself or I expected myself to be perfect or expected myself to do this and that and you know, expected to within a couple of weeks of self isolation be back to normal and just felt good about it or whatever. And no, no, not at all. That would be a bit, you know, expecting way too much from yourself if that is what you think. And because we currently in it right now, like this is still happening and we don't know when this is going to end. It's very difficult to process trauma when you're in trauma. And so we are, you know, in a year's time, six months time, you know, 10 years time, whatever, when it's over, we'll be up to look back and be like, wow, I can recognize now that I was really triggered by that time.

And it was very difficult for me and this is what I was feeling and this is what I took from it and all of that stuff. But because we're in it is a lot more hard to do that. So let me read you there's a little thing about about trauma and traumatic events from mentalhealth.org.uk. When you experience a traumatic event, your body's defense defenses, I'm so fucking North American defenses, defenses take effect and create a stress response, which may make you feel a variety of physical symptoms behave differently and experience more intense emotions. This fight or flight response where your body produces chemicals which prepare your body for an emergency can lead to symptoms such as raise blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased sweating, reduced stomach activity. This is normal as it's your body's evolutionary way of responding to an emergency, making it easier for you to fight or run away.

So here's another thing from mind.org.uk, which is a mental health charity in the UK. These are some of the common effects of trauma that you might recognize. So if you're having experiencing any of these things, flashbacks which is reliving aspects of our traumatic vent or feeling as it is happening. Now. Side note, this is me talking. So flashbacks, if you've experienced trauma around food dieting, being in diet, culture, being in food insecure, if you're having you know, you could be having not necessarily flashbacks where you're like, Oh my God, I'm reliving it but your experiencing those feelings of that time again. And you could also be having actual flashbacks. Going back to the article, panic attacks which is a type of fear response. Dissociation, one way your mind copes with overwhelming stress. You might feel numb, spaced out, detached from your body, or as though the world around you is unreal. Hyper arousal, feeling very anxious on edge and unable to relax. You might be constantly looking out for threats of danger, sleep problems. Hello, this is me. I've been sleeping very strangely recently. You might find it hard to fall or stay asleep, feel unsafe at night or feel anxious or afraid of having nightmares and low self esteem. So trauma can affect the way you value and you perceive yourself. So that's what happens when you experience trauma. Oh, that could be what happens. Obviously everyone is different. So you having a something stuff is happening to your body, raise blood pressure, increase heart rate new stomach activity, being weird and also having all these things happening with your mental health. And so this could be, you know, a small trauma to you.

You could be in a place where you're like, yeah, cool, whatever. You know, it sucks. But we'll get over it and that's absolutely fine. You could be in a different place where you're like, Oh my God, this is, I can't cope with this. I'm on the edge of what I can cope with in life and this is just pushing me over. And that's absolutely normal as well. And because of that, the way that you relate to your body and to food of course, is going to be weird, is going to be different. And it's scary. And so we are in the thick of it right now. We're in the thick of it. So judging yourself on the way that you're responding and how you cope with this thing that has never happened before and our lifetime is not helpful. Judging yourself or the way that respond.

If you need to eat more food, if you need to have low food in your house, whatever it is, judging yourself, he's got the vibes of victim blaming, right to cope with this. If this means that you need to sleep all day, you need to hide you need to eat all the food or you don't eat anything that you deemed to be nutritious. You say fuck you to vegetables or whatever or you need to watch 37 hours of Netflix every day, then it's all good. It's all perfect. You are doing your best, you were doing your best. And then when things get back to normal and they will, this will pass things or change and it will get back to normal again. Then when you're in a better place, you can go back to, if you want to working your way up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, making sure that you have all the food.

And I can imagine what is going to happen is that when we are allow to go to the, to the store and to the supermarket, to the grocery store that we will buy loads of food, right? Well buy those are food because we need to feel secure that we have that food again. And so expect when things start to feel like they're relaxing a little bit and you can travel more freely and do all those things that you will need to make yourself feel, feel secure and you'll need to you know, go to all the stores and do all the stuff that you couldn't do before. And that includes buying more food. And so if you get to that place and you're like, what the hell is over? And I'm still buying loads of food and I'm still eating loads of food.

Well, yeah, you've just come out of something that is, that is traumatic. That could have caused you trauma and no shit that you need to heal, like, so be kind on yourself during this time because fuck is hard. It's really, really, really, really hard and to limit the potential harm that food insecurity could have on you. If we go back to what the what was it? The assistant professor in nutritional sciences at University of Michigan says that a big factor of food insecurity, the negative outcomes is is stress. What ways can you reduce your stress a big way might be eating their needs. What ways can you feel connected to your community? Because Cindy Young said feeling connected to your community and not feeling ashamed of where you are.

So doing things like, Oh, Hey, join my Facebook group, Fierce fatty friends. I'll link to it in the show notes. Get on Instagram. Find all your fat positive accounts, reach out to people, get into anything where there's online groups and online support things. There's so much of it at the moment. Like, for example, my therapist tomorrow has a COVID19 support group building resilience and connection in times of uncertainty. And so that's something that my therapist is putting on for free. I bet you you can find so many free things. Like I put on a free thing last week, which was last week's episode. So getting connected with people, realizing that so many people are in the exact same boat feel weird. Feel like there's maybe something wrong with them, with the way that relating to food there is not and reduce your stress as much as possible. Some things that for me that helped me is to recognize that why do I presumed that I'm going to be just as productive now than I was a few weeks ago?

Like, what's up with that? Why do I assume that everything is, you know, business as usual. Like I said in the last podcast, things for me as business as usual, as in business as usual. As in you know, I'm not having to work from home when I don't normally work from home, things like that. But business isn't usual because I'm being so much kinder to myself in regards to like I just don't feel like working today and because I have my own business, I can do that. But I think about when I used to have a real job, when I used to work in the corporate world. I remember when I first got to Vancouver in 2009 I think it was. Yeah, it was 2009 the Olympics were on and I had just started working in Vancouver. It was a winter Olympics, so I had just started working in July, so only a few months. And because the Olympics were in Vancouver, it was expected that it would be impossible to get downtown to work. And so we were told to work from home for two weeks. What I didn't know is that pretty much every other fucker in the office was not working. They were out going to the bars, enjoying olympics, having fun, having the best time of their life. Cause I was new, I didn't really know anyone. I didn't, you know, I was being the best I could be. Day in, day out. I was at home on my computer, which was like a big computer that I took from the office working, calling clients. I was in recruitment at the time and no one in Vancouver was fucking recruiting in during the Olympics. Everyone was out getting fest got having, it was the funnest time even when I was not, you know, when I decided I should not work evenings and weekends it was a fun time.

One of my most favorite moments from my whole life was during the Olympics in Vancouver when Canada won against, I think it was, no, it wasn't the USA cause, you were saying I'm not good at hockey is ice hockey. I might be wrong anyway. I don't think it was the USA. I know it. Canada won the gold medal and in the bar and it was so fucking good. Anyway, so now I'm able to look back on that time and be like, Victoria, what the fuck were you working so much? You were working eight till five, like taking exactly an hour for lunch, calling clients all day long and no one was already checking up on me. I wish I could go back to Victoria there and be like, bitch, like fucking Washington telly, go to the bar, don't you know, expect that it's going to be business as usual.

You're working from home. This is a different time. How many times in your life are you going to experience the Olympics in Vancouver. So now that I have that insight of I shouldn't have worked as much, even though I was trying to be good, you know, but everyone else in the office was dicking around and I only realized it when I got back and I was like, look at all the work that I did. And everyone in the office was like Oh we didn't expect you to actually work sort of thing. I was like, Oh shit. So your boss say if you're working, if your boss is probably skiving and dicking around too. And so why can't, why? You know, I don't want to get you fired or anything, but can you not Dick around a bit more? Can you not like, you know, watch some more Netflix and, and don't expect your output to be as high as it was when you weren't in a global pandemic, right?

Can you have some naps in the afternoon? What ways can you reduce your stress? Now me saying Dick around when you should be working, that might increase your stress, you know, you best. So but give yourself the permission to do things that are gonna make you feel good, whatever they are, and be kind and gentle yourself. And think of yourself as that younger version of you. Imagine younger version of you in a global pandemic and younger version of you is like, Oh, I'm not being as productive with my homework at the moment. You'd be like, ofcourse a really weird time. Don't be bad on yourself. So yeah, just try, be a bit kinder to yourself.

Okay, so I've got a couple of things. Is that a thing I wrote for this? I've got so many pages of notes for this one. Normally I have like when I'm doing an episode, Oh I do, I research before I do an episode and it's normally like a page and a half of notes, but this is like, I don't know, four or five pages of notes. So there's a lot in more. But a reminder, nothing ever stays the same and this too shall pass. Everything's always changing. So a couple of things to make you happy here. I've got a link for you. I found some free coloring pages, fat coloring pages. And so I'm going to link to that in the show notes. The show notes again is fiercefatty.com/024 or you can just click on wherever you are listening to this, there'll be a link to get there. So fatty coloring pages. And I also found this fat dance thing. So like a hip hop dance lesson. Now I want you to be thinking that because I'm telling you about, Hey, here's a dance thing that you need to be dancing because you need to exercise or whatever. But you know, for me, that type of stuff just makes me happy. So if that type of stuff makes you happy, then click on the link. If it's making you feel guilty or stressed out, do not click on the link. Do not have a dance party. Don't do it. Say whatever makes you feel good. So there's a link, Dottie Fans party, a Dottie Fans party, a fatty dance party. It's not really a dance party. It's like a hip hop lesson. But I'll link to it as well as well how I'm gonna link to this by Neuro Beats. There's this thing, I don't know if this is true or not, but I read it on a a facts page. Did you know that there's, this song is called by Neuro Beats something, which is just like a really relaxing like song like that. It doesn't have any, you know, tuned to it or whatever. But it's science. I say quote unquote science and it's probably a load of bullshit, but it's still a relaxing song. It shows that it is the most relaxing song in the world and reduces your heart rate and makes you feel good. So I have those when I'm working, a lot of times if I'm feeling stressed, I'll put on something like that in the background to make me feel less stressed. So I will link to that as well. This binaural beats thing, let me just write it in the show notes by Neuro Beats. Okay. cool.

So there we go. That's our show for today. I hope you enjoyed it. Keep those reviews coming in. The more reviews and more people will discover this stuff and this stuff is important, right? Because we want to make sure the world is a fat positive and not a big bunch of jugs. So yeah, hope you enjoyed this episode. Oh, what on for a bit today. I know I didn't, it's one hour on one minute. I was like one hour, 19 minutes because that's the seconds, but still. Okay. Well, just reminder, be kind to yourself. Don't expect so much. You're not a robot, you know, a robot. And I will see you in the next episode. Okay. Good bye. See you later.

EP23 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty podcast. This is your host, Victoria Welsby and welcome to episode 23. We've got a pretty special one for you today. We are covering COVID19 and we have special guests, Louise Green, Summer Innanen, and Dawn Serra, let's do it.

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

Hello. Hello. Hello. So last episode, I told you that I was going to do a Facebook Live COVID19 special and I did that two days ago, one day ago, two days ago, two days ago. So I am going to have it put into a lovely juicy little podcast episode here for you with a workbook resource, not work like a resource with the stuff that we talk about at the end, which is stuff that makes your brain happy. Some words of wisdom for you to tell yourself to get through if you're feeling pretty weird right now, which is yeah even when I'm feeling pretty weird. It's March 26 today when I'm recording this and in Ireland, the schools are shuts a couple of weeks ago, obviously everyone's social distancing. I only leave the house if I need to go get groceries or walk Dougal, go to the beach, that type of thing. And cause I live in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty good, pretty easy to not see anyone. So, but because as well, I work from home. Normally, it's pretty much business as usual for me, but it doesn't mean as business usual in my brain. And when this COVID19 started affecting Ireland and the way that we're going about things, my brain was like, no fucking way. I am not interested in this. I don't want to hear about it. It's really damaging my mental health.

So that was a couple of weeks ago and then I was like, no, I feel it's okay and I'm going to be a leader and talk about how we can work through this. And then other days I'm like, fuck this. Ah, I can't go which is totally normal as well. I've noticed, and you probably a lot of listeners will probably be the same, is that I've noticed that I need to eat more food currently. My body is responding to a perceived scarcity which is not the actual reality because we have lots of food. The stores might not have everything like I was going to make macaroni cheese and they didn't have macaroni pasta. They only had like these weird star shaped pasta. I had to make star shape pasta with cauliflower to bulk it up and cheese and it didn't taste good anyway. So you know, there might be things that I needed we need to substitute. And you know, in some areas you might not have access to food and as well to recognize some people might not have all the funds to access the food. Depending on your work situation and if your work is paying you the full amount. And you know, it's complicated, right? So because it's complicated and this is not anything that we've experienced before in our lifetimes we're going to have a reaction.


It's absolutely 100% normal. Even if you've never had a disordered relationship with food, even if you've never had an eating disorder. Obviously if you have had either, then it's going to be potentially more heightened. And so it's really important for you to eat the food, to not deny yourself, to not fall for these fucking bullshit fat phobic memes and shit going around the internet being like, Oh my God, I'm going to put on weight while I'm doing this Corona quarantining shit. Fucking, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. And it's really problematic. So, you know, alongside dealing with being social distancing and the world stopping, you're having to worry about not putting on weight. Fuck that noise. No, don't look at those messages. Don't listen to that. If you're worried about becoming fatter becoming fat or becoming fatter, please look after your mental health and surround yourself with only fat, positive messages.


So if you see anyone sharing anything like quarantine 15, mute them, snooze them, block them. Protect your mental health. Try and avoid that stuff as much as possible. And I know sometimes, I've noticed that people who are on my friends on Facebook normally they would be reasonable and they're sharing normal thing, but now they're like, Oh my God, have you put a cucumber up your bum and then breathe in for 10 seconds. You're not going to get COVID 19. And I'm like, what? So what now, I thought you were cool but your ass is getting snoozed for 30 days until you sit in the corner and think about what you've been doing. Yeah. So as well, if possible, taking yourself off social media because there's so much noise going on and because everyone is, you know, everyone, a lot of people are not working or working from home. So they're on social media and they're scared and they're set sharing stuff which is not based in reality.


And this is all the stuff that we are talking about in this episode with some people like Louise green. And so these people are my Vancouver friends. I was like, who can I rustle together real quick? I know people who are my friends who are obliged to take stuff with me. They're not. They're just you know, they're just nice and yeah. So I'm gonna go in and cut in. And so that's the episode starts right in where they're introducing themselves and, we get into some juicy stuff. So just so you know what's coming is we talk about risk factors. So there's the shit going around the internet saying if you're fat, you're going to die from COVID19 and you're a higher risk and you should lose weight so you don't get COVID19 and you should drink silver and you won't get COVID19.


So me and some talk about that and how to counteract those messages and those lies. Next, I talk with Dawn who is an amazing sex therapist. And she talks a lot about pleasure and I talk to Dawn about how we can find moments of pleasure when we don't necessarily have access to the things that we normally do to make our brains happy. You know, going out to see your friends or going to the movies or get a massage or whatever it is. And if you're worried about finances, how is it you can, the things that you can do so you don't have to like spend money on fancy shit. And understanding how we can connect to our bodies next. With the Louise, I talk about the guilt that we have about moving our bodies and you know how everyone is suddenly like, Oh my God, am I going to become like a platties, I'm going to do yoga and I'm going to just do a marathon every day and everyone thinks that you should be working out 27 hours a day because your self isolating and also to be super productive.


And also if you have kids fucking homeschool them and also make this delicious dinner which is filled with nutrients every night. Like, fuck, Oh my God. And you're dealing with a global pandemic. So yeah, just be a perfect human being. Change your personality and your lifestyle overnight and become an athlete. And we talk about that stuff. And then I go into setting boundaries with people who are talking about this pandemic in negative ways. Of course it's a negative thing, but you know, when people are like, Oh my God, ha ha, we're going to die. And you know, your great aunt Gertrude is sending a WhatsApp message. You know, about how Oh my God, just fucking bullshit. Like, Oh, if you take an aspirin, you won't get Corona if you do this and who do that.


You know, all of these these things which are not based in truth. So how to set boundaries with those. And also I talk about the positives that we can take away the positives in regards to anti diet fat positivity. So the positives around that. And finally we talk about the things that make our brain happy. Some, some words of wisdom and all that type of stuff, which is in the download. So you don't have to quit. You write it down and be like, Oh, Louise said to watch this. And know some, I said this I've got it all in a download for you. So check out the show notes to get that download then learn absolutely free. It's good. It's good stuff in there. Dawn shared a video about Guinea Pig Olympics and she even sang Guinea Pig Olympics and olympics, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's fucking stuck in my head. It was two days ago that I saw that.


So enjoy this special episode. Let me know if it was helpful and if you did find it helpful and you feel obliged or you feel obliged, do you feel you feel like, ah, yeah, that's the right word. You feel like you want to, then why not write a review and bonus points, send me a screenshot of the review before you submit it and I'll give you my book Fierce Fatty in audio and digital version for free. Oh my gosh. So much good content. All of the juicy stuff. So yeah, check it out and I will see you on the next episode of the Fierce Fatty Podcast. Good bye!


So welcome to our Fat-Positive, Anti-Diet COVID-19 Resilience Online get together hosted by me, Victoria Welsby from Fierce Fatty. And we have guests. Let us introduce everyone. So let's start with Louise seems you're at the top. So Louise, tell us who you are and how you feel and how have you been feeling with this pandemic and how are you feeling around your body and with food and all that type of juicy stuff.


Well I'm in my car right now of downtown Vancouver dealing with an emergency, but I'm Louise Green and really mostly known for the Brand Big Fit Girl and the book that I wrote, Big Fit Girl, which is making fitness accessible to all body sizes and you know, delivering content in a way that's palatable for people. And I live in Vancouver and I'm a personal trainer by trade, but really have become a body positive advocate through the work that I do, just because the fitness industry is so intertwined with messages that don't resonate with a lot of people and it's very tied to diet culture. I would say that I go through bouts of real optimism during this time, but at the same time I go through bouts of you know, I'm recently separated. It's not really that recent, but it's still raw for me. And so it's like, you know, there's not real, like I'm going to be alone. And you know, but then it's like, no, you're not because there's this kind of connective way to get together with people and I'm still working at home. I still, you know, have my son, there's, you know, there's still ways to connect. Whether when they say it's going to be months, it's like, don't, don't, don't like, I feel like this real like loneliness and kind of scared. Like, how are am I going to make enough money and you know, will my business survive and am I going to be able to reach everybody that I want to help with their journey through these times? And you know, but that's very intertwined with optimism. I think that Canada is doing a phenomenal job. Our government, frontline workers. I think that we're doing a phenomenal job at doing what we need to do to get it under control mostly. So that's me.


Amazing. Good. Good bit. Great. Thank you for sharing. Dawn, let's go to you, clockwise. Yeah. Tell us about you, how you doing, how you feeling about that?


Yeah, absolutely. So, hi everyone. My name is Dawn Serra, I am a sex and relationship coach. I have a weekly podcast called Sex Gets Real. My annual conference is coming up in a couple of weeks, explore more summit. And so I do a lot of work around to pleasure and Bobby's and connection. I'm also a certified body trust provider through be nourished. So I spend a lot of time thinking about bodies and how we do or don't inhabit them. Pleasure and the ways that we relate with each other. And as for how I'm doing, it's like a mixed bag. I've had more conversations with people that I love in the past couple of weeks that I've had in a really long time. There's all of a sudden, you know, many more phone calls and Zoom calls and FaceTimes happening. So that feels actually really nice and sweet. And I work from home most of the time. So being here is pretty normal for me. I don't feel super agitated by it just because, you know, this kind of what we do all day. Every day is you know, business owners working from home. But that said, there is kind of this like anxiety and tenseness that keeps creeping up, especially as I just see so many other people in distress and, you know, just really thinking about who's being most impacted and the grief that comes with that. So it's definitely a heightened more intense time. But overall, like my needs are being met and I'm really excited to just be in conversation with all of you today. That feels like a gift.


So, Summer, you. Let's go with you next.


Hi. Thanks for having me. So I'm Summer Innanen and I'm a professionally trained coach that specializes in body image and self worth and confidence. And I work with people all around the world to help them break free of societal expectations and live the life free of diet culture. Not really completely free cause we still have to exist in it, but you know what I mean? And I host the podcast, Rebel Radio and how I've been feeling is it really vacillates between like really kind of feeling fearful and panicked, especially when I think about the individuals I know and those that are really being significantly impacted by this. Like those people whose businesses who have brick and mortar businesses that have just been taken away, those people who've been laid off in all the different industries, which I have several friends that are in those positions. And I feel really fearful for the big picture when I think about it. But then I vacillate between being like, okay, everything's going to be okay today. And I have a one and a half year old, so I'm quite distracted a lot of the time. Like he brings a lot of joy. He has no idea what's going on and that's really great to distract me from from this. But yeah, I think it kinda goes back and forth. I would've never described myself as being an anxious person, but I certainly have felt quite a bit of anxiety around everything that's going on. And I feel for the extroverts cause I'm an introvert, my life really hasn't changed that much with being socially distanced. I'm sad to say I'm actually probably talking to more people than I'm used to. But I feel bad for those that are really, you know, have an upheaval in their lives by having social distancing. I think that's it. That can be a big change for people and a lot of feelings about isolation and loneliness can come up.


You're actually talking to more people now than you have normally. So I felt the same because that's me as well talking to more people, but normal because normally I'm working from home. So you know, self isolation is pretty much business as usual for me. So, Summer let's talk to you about body and food. So tell me, we've have all of these fucking stupid means going about the internet being like, Oh my God, I'm going to get so fat when I am self isolating all this bullshit. And saying that if you are fat, then you're more likely to get COVID19 Coronavirus. So talk to me about that. Is it true? Is it are you more likely to get the virus if you have a bigger body? Yeah, let's start with that one.


You know, it's unfortunate because if you Google that, there's actually several articles that indicate that being a risk factor. However, it was Christie Harrison, so it wasn't me who did this, but it was Christie Harrison who was the awesome Food Psych Podcast. And who wrote the great book anti diet. So plug for her for doing this, but she actually searched pub med and there's no studies that show and I'm gonna use the O word like obesity being a risk factor for COVID19, whereas there are quite a few studies that show things like, or cardiovascular disease or other things like that. So I think we have to focus on what we do know. We do know that every, everybody can get this, that this virus like, there's no individual that's immune to it. Then people have this, people of all sizes can get this. We also know there's like, there's no longterm form of weight loss that's effective for the majority of individuals. So, even if this is a risk factor, it kind of becomes a bit of a moot point because we don't have an effective form of weight loss that we could prescribe for individuals that we know is actually gonna work in the longterm. And what we also know is that weight cycling, so going on a diet and then coming off the diet and having your weight go up and down because that's what happens when we go on a diet is also detrimental to our health and overall wellbeing. And the other thing we also know is that weight stigma. So those memes going around about you know, that are fat phobic are not good for people's wellbeing. And weight stigma does have a huge impact on health.


We know that social factors in general have a huge impact on health. So those individuals without access to adequate and fair healthcare, which you know, we know happens with weight discrimination and other social oppressions, you know, those that face discrimination, they're going to be harder hit by this because of because of that. And so I think we have to focus on the things that we actually have facts around. And those are the things that, there are studies, there is actual information out there about that. And so with all that being said, you know, having the memes and having people say that it's a risk factor is actually going to be a lot more detrimental to individual's overall health. And stress in general has a huge impact on our overall health. So like even kind of thinking, Oh, I should be restricting my food or stressing about it are not going to be helpful. So the more that we can, you know, kind of shut out those things down or block ourselves from those things, the better that we're going to be overall. And just know that there isn't any actual research that is making that relationship valid at this point in time. You know, the best thing that we can do is social distancing and washing our hands, not touching our face and eating like just eating like a grown ass out all, not restricting your food.


Yeah, absolutely. And so amazing points. I'm not in my head. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. What about we are seeing a ton of things saying like essential oils and drunk drinking silver and eating certain berries and supplements means that your less likely to get Corona virus. Is there any truth in that?


So again, like I don't, I mean I haven't extensively researched all of those statements and I think that, you know, people are associating like immunity, like things that boost immunity with helping to prevent it, which, but like if there's, if there's no valid studies then you know, we don't know and I don't think there's been enough testing cause it is so new and here's my take on it. Like if you like that and you're into it, like go, go for it. Like if you want to, you know, buy that stuff and do it if it makes you happy like have at it. But if you think that it's something you should do that it's going to protect you, likely not is my answer to that. You know, save your pennies for things that are going to be better for your overall wellbeing and mental health. But if it is truly something that you want to be like down to clown with, go for it. But otherwise you know, I don't think that there's any kind of validity to a lot of that stuff. It's just, and a lot of it is really laced with diet culture and fat phobia as well, which really again, is just contributing to the problem.


Yeah. And some of these things like the silver one, there's some sort of silver substance and it's actually super harmful. And so if there's anything that you're seeing on the internet that says, you know, rub salt into your eyes and anything like that, then maybe have a quick Google before you do it because you know, you might die. Who knows. So what about the way that we are feeling around food at the moment? Because I know me personally having feelings, like I need to eat more richer foods and feeling like I need more food in the house in general at normal behavior for everyone to be feeling like that.


Yeah. I mean like, you know, we're wired to kind of respond to scarcity and I think, you know, that can come from two things. Like I think we're wired to respond that way because of the, you know, just from our evolution but also then from diet culture. So I think a lot of us that were exposed to dieting as kids or even just like any kind of actual food scarcity have that kind of built into us to think like, okay, if there's not enough of something, then I need to kind of have enough of it, you know, I need to stock up on it cause it's going to run out. And so there's a lot of influences that drive us to be that way at this in this moment. And I would see it as kind of like almost more protective. So instead of getting mad at yourself or thinking that you should be different, like you can sort of almost be really compassionate towards yourself and say like, Oh wow, thank you body and mind for really looking after me here and I'm going to be okay. And I know that's a hard statement to make. Like I'm going to be okay because I think that a lot of people are facing financial instability and legitimate fears about food scarcity.


And so, you know, we have to then like really be mindful of the fact that that could be a real fear for some individuals. At the same time, there's a lot of people that food is still going to be for the most part, fairly abundant. I dunno where it's like where everyone else is, but there's still a lot of food available in stores. You know, certain shelves are cleared out. Yes. But there's still a lot of food. And so to answer your question just quite simply as like totally normal and I think if we can be compassionate and see it as like a protective thing that our minds are doing for us and our bodies are doing for us, then we can be in a better position to ride it out and to have that scarcity mindset be calmed and to go away, you know, to really just kind of comfort the part of you that's feeling fearful and scared right now. And then the other reason why I think that's really coming up is that fixating on food, fixating on our bodies is often a coping mechanism. So whenever our life is feeling really out of control or uncertain, which like, yes, we're all feeling really sort of out of control and uncertain right now, it feels like something we can control.


It gives us a sense of control. And so I think that a lot of people are responding to that by having the diet mentality being triggered which can then trigger that scarcity mindset and cause you to sort of want to eat more than you were eating previously or to eat more richer foods and things like that. And again, I think it's just like, thank you body for trying to protect to me. But let's try to like really just be mindful of true feeling and look their way to address our feelings instead of thinking that diet is going to fix it. Cause we know that that is certainly not going to fix it at all.


And is it okay for people to seek comfort from food at this time to eat more than normal to change their eating habits because they feel a desire to, for whatever reason?


Hell, yeah is like, I had you know, a burger with onion rings and fries on Friday and I was like, this is my one pleasure of the week. Like I was like, this is like the most pleasurable moment I've had all week. And I was totally okay with it. I think we have to give ourselves permission to kind of cope any way that we can. And food is an okay way to do that. Like there's nothing wrong with doing that. I think that the more that we can kind of lean into it, give ourselves permission more that we'll be able to then look at other ways to cope as well. And so instead of saying like, Oh, I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't be turning to food to comfort myself, let's maybe look at it this way and think like, okay, I'm going to turn to food for comfort and I'm going to see what else I can do for comfort.


So maybe that's like I'm going to call my friend or I'm going to try and just go outside to get some fresh air today. Like whatever else can can give you a bit of comfort in your life. So we don't have to say like, I need to stop emotionally eating. Like the more that we say that to ourselves, the more we're going to do it. So try to give yourself permission to do it and look for other ways to also manage your emotions. But you know what, like what we're going through right now, if that is giving you pleasure and Dawn, obviously pleasure is like your jam. So I'm sure you'll talk about that more. But it's totally just lean into it. It's okay and you know, it's okay anytime. It's not just pandemic thing. It's okay actually if that's what you need to do. I'm really all about just trying to give yourself permission cause the more that we deny ourselves, the more that we feel shame about it and the more that we then do it, which because the more that we're then kind of having that mental restriction happening and shame it feeds the sort of day feeds the diet mentality.

So eat the food, don't feel guilty about it and be kind to yourself.

Yeah. It really can be that simple.

Really ate the food, eat the food. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm going to come back to you in a little bit, but let's chat to Dawn. Now, Dawn, I want to talk to you about how as a part of self care finding how we can find small moments of pleasure and you know, is it possible during this time to be able to have those small moments of pleasure?

I would say pleasure is essential during times like this particularly, but always and I think pleasure is something that's really foreign to a lot of us. Something we feel like we have to earn. And so also when we are maybe self isolating maybe where you aren't working, you know, that can really bump up against some of our worthiness stuff and whether or not we deserve to feel good and to center our pleasure. So there are so many opportunities for us to really find these small little moments of pleasure. And I think one of the big challenges we have is a lot of the stories that we have around pleasure is that it looks a very specific way. It tends to be a pretty prescriptive story that we get from culture about, you know, pleasure being really decadent things, expensive things, things that take a lot of time. And what I'm really interested in is moments that just increase our sense of a lifeness that deepen our connection either to ourselves, our bodies or each other that feel like they give us just a little bit more choice or joy. And so I'm thinking about things like food, things that engage with our senses. They're so important, especially right now when maybe we don't have access to go out and do some of the things that might really, you know, kind of scratch that pleasure itch. So some of the things that I like to help people do is really start with simple senses. So what are some smells that just really give you that sense of like, Oh man, I love that smell. Maybe it's, you know, making a casserole that reminds you of something that you had when you were a kid or a flowers that you really like, or the smell of your kitties fur, or whatever it is.

Some type of smell, finding those things, finding textures that bring you pleasure. Maybe you have a super like cozy, thick blanket that you really like or maybe you have like a really, really scratchy body glove and you wait. You love the way that that feels on your skin when you're in the shower or a really luxurious lotion or even getting your hands into like some bread dough and really playing with those textures. So there's so many ways, you know, music and sounds, the sound of a loved one, laughing. Certainly flavors and really allowing ourselves to just be with those things. And it can be a couple of seconds, but I think the invitation is can I just arrive and be with this for just a moment and really allow it to feel good before I move into all of the other things. And when we start really deliberately looking for small moments of pleasure throughout a day, we start finding all kinds of things, which is just another way to keep arriving, checking with our body, being with ourselves. So it can be a really powerful way for us to kind of move out of some of the anxiety cycle and the kind of future thinking and to instead just be here while I eat this crunchy chip or be here while I listened to those birds outside my window or you know, stand outside and feel the sun or the rain on my skin. Things like that can be such an amazing gift. Yeah.

Yeah. It's making me think. I was doing this earlier and I didn't realize I went for a walk to the beach with my dog and I sat down and I like breathing. I do like a hundred breaths and as I was doing the hundred breaths, every breath I stroked the top of my dog's head. And I was like, Oh, it's so soft and lovely. And at the end I was just like, Oh, I feel so relaxed and lovely. And I had never thought about doing the breath with touching something so soft and lovely. So there you go, connecting two and two there. So, what ways can we recognize that we are feeling either disconnected from our bodies or we're feeling particularly stressed out. What signs can we look for?

I think some of the things that we'll start to notice is we've kind of been floating heads for awhile. Maybe we didn't notice that we had to use the restroom until really, really late in the game. Or maybe we didn't notice we were hungry until like, we were just famished if we don't notice cues until we're kind of at like crisis stage ligo. I've only got a couple of minutes before I become extremely hungry. Those are signs that maybe we're disconnecting from ourselves and those can be really, really wise ways to cope and to survive. So by no means is the expectation that we're present and embodied all of the time. It's very hard to be in a body. But when we start noticing we haven't moved our body in a little while that can be an opportunity for us to just like what his body needs. You know, what would feel good? Maybe it's just a really simple stretch. Maybe it's standing up and just walking across the room for a moment. Maybe I could really use something that's warm. So am I not noticing my body's needs? Also, another good question is what do I want and, or what does my body want? And if we find the answers really difficult for us to find which is really normal, a lot of us have no idea what we want and we're really scared of that question. That's also a really good indicator that we have an opportunity to listen more, to ask our bodies to move in the direction of our longings, to validate our longings in our hungers. And to really start establishing a little bit of a connection with what on my plate looks, the yummiest, like if I were to start with the thing that looks the best. So doing really simple little questions like that move us in the direction of starting to hear a little bit more and to hear with a little bit more nuance. And then the more we practice that the more information becomes available to us.

Amazing. I love it. I love it. I love it. And I love the way that it's so accessible. Especially with the pleasure thing, you can just wear your sat or you don't need anything fancy. You don't need to spend money. You can engage in something that's filled with pleasure for you. And that's wonderful. That's really awesome to hear. So thank you, Dawn. I'm going to come back to you in a moment. Let's go to Louise and Louise, let's talk about seeing as you are the plus size personal trainer. And we have been getting all of these messages that we need to be working out for 75,000 hours a day and now's the time to, you know, do all of these gym routines and, you know, start all these new practices. Do we have to do that?

No, no you do not. I really enjoyed what Dawn just said and unfortunately I can't hear Summer so she always has great things to say. But if exercising wasn't pleasurable before COVID19 you know, the burpee or the plank routine or whatever you're seeing in your social media feeds, it's probably not going to be pleasurable now. And it will create that negative experience associated with movement. And that's exactly what we don't want is we want people to, if they have the desire to move. And when I think when we talk about fitness and movement, there's idealism around it as there is with the beauty and you know, size. There is fitness idealism which often looks like very lean and ripped individuals doing CrossFit or running and really fitness or movement can be very pleasurable and not look like those things at all. So, for example, in the groups that I coach, you know, I hear of all things that people are doing, like DAP, just dancing in their living room or you know, doing Tai Chi or doing different things that is moving the body that connects them to having a positive experience with movement. Because I think so many of us have had, we as soon as somebody says, do you want to go for a hike or do you want to do this burpee challenge or whatever thing that's being pushed on you, there's this immediate switch that goes on that is like, no, I don't, I don't. You know, there's this, like the brakes are on because we've had such negative experiences related to movement. And what I tried to do with women is, or anyone really is switch that experience and create a new experience for you if you desire to move. I mean, I think movement of, of all ranges is, makes us feel good for the most part. So I'm a real advocate for movement. I know for me and my mental health, and I'm also in recovery. It's a very essential part of, of who I am. And I just want to make it accessible for people to really reestablish what it means to move.

Yeah. And someone said in the comments and I know that this is the way you see it as well. Renaming it from exercise to joyful movement. And from what I'm hearing you say is that if you want to move, then that's cool, but then if you don't and it's not a part of who you are as a person, then that's cool too. Right?

I mean, if it wasn't a part of your life before we were, you know, under this new stay at home kind of situation, then I don't understand why it's being pushed to be a part of your life now. So I mean, if that is something that somebody is like, yes, I'm at home and I've got more time and I do want to start to explore these things. Well your social media feed is probably full of ways in which you can do that, but want people to identify exactly. Like Dawn was saying, what really speaks to them, and I mean it is a little limited right now, but we get to define what joyful movement means to us. Or what fitness, whatever words you want to use with it. But then we can throw away the idealism of, you know, this is what fit looks like. This is what fitness is. This is what movement looks like. Because a lot of us have had experiences, you know, I've heard horrific things dating back to elementary school that are burned into people's psyche that they do not want to associate with fitness or movement of that type because they've been either shamed by motivation or they've been leaned on way too hard in, in their capabilities. You know, a lot of us grew up in, well, I'm assuming I grew up in the 80s, I'll speak for myself and it was a real like no pain, no gain time of history where, you know, we're sort of moving away from that, but exercises still presented in a very intense and hardcore way.

So what I'm hearing you say is that it could be potentially harmful to your mental health to guilt yourself into trying this new routine or whatever it is.

Well also I find that a lot of routines out there are really intense. So it, Oh, you know, it could be harmful for your mental health and creating that, you know, re-establishing that negative experience, which we're trying to move away from. But also for injury purposes and doing too much too fast and all of those things where we walk away from an experience feeling like a failure. So we're trying to, if you have the desire to move, it's again finding what really brings you joy and movement and also what really sets you up for success. Because when you can walk away from a movement experience and say, you know what, that was really great and I feel successful, it then switches that relationship with your mind and movement. This is actually something I enjoy and I feel successful. I don't feel like, you know, a failure, which is what a lot of our industry sets people up to feel like is we have kind of like this narrow thinking and we present fitness in a way or movement in a way that is for certain people. So we're really exclusionary to what it could mean for a range of people.

Amazing, amazing advice there. What about your a parent, right? And so I don't encounter all the schools out at the moment. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I'm in Ireland where I am at the moment. All the schools are out. So you also have this pressure to now homeschool or be this incredible teacher to your son and all of this other stuff too. So, let's talk about that pressure there to be the best professor ever. Is that possible?

Well, right now I like, technically the kids are still on spring break, so I'm kind of like, ah, it's spring break. But I also don't want to put a lot of pressure on my son right now because I think it's very scary and unknown times for kids. So he is really getting a lot of leeway just to do what he wants to do. In yesterday he moved about the house and he got all the pillows and he built a Fort and he sat in his Fort and we watched Fast and Furious because, you know, not my favorite pickup movie, but that's what he wanted to watch. We're like baking cookies and you know, making meals and just chilling in the house. And once in a while we'd go outside, we dribble the basketball and we come back in and it's really just free play right now. Because I don't want him to feel pressure. I don't want to feel the pressure right now and I don't want him to feel the pressure. And I think what all I heard all of you saying on this call is that it's that you're connecting more during this time. And I'm feeling that too. Like right now, maybe the lesson is for us to connect and to not do like, you know, there's this real pressure to be doing things all the time. And maybe the lesson here is just to not, so I don't feel like he's not learning anything. I think that the world is teaching us a lesson right now and we're just taking it in stride and just going with that.

Absolutely. One of the comments here is, I'm sorry, I can't see the authors of the comment, I just see it says Facebook user, but someone said it's been advised that parents shouldn't be trying to recreate curriculums because it can mess with how kids are actually being taught. So that's interesting. And just like you say, connecting and using this, it's like a really unique experience. I mean, how often is this going to happen? And a little while where children are not learning in a structured manner that they would be at school. Is it going to mean that their education is going to be a failure for the rest of their lives? Like, Hmm. Probably, probably not. Yeah. Yeah. So amazing. Thank you. Louise. I'm going to come back to you in just a moment. So I wanted to talk about, I've got a question before about boundaries and I know everyone on the call loves boundaries a lot. I love a bit of boundary setting because we have a lot of information coming at us. And as we know we've got all of this, I don't know about you, but I've had Whatsapp messages from one of my uncles that went to my mom that went to me, that went to my sister's and went to probably a thousand other people that said, Oh, if you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, then your lungs aren't damaged, therefore you don't have coronavirus. If you gargle salt water and vinegar, then you're not going to get the virus and drink orange juice and you won't get the virus and all of this stuff. And it's actually not true. And I have found that, look at it, this stuff to begin with. I like read something about gargling water. And I was like, is that true? And started Googling it and being like, no, this is actually not, not true. And so for me, only trusting sources like the Irish government because I'm in Ireland at the moment or the British government I don't know about America if you would trust the American government website who knows. Actually, yeah, don't trust what Donald Trump is saying. Actually I heard, I read today that in a news conference, I think it was yesterday or a couple of days ago, Donald Trump said that there was a medicine that the FDA had approved and they hadn't approved it. And so two people went out and took the medicine, two older people and one of them died. Because president Trump had said that it's approved by the FDA. And the FDA was like, no, it's not approved. Don't take it. But yeah, so maybe not the American government but the stuff that we were seeing circulated is not reliable.

It can hurt our physical health and mental health. Hence, why it is important to set boundaries and in general life. Anyways, it's wonderful and juicy to set boundaries. And so some word tracks for you for setting boundaries. And I have had to set a good few boundaries to protect my own mental health during this time because I have found that watching too much news, consuming too much content while I'm online around the coronavirus has negatively impacted my mental health. So here are some word tracks for you and you can learn more about boundaries in one of my podcast episodes is episode six actually. So if you go to fiercefatty.com/006, How to Deal with Dieting Friends in that I talk all about boundaries. And so if you want to know more about the process of setting boundaries and then check that out.

So one thing that you could say is I'm finding that hearing too much news around this pandemic negatively affects my mental health. Can you let me know if you're going to turn the news on so that I can leave the room or put headphones in? So that's one idea. Another way that you could say I'm setting a boundary is please do not share articles about the pandemic unless they are from the government or XYZ website. Because people are trying to be helpful, right? They're not trying to make you feel awful. And so if you put in a boundary about where the sources are from, then that might be helpful. And another way that you can say is, can you not talk to me about the Corona virus unless it's something really serious that you want to discuss.

And so come up with a plan about how, what you're going to do if your boundary is crossed and it's, we're kind of in special circumstances because you might be self quarantined, self isolated depending where you are in the world and be having to spend time with people that you might not necessarily always spend time with. And so your options are a little bit limited in regards to being able to leave the house or, or go somewhere else. But giving yourself the permission to go into a different room to put headphones in to protect yourself. And it's okay not to want to hear news about. So for more on boundaries, go to that podcast episode fiercefatty.com/006. There's also a download with it, which goes into deep how to set boundaries, what to do and all that type of jazz. It's called How to Deal with Dieting Friends.

And the next thing that I wanted to touch on is the positive side of COVID19 in regards to fat positivity and anti diet. So here are a few things I came up with in regards to some positives that we can take from this because I love hearing positive news. It makes me feel like there will be an end in sight. So I want to share some fat, positive anti diet stuff. So because this is a global thing, its a pandemic, we know that this can be traumatizing. So because of that, if weird things are happening in regards to the way that you're viewing your body or the way that you are connecting with food then you will be more likely to be able to connect the two and say, okay, I have less self esteem at the moment. It's probably because we're in a global pandemic and things are really strange at the moment. So as an example for this, I was able to recognize it, one time in my life when my dad had died suddenly a couple of, a few years back and I'd gone to the UK for his funeral. And while I was there, I got gastroenteritis. And so I was super, super sick. And when I came back to Canada, I looked in the mirror and I noticed I had lost weight and I had this thought, this automatic thought of, Oh, the boys are gonna like you now. And I was like, what the heck? Where did that come from? And I recognize that because I had just gone through this trauma physically and, you know, emotionally and in my body as well. It was to be expected, but my mind would start coming up with things like this. And so be prepared that your minds, your body might be experiencing something new. You're also able to really dial into what self care is for you and those moments of pleasure that Dawn mentioned and really get to a place where you are getting pleasure from things that aren't based on the external, which is beautiful because we can use these at any time in the future moving forward. If you're inclined to do so, you might have more time to learn about fat positivity and anti diet and get stuck into some of those juicy books that you might have in your Amazon wishlist or your orderable wishlist or whatever. You will also potentially have more time for creative thought and getting clear on what you want from life. So some something like this can really make us look at our own mortality and think, you know, what do I really want from life?

What is really good in my life and what things might I want to change? And so that's a wonderful opportunity for that. You also might have more time in your pajamas, which is a great way to feel comfortable in your body that you might not get to experience on a day to day basis. Cause you might be going to work and having to wear clothes and we don't want to wear clothes. You can just walk around naked in your house. It'd be amazing. And you're going to have more time to focus on not focus on what your body looks like to the outside world. Because if your social distancing or self isolating, no one's going to be seeing you. And so you can, you know, not wear makeup and you know, do whatever and not do the things that you normally do in your day to day life and just, you know, hang around the house naked.

Also you can become more confident that in the future you can survive these difficult, unexpected times and have a better idea about how to cope if the shit hits the fan again. So once we overcome this, say in 10 years time or something else comes around, we were like, yeah, whatever. We've, we've done this already. No big deal. We know how to, we know how to cope individually. And also there are so many free online events with this type of content out there. And so you're probably gonna get to hang out with more people online that than you ever have before. So there are my positives for, you know, this, this pandemic who would have thought that'd be positive for a pandemic. But I want to go around and get some more positives in regards to the things that make our guests feel great. So let's start with Summer because someone a person to talk. So Summer, give me one favorite way that you like to relax and distress.

It's very limited because I have a toddler. But I will say that when we can get outside to a green space, which I'm really lucky, there's like woods and a beach near me. And I'm very adamant about staying away from people, which I normally am, but even more so now. No. So anytime I'm kind of in nature, I think is, is like when I actually feel really detached. Like that's when, and maybe it's because I'm away from the electronics and everything like that. But that the one thing that's kind of feeding me at the moment.

Amazing. Now give me three pieces of media. So it could be books, podcasts, shows that make your brain feel happy.

Well, right now I like, technically the kids are still on spring break, so I'm kind of like, ah, it's spring break. But I also don't want to put a lot of pressure on my son right now because I think it's very scary and unknown times for kids. So he is really getting a lot of leeway just to do what he wants to do. In yesterday he moved about the house and he got all the pillows and he built a Fort and he sat in his Fort and we watched Fast and Furious because, you know, not my favorite pickup movie, but that's what he wanted to watch. We're like baking cookies and you know, making meals and just chilling in the house. And once in a while we'd go outside, we dribble the basketball and we come back in and it's really just free play right now. Because I don't want him to feel pressure. I don't want to feel the pressure right now and I don't want him to feel the pressure. And I think what all I heard all of you saying on this call is that it's that you're connecting more during this time. And I'm feeling that too. Like right now, maybe the lesson is for us to connect and to not do like, you know, there's this real pressure to be doing things all the time. And maybe the lesson here is just to not, so I don't feel like he's not learning anything. I think that the world is teaching us a lesson right now and we're just taking it in stride and just going with that.

Absolutely. One of the comments here is, I'm sorry, I can't see the authors of the comment, I just see it says Facebook user, but someone said it's been advised that parents shouldn't be trying to recreate curriculums because it can mess with how kids are actually being taught. So that's interesting. And just like you say, connecting and using this, it's like a really unique experience. I mean, how often is this going to happen? And a little while where children are not learning in a structured manner that they would be at school. Is it going to mean that their education is going to be a failure for the rest of their lives? Like, Hmm. Probably, probably not. Yeah. Yeah. So amazing. Thank you. Louise. I'm going to come back to you in just a moment. So I wanted to talk about, I've got a question before about boundaries and I know everyone on the call loves boundaries a lot. I love a bit of boundary setting because we have a lot of information coming at us. And as we know we've got all of this, I don't know about you, but I've had Whatsapp messages from one of my uncles that went to my mom that went to me, that went to my sister's and went to probably a thousand other people that said, Oh, if you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, then your lungs aren't damaged, therefore you don't have coronavirus. If you gargle salt water and vinegar, then you're not going to get the virus and drink orange juice and you won't get the virus and all of this stuff. And it's actually not true. And I have found that, look at it, this stuff to begin with. I like read something about gargling water. And I was like, is that true? And started Googling it and being like, no, this is actually not, not true. And so for me, only trusting sources like the Irish government because I'm in Ireland at the moment or the British government I don't know about America if you would trust the American government website who knows. Actually, yeah, don't trust what Donald Trump is saying. Actually I heard, I read today that in a news conference, I think it was yesterday or a couple of days ago, Donald Trump said that there was a medicine that the FDA had approved and they hadn't approved it. And so two people went out and took the medicine, two older people and one of them died. Because president Trump had said that it's approved by the FDA. And the FDA was like, no, it's not approved. Don't take it. But yeah, so maybe not the American government but the stuff that we were seeing circulated is not reliable.

It can hurt our physical health and mental health. Hence, why it is important to set boundaries and in general life. Anyways, it's wonderful and juicy to set boundaries. And so some word tracks for you for setting boundaries. And I have had to set a good few boundaries to protect my own mental health during this time because I have found that watching too much news, consuming too much content while I'm online around the coronavirus has negatively impacted my mental health. So here are some word tracks for you and you can learn more about boundaries in one of my podcast episodes is episode six actually. So if you go to fiercefatty.com/006, How to Deal with Dieting Friends in that I talk all about boundaries. And so if you want to know more about the process of setting boundaries and then check that out.

So one thing that you could say is I'm finding that hearing too much news around this pandemic negatively affects my mental health. Can you let me know if you're going to turn the news on so that I can leave the room or put headphones in? So that's one idea. Another way that you could say I'm setting a boundary is please do not share articles about the pandemic unless they are from the government or XYZ website. Because people are trying to be helpful, right? They're not trying to make you feel awful. And so if you put in a boundary about where the sources are from, then that might be helpful. And another way that you can say is, can you not talk to me about the Corona virus unless it's something really serious that you want to discuss.

And so come up with a plan about how, what you're going to do if your boundary is crossed and it's, we're kind of in special circumstances because you might be self quarantined, self isolated depending where you are in the world and be having to spend time with people that you might not necessarily always spend time with. And so your options are a little bit limited in regards to being able to leave the house or, or go somewhere else. But giving yourself the permission to go into a different room to put headphones in to protect yourself. And it's okay not to want to hear news about. So for more on boundaries, go to that podcast episode fiercefatty.com/006. There's also a download with it, which goes into deep how to set boundaries, what to do and all that type of jazz. It's called How to Deal with Dieting Friends.

(52:22)
And the next thing that I wanted to touch on is the positive side of COVID19 in regards to fat positivity and anti diet. So here are a few things I came up with in regards to some positives that we can take from this because I love hearing positive news. It makes me feel like there will be an end in sight. So I want to share some fat, positive anti diet stuff. So because this is a global thing, its a pandemic, we know that this can be traumatizing. So because of that, if weird things are happening in regards to the way that you're viewing your body or the way that you are connecting with food then you will be more likely to be able to connect the two and say, okay, I have less self esteem at the moment. It's probably because we're in a global pandemic and things are really strange at the moment. So as an example for this, I was able to recognize it, one time in my life when my dad had died suddenly a couple of, a few years back and I'd gone to the UK for his funeral. And while I was there, I got gastroenteritis. And so I was super, super sick. And when I came back to Canada, I looked in the mirror and I noticed I had lost weight and I had this thought, this automatic thought of, Oh, the boys are gonna like you now. And I was like, what the heck? Where did that come from? And I recognize that because I had just gone through this trauma physically and, you know, emotionally and in my body as well. It was to be expected, but my mind would start coming up with things like this. And so be prepared that your minds, your body might be experiencing something new. You're also able to really dial into what self care is for you and those moments of pleasure that Dawn mentioned and really get to a place where you are getting pleasure from things that aren't based on the external, which is beautiful because we can use these at any time in the future moving forward. If you're inclined to do so, you might have more time to learn about fat positivity and anti diet and get stuck into some of those juicy books that you might have in your Amazon wishlist or your orderable wishlist or whatever. You will also potentially have more time for creative thought and getting clear on what you want from life. So some something like this can really make us look at our own mortality and think, you know, what do I really want from life?

Speaker 3: (55:25)
What is really good in my life and what things might I want to change? And so that's a wonderful opportunity for that. You also might have more time in your pajamas, which is a great way to feel comfortable in your body that you might not get to experience on a day to day basis. Cause you might be going to work and having to wear clothes and we don't want to wear clothes. You can just walk around naked in your house. It'd be amazing. And you're going to have more time to focus on not focus on what your body looks like to the outside world. Because if your social distancing or self isolating, no one's going to be seeing you. And so you can, you know, not wear makeup and you know, do whatever and not do the things that you normally do in your day to day life and just, you know, hang around the house naked.

Speaker 3: (56:14)
Also you can become more confident that in the future you can survive these difficult, unexpected times and have a better idea about how to cope if the shit hits the fan again. So once we overcome this, say in 10 years time or something else comes around, we were like, yeah, whatever. We've, we've done this already. No big deal. We know how to, we know how to cope individually. And also there are so many free online events with this type of content out there. And so you're probably gonna get to hang out with more people online that than you ever have before. So there are my positives for, you know, this, this pandemic who would have thought that'd be positive for a pandemic. But I want to go around and get some more positives in regards to the things that make our guests feel great. So let's start with Summer because someone a person to talk. So Summer, give me one favorite way that you like to relax and destress.

Summer: (57:27)
It's very limited because I have a toddler. But I will say that when we can get outside to a green space, which I'm really lucky, there's like woods and a beach near me. And I'm very adamant about staying away from people, which I normally am, but even more so now. No. So anytime I'm kind of in nature, I think is, is like when I actually feel really detached. Like that's when, and maybe it's because I'm away from the electronics and everything like that. But that the one thing that's kind of feeding me at the moment.

Victoria: (58:06)
Amazing. Now give me three pieces of media. So it could be books, podcasts, shows that make your brain feel happy.

So I have really been into like retro things lately. So I've been working my way through the original Beverly Hills and I don't have to one again. I started that when my dad died suddenly a few months ago and I haven't stopped. And now it seems even more relevant cause it's just complete ridiculous escapism. I've been listening to a lot of like retro soundtracks on Spotify, so lots of like eighties music cause I grew up in the 80s as well. And just kind of reminds me of the simpler times. And then I'm also reading the Jessica Simpson memoir, which is really funny cause I was never like a big Jessica Simpson fan. But again, it's like pure escapism. It's just takes me back to the nineties and just reminds me of like reality TV at that time and things like that. So it's stuff that's like completely frivolous that is really helping to distract me. And I also love to follow the page, the man who has it all, cause that's just the satire on there is hilarious and always makes me laugh.

Oh, the man who has it all. I need to write this down.

You don't know that page?

No, what is it?

It's like a satire page where that's kind of like, sorry, say that again.

It's Endless Misandry, like instead of misogyny, it's just all, yeah.

Yeah. For example, today they posted husbands, what are you doing during this quarantine. Baking, coming up with new skincare routines, building quarantine lesson plans, share what you're doing. And then everyone comments with like further satire, you know,

New red love. It's right up your alley. I know.

I'm going to find it amazing. And by the way, everyone listening I've asked the, the answers to these questions beforehand and this one wasn't one of the answers, but I'm going to add it and I have got a download for you with everything that everyone is going to share. So you can go and click on the man who has it all and Jessica Simpson's book and all that type of jazz. So don't be worrying about not having access to them, but if someone's interesting, so people might be like, Oh my God, I'm a massive Jessica Simpson fan. Who knows? So next question is, what would future you tell current you that would make you feel reassured?

I think it would just be that you're gonna be stronger and more resilient for the things that you experienced during this time and these lessons are going to help you for the rest of your life, which is kind of what you alluded to as being one of the positive things earlier.

Amazing. And where can people find you and you get involved with what you're doing?

Yeah, so the easiest way to find me is at thebodyimagecoach.com and not redirects you to my website. summerinnanen.com and yeah, I've got a free workshop coming up in a couple of weeks. It's a Body Acceptance Master Class, which is going to be talking about how to feel more comfortable in your body and making it relevant to everything that we're going through now as well.

Amazing. And again, I'm going to link to that workshop in the download. I'm going to put the download straight into the Facebook group after the call. So thank you Summer. You are a superstar. Let's go to Dawn. Now, Dawn, what is one favorite way for you to relax and distress?

We are really big on play here in this household. And so a big part of just like managing day to day stress and bigger stress and anxiety are making up spontaneous games. So from pillow fights and throwing dry your balls at each other to indoor frisky and making up secret handshakes or even the other day my husband said, let's go to Paris. And then we stepped out onto our balcony and pretended we are in Paris and what we were seeing. So anything that brings an element of silliness and kind of like mirth and just really being in the moment for just a couple seconds is a really crucial part of my mental health management.

I love it. Are you still in like Abbotsford area?

We're out in Portmoody.

Okay. So when I get back to Vancouver, I'm coming around your house and we're gonna play something and someone says, I love the sound of that household. Yes, me too. I'm going round. I'm just inviting myself. So tell me three pieces of media that makes your brain happy.

Yeah. So I love the Netflix show Sex Education as a sex educator. It's one of the only like pop culture experiences I've had where they get so much right and so nuanced. So that is definitely a big joy. I also love the podcast Grownups read things they wrote as kids. So if you have not heard that podcast, you are in for a treat. It is amazing. And then just to go with our silliness theme, there is a song that we sing in this house embarrassingly frequently called Guinea pig Olympics. I apologize if your children hear this song because it will become the song that never ends. But anytime we need a laugh that goes on and you know, for 30 seconds we're singing about Guinea pigs at the Olympics

And there's a video that goes along with it. But I was like, Oh man, this is amazing. I love it. Oh my gosh. Hey Dawn, did you know in Vancouver? They, you know, that podcast. There is a show that's kind of like that podcast. I'm not listening to that podcast. I'm presuming this is what it is, where people read stories from their diaries from when they were kids and it's fucking hilarious. Yes. You knew about it already. You're like, Oh, I knew about the local. It's a show about it.

Yeah. And the podcast tours all over Canada. So they are constantly recording all over the country. They come to Vancouver and Victoria at least once a year. Yeah.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay. So what would your future self tell your current self to make you feel more reassured?

The two things that come to mind are to trust myself. Like I have a lot of lived experience and resilience and wisdom in this body. So trust myself and to just really listen to my body and to believe the things that it's asking for and wanting and sharing all of those things that bring me closer to a liveliness. So it really just boils down to like, trust yourself. You've got this, you've got support, you're resilient. You've been through hard things before and to just really believe it but I do have it.

Yes, yes we do. We do. Dawn, you had a request to sing the Guinea pig song. Oh no.
Guinea Pig Olympics (Guinea Pig).
Marvel at the blur of their tiny feet.
Guinea Pig Olympics (Guinea Pig)

The world's greatest guinea pig athletes

Yeah, that was very, I was like, I recognize this tune. Amazing. So people obviously want to find you and follow you and listen to your podcast and all that juicy stuff. So tell us where they can do that. Yes.

So everything lives at dawnserra.com. Serra is spelled S E R R A. My podcast is there. I publish weekly and then I've got a big, huge free online conference that's happening April 20th to the 29th. You can go to explore more summit.com to see the lineup, the schedule to grab your free ticket. It's about three hour long conversations a day for 10 days. And the theme this year is around pleasure healing from trauma, body trust and deepening into our relationships.

Amazing. We had a question. Are you on Instagram? Yes. You are?

Yeah. dawn_serra.

Great. All of these links. Reminder, all of these links are going to be in the download, which I'm going to put straight into the group and I'm going to email it to you so you can follow everyone and get all the recommendations. Thank you. Dawn, you were a superstar and thank you for that. So impromptu sing along. I love it. Let's go to you. So Louise, what is your number one way that you'd like to relax to the max?


Well, I like to light candles around my house and listen to the chill lounge on galaxy and just kick back and relax. But another way that I distress is through movement. So right now that movement is kind of with play with my son. So we'll have like tickle fights and basketball games out in the backyard where we played 21. We're just shooting hoops and just, it's not really about, you know, getting a good sweat on. It's more about just moving and having fun and keeping it light.

Amazing, amazing. So three pieces of media that's makes you feel happy.

So I really delving into female driven documentaries that are related to movement. I just find them so inspiring and uplifting and usually these documentaries are people overcoming some really adversity and experiencing like a big triumph at the end, which is what I'm really hoping is happening for us right now is that we can work through, like we can see our resiliency and I think in these films you can really see the human resiliency and the triumph. So the three top documentaries that I've watched lately that I just love are Maiden, which is about the first British female yacht team that went around the world. And in the big race that leaves from self port learning to skateboard in a war zone. I don't know if anyone has seen that. It's an incredible documentary about young girls learning to skateboard in Afghanistan. And the other one I love is Kim Swims and that is again, another woman that does open water swimming that does the longest distance in the open water without a wetsuit and just really like, they just defy what you think is possible in maze. And I just find it so motivating and inspiring.

Yeah, I like those types of documentaries too. And then when we know that they're not all like, and they're losing weight they're becoming less fat.

They're losing weight.

Yeah. When did you, when did you wash them? Louise?

So I've watched some of them on Netflix. The Learning to Skateboard in a War Zone. It just won an Oscar. So it's not as readily available, but I think it's on craves and it's on, it was on AME. I don't know if anyone has time. I don't.

Okay. And I crave is a Canadian thing. So sorry if you're not Canadian. I don't think. Thanks Louise for nothing. Jesus. So I've, I'll link to all of those. I've got all the trailers for that so you can find them. So what is one thing that your future self would tell your current self to make you feel reassured?

I think this too shall pass is kind of a phrase I love to say and love to live by like human beings variants, some incredible hardships and times throughout history where, you know, you just don't think they're going to make it and we rise above and come through. And I think that our spirit is incredibly strong and I know that I'm personally very resilient and I know that this is going to pass. And I think you know, all the positives that you were mentioning earlier, we're gonna come out different people I think, and I think it's not going to be all negative. I think it's going to really be a time for people to reevaluate.

Yes. And so where can people find you?

People can find me. I think the best place to find me as on the Instagram and it's louisegreen_ bigfitgirl. And that is where I post most of my content. And we also have a link there for 30 days free to my fitness app. Again, it's for everyone where you have a lot of chair movement, standing movement, chair assisted movement. So if people are wanting to move this isn't one of those pushing on you 30 day challenges, it's just a peruse through and do what you like. And if you don't like, that's up to you. That's fine. But there really is something in there for everyone of all mobility types and intensities and different equipment and time ranges. So that's in my Instagram link as well.

Amazing. And it's linked in the document to the download. So people can to get that free for 30 days? 30 days. Yeah. So perfect. Hey, I'm going to share my thing. I'm a jinx. My answers to these. My favorite way to relax and distress is go for a walk on the beach with Dougal, my dog, and listening to the latest episode of All Killer,No Filler which is a podcast about serial killers, not a serial killer. Yeah, not scary at all. So three pieces of media that I like is I'm making myself sound really fucking disgusting. But Dr. Pimple Popper on YouTube which is exactly what it sounds like, it's a adopter popping impulse is very relaxing. Even she says when she's doing it that people watch her YouTube channel to fall asleep to, and I do too, cause it's really relaxing and I like it. I relax singing. And so I like singing along to musical hits, like from the Blues Brothers, Shake a Tail Feather, which is also you can dance to too. And there's a dance routine. And also on Instagram if you want some like happy dance inspiration, don't take coli. I don't know if you know this guy, but he just dances where he's like pushing hearts into the air and saying you can do it and things like that and you're just like, thank you. I can do it. I appreciate it.

So, and I think everyone knows who I am and where to find it because you're here. So I'm just going to check if we, we're going to wrap up. If there's any questions, I think we answered the questions that I saw coming through with as we went along. Someone says three pieces of media that they like, Fern cotton books, happy and calm and quiet. I think how happy calm and quiet is a book called. And yeah, if anyone wants to share their reading the in the comments, go ahead, check out the Facebook group for the link to that. Someone has said, I really needed to hear from all of you today. Thank you so much. Someone else said, thank you so much for this webinar. It's really helpful. And someone said Louise's app is great. Yay Louise. And I say you three are amazing. I'm so pleased that you live in Vancouver and Dawn, I'm coming around your house. Well everyone on coming out to your house and this is coming around your house when I get back.

Thank you for being here. I so appreciate it. Thank you. The viewers for being here and engaging and being amazing. That's it. That's it. Thank you. Have an incredible rest of the day. Everybody.

EP22 Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Fierce Fatty podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby and this is episode 22 and we're going to be talking about how you've been brainwashed into hating your body and how to deprogram yourself. Let's do it.

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

Okay, so welcome. OMG. How are you feeling? Oh Lord, sweet, baby Jesus. Yeah. Corona virus, COVID19. It's all going down, isn't it? It's March the 18th today when I'm recording this podcast and this morning I reached out to a few of my Vancouver right fatties because what we're going to do to support everyone with the intuitive eating, their fat positivity, their body loving and reduce anxiety is next week. So the week beginning, I think the 22nd is it? Yeah, 23rd Monday, the 23rd, sometime in that week. I haven't let you haven't picked the time yet. I am going to do a Facebook live where we are going to be talking about all of this stuff. The fact that people are feeling really food insecure, the fact that people are being triggered into feeling like they need to be exercising and feeling shit about their bodies and feeling just super anxiety, which is 1000000000% normal. I am going to do a free training for that. I haven't decided when yet, so I can't tell you. But anyway, by the time you listen to this podcast, it's probably would have happened. But I'm gonna put a link below for you to either sign up for it or to watch the replay. I'm going to have some special guests with me, so it's not just going to be me. And then if you don't catch it, I'm probably going to turn it into a podcast episode. So you can just check out maybe episode 23 or 24. It will probably be a podcast episode. So if you want to learn more about how to cope with the sky falling down, which is what it feels like right now then look out for that.

So I personally, I'm in rural Ireland and I work from home, so there's not really that much of a change to my daily routine because I work from home and I'll be going around the local areas in regards to like walking, Dougal, my dog, go into the local beaches. There's lots of beaches around here and there's hardly any people. So I'm lucky in that respect. It's pretty much a business as usual but I, myself personally, last, last week, last Monday or Tuesday when it was all kicking off, I was just like, I can't cope with this. Just turn off everything. Don't mention anything to me about the corona virus don't. I don't want to read anything or I want to see anything. I am just not interested. I am definitely not going to be talking about it, but now a week later I've kind of, my brain has changed a bit and I feel a bit more relaxed about it which is good. But if you're not, then that's fine. It's understandable. But just FYI, you can rely upon me, your fierce fatty to continue with a weekly podcast and maybe the Corona special Facebook live one is going to be quicker than a week. Who knows?

Reminder, go and leave a review for the podcast. Would you please, would you please thank y'all. If you're listening, you can just leave five star review. Really simply just click the star thing and if you want to write something, even if it's just she is sexy or whatever, obviously that's all you use it, right. Then just write a little review if you could that would make my day and as a thank you, send me a screenshot of your review before you submit it because it goes into a black hole of the internet and never to be seen again for any way for awhile. And send me a screenshot and I will send you an audio and digital copy of my best selling book, Fierce Fatty and something I didn't know which is someone knowing, and it's the same for Amazon because people leave reviews for my book on Amazon is that every iTunes account, and I'm not sure for Spotify or Stitcher, but every iTunes account is regional specific. Did you know this? And so I was like, I'm getting all these reviews. Like people emailing me their reviews, like loads of them and, but then it wasn't showing up on actual iTunes and I was like, what the heck? Like where are these going? Why is it taking months for these things to appear? And it's because I was looking on the Canadian iTunes, which is the country that my iTunes is on. And these reviews are from all over the world. So the US and the UK and all over. So now I've got this technology, I can't remember. It's called podcast review, I think it's called podcast review, pay like five bucks for it. And once a week it just sends me the reviews that I've got through. And so I can see them anyway. So yeah. Hey for technology, but Oh, I wish the iTunes would just lump all reviews together, right? Wouldn't that be helpful? Wouldn't it? And with Amazon too, like every market is different, have different reviews that you get.

So anyway, let's talk about what we're here to talk about today, which is the idea that you, my glorious fierce fatty, have been brainwashed into hating your body and how to deprogram yourself. That's me making a noise of a robots. Did you like it? So the way that you feel about your body, about yourself, about food, about everything has not come from a vacuum. It's been informed by the world. So if you were to have been born on a desert Ireland, I always say if you're on a desert Ireland, but if you happened to have been born on a desert Ireland and you had no interaction with other people, you would not have the same thoughts and feelings about yourself or your perceived attractiveness or what you should be eating or all that type of stuff.

It's society, our society that has made you think that your body is good or bad or you know, what you eat is good and bad or any type of belief. And why this is important is because your perceived attractiveness is correlated with your perceived worthiness. And so that's something else that we have been taught by society, that the more attractive you are in the highest society, the more worthy you are, which is obviously we can all say hello, "ding ding ding". I hear some bullshit going off there. I smell some bullshit. So as a society we have decided what is generally considered attractive or not. But the thing is, it is not a fact that something is or isn't attractive. You know, the saying, " The beauty is in the eye of the beholder". But as a society we have these general rules of, you know, fat is bad, but there's gonna always be subsets of people who don't adhere to that message and can see attractiveness in all different types of people.

And, we all do, right? We're all not, we all have different types of people that we're attracted to, but genuinely on a whole society has this idea that fat is not attractive, that you should be in certain foods. And that your body should be a certain way. But individually we can blame bullshit, but it's still very hard to move away from what society is saying. So it's not a fact that you, your body who you are as a person is bad or an attractive. And what, or what a fact is, is something that is 100% true. 100% of the time. So if we were to survey the world population, I say, I don't know, 7.5 billion, I think it is 8 billion, something like that. And they looked at your body, would every single 7.5 billion people say, Oh yeah, Oh God, that body is disgusting. Or would there be some people who say, Oh hello, ding ding ding, my dream person right there. Can I get their number? Of course they would people be like, Oh my God, ding ding ding, that is my dream person. But none of that matters because it doesn't matter if other people find you attractive. It literally has nothing to do with your value as a human being. You are inherently valuable no matter what. So even if 7.5, 8 billion people, every single one of them was like, Oh no, that is what an ugly person looks like. Doesn't matter because I'm your human being, therefore you are worthy. When I went to university, I studied illustration and I loved, I was really a really, really arty person. And then when I went to university, my love of producing art was really crushed with my low self esteem and the critiques of one certain professor who would just be like, this is just an embarrassment. How can you produce art like this? She was a real bitch. Anyways, when I left university after centering illustration. I was like, Oh my God, I'm so bad at it and I wish I go back to Victoria. Then it'd be like, no, you're not. Anyway. The reason why I'm telling you that is something that I learned that while at university is what is art? And you know, some people will go to an art gallery and they'll look and it'll be like you know, one splash of paint on a white background or just a white circle on off white background and become, people can say like, how is that art? And then someone else will come along and see that same image and be like, Holy fucking shit. That is genius. That is gorgeous. I must have it. And what makes something art, it doesn't matter if you like it.

What makes something art is that it is remarkable in such a way. So when I say remarkable that you remark upon it. That it has provides some type of feeling, whether it be good, bad indifference but if you don't even notice it, then is it art? And so art can be anything. It doesn't have to be a painting or a sculpture or anything like that. Art can be anything. And even if you think that your shit are like, I used to think that I was shit or illustration, but actually I had many years of skills behind me and what I was producing was still odd. Even if that art teacher was like, this isn't bad, this is not very good. I don't like this. There's, you should be doing this. It is still art. Because opinion on the goodness of the art doesn't matter.

It still makes it art. So, one genre of art that I love is the pre-raphaelites. They were around in the Victorian times and the pre-Raphaelite is formed because they were opposed to the British Royal Academy. And the British Royal Academy had a really narrow view on what they considered was art. And it had to be you know, a certain type of beauty that would be depicted and certain types of scenes. And then if not, they were very snobby and they would be like, no, you can't display that painting here. And the pre-Raphaelites are like, fuck this noise. We're going to paint some pretty cool shit. And now if you look at the paintings, you're like, well, they kind of look old fashioned and they don't really like edgy or anything, but they're so fucking cool. I love pre-raphaelites art work. My favorite is The Awakening Conscience. I'll put a link to it below so you can see it, but it's so full of symbolism and it's not necessarily the actual look of the painting, but what it represents. Look into what it means and it's all the symbolism in it. It's gorgeous. Anyway, so you might know pre-Raphaelite works like affilia. Like, have you ever seen that image where there's a woman floating in water or Jesus coming to this door, there'll be Jesus coming to a door. You might have seen it in memes and they'd be like, Jesus is knocking and it'd be using memes. But anyway, so you might be familiar with pre-Raphaelite.

Anyway so the British Royal Academy, we're like, pre-Raphaelite, pre-Raphaelite. We don't like them that are a shit. But it wasn't, they had decided that they didn't like it for whatever reason and they didn't class it as art. And that was an opinion. Now that was like the mainstream opinion about what art should be like in those times. And the pre-Raphaelites went against it and said, Hey, no, we have a different opinion. And so it wasn't actually a fact that that is what art was meant to be. And so deciding that fat is an attractive or you or an attractive or your body is not okay. It's like saying one type or style of art is better than the other. And promoting that one single type of art or image as the only image that is good or worthy, which is bananas, like think of the thousands of years of art and creation that we have and all of the different styles. And imagine if you were just like, no, pop art is the only art that is good art, that is what art should be. Pop art. That's the way to go. Why? No? Right? It's going to be like pop art. But you know, it's not the only type that is good or bad or whatever. Right? And so it's ridiculous to say that fat bodies are the only type of bodies that should be thin bodies. Are there any type of bodies that should be seen as attractive? Because it's just an opinion and we as a society have got confused. We are like the British Royal Academy when we said uhhmm sticking our noses up different types of art saying, no, that's not what's classed as real art. And so when we see bodies that looked different, marginalized bodies, and if we say, mm, no, that body is not right, you need to lose weight, you need to do this. We just be in snobby assholes. How it was that we don't want to be snobby assholes.

But obviously that's a very simplified version of what I'm talking about now. It's an opinion is what I'm getting at is it is opinion and we've decided as a society that thinness is better for whatever reason. And the thing is around so using art as an example to where you could say, well, pre-Raphaelite art is the best art ever because it's so realistic. It is so rich in color and rich in metaphor and it educates the viewer. Whereas modern art, let's say for example, Tracy Emin, British artist. Tracy Emin had a bed in a gallery with notches on the bedpost for how many lovers that she'd had. And all the newspapers went while being like, how dare she call this art? This is just nothing. And so some people were like, well, on the pre raphaelites took hundreds of hours to make this one painting and Tracy Emin just carved some notches into a bedpost.

And so there is a reason why people won't say, okay, pre-Raphaelite is better than Tracy Emin or modern art because there's reasons, but are those reasons valid? Not necessarily. And so there'd be reasons. For example, people say, well, fat people are unhealthy. Well, I'm fat. People genetically would be less likely to be picked as a mate for whatever reason. But also fat people genetically are the ones who survive famines, right? So you know, the reasons behind it, it doesn't really matter because it's all bullshit. Anyway. So another factor with this is consumerism and companies trying to sell us shit to fix our flawed bodies. So imagine, I've seen this quite a lot. Imagine how many multi billion dollar industries and multimillion dollar industries would be destroyed if one day we all woke up and said, you know what? I think my body's pretty fucking good.

I don't need to get that anti-aging cream or that, whatever it is, wrap that goes around my belly to make it smaller or diet plan or whatever it is. Multi-million and billion dollar industries would overnight just be like, Oh shit. And so it benefits companies to keep perpetuating the idea of what is beautiful and what you should look like. Because if you are in fear, then you will buy more shit. And it's okay. If you want to buy shit, that's fine. I'm not against you. You buying stuff like for example, even though I love myself, I still do things like wear lipstick just cause I love it or get my nails done. I love it. But underneath that like, but do I, what am I doing that if I lived on a desert island now. Now, I'm questioning myself. Right. but you know, I don't feel there's any negative behaviors, you know, or things happening in my brain around that I don't think. But I could I could be wrong.

So it benefits consumerism if we hate ourselves. And so to make sure that we keep buying stuff and to keep these companies afloat. Because it's very lucrative, they will make up things that you need to start worrying about. So here's a couple of examples. So cellulites. Cellulite is made up. Yes, like cellulite, it exists like as in, it's like on our bodies, but it didn't always used to be a thing. So I'm going to link this article by Kelsey Mille, and the title is cellulite isn't real. This is how it was invented. So here's an excerpt from that, so cellulite is not real. The end. Oh, was that not clear? And allow me to elludicate, there is such a thing as sub cutaneous fat and fibrous tissue beneath your skin that's real. And indeed on the majority of human bodies, there are areas on which skin appears deeply or bumpy that exists too and always has. But until relatively recently, there was no word to define it because it was not a thing. Half a century go. No, no one in this country had even heard of cellulite, let alone identified it as a problem to be gotten rid of today. We spent untold millions if not billions on anti-cellulite treatment despite the glaring lack of evidence that any of them work. Which makes perfect sense of course, because you cannot treat a condition that doesn't actually exist. But that's the end of the quote. I'll link to the full article cause it's very interesting and Kelsey Miller is a fat positive rockstar, the author of that. It makes sense like, okay, women are rising up, women are becoming more strong and standing up for themselves. And you know, if you read the article, this is what it's saying. And so what can we do to make those motherfuckers insecure to make them spend their money on shit that doesn't matter. Ah, okay. I want to make up a cellulite, Oh, you need to get rid of that. Oh dear. Oh no, no, no. And it's fucking bullshit. Like most people have cellulite. I remember after I'd lost loads of weight, like a dangerous amount of weight and saying to my friend, I don't have cellulite anymore. And you know, I was probably dying or something. And just being like so excited about that. It just so fucking didn't matter. Oh, my old Victoria was getting on current Victoria's tits.

So another one, another one is Listerine. Did you know, Listerine made up the idea of halitosis. They even, I think it was the son of the owner or the son-in-law of the owner was like, okay, let's medicalize people having bad breath. And they literally created this word halitosis, which I think like Greek for halitosis is like Greek for bad and then the breath. And so I'm gonna link to this article as well, but in this article from Smithsonian, it shows an ad from 1928 for Listerine and the ad reads, halitosis makes you unpopular. And then the image of the ad is a woman sitting on her own looking, kind of dejected and then a man dancing with this other woman. So the presumption is that he went up to her and said, would you like to dance or something? And then he was like, Oh bitch, your breath is nasty. Anyway. So the ad reads halitosis makes you unpopular no matter how charming you may be or how fond of you your friends are. You can not expect them to put up with halitosis forever. They may be nice to you, but it is an effort. Oh, Listerine. You had shade day. Oh my God, there's so many seeing those old ads are so funny. How like, they're just like, bitch, you nasty bitch. You're fucking ugly. You ain't gonna get no friends if you don't buy my product. You know? Have you seen those ads as well where they say, Oh, you're too skinny. And it's all about like, you need to plump up because the boys don't like skinny girls. And it wasn't plumping up to make them fat, but it was pumping up to give them like a bit of a hip and some curves or whatever. So, you know, now we can look back and be like, Oh my God, that's so funny that they would do that. And it's so blatant that Listerine would just straight up come after people and be like, your breath stinks.

You better lose Listerine. What is happening all the time now. Right? It's like you know, all of the new things and new products that are coming out. And it's making it seem abnormal for you to be in your human body in the way that you are naturally. And of course, if you want to engage in these things and get beauty procedures done and get buy into diets and all that, that's up to you. Right. but is it distracting you from rising up and is it hurting you by making you think that your body is not okay? Something that I've been toying with is the idea of eyelash extensions. And like, I'm like, Oh, I like the idea of it. Like, cause I can't, or I've never really done like false eyelashes. And I'm like, Oh, I like the idea of it. But like, I think I like the look of it. But why do I want to do that? Is it because I'm trying to increase my worth as a human? Is it because it will be fun for me to play around with it? Why do we expect women's eyelashes to be longer? Like what is going on there anyway? And so like anything like that and I'm like, what is going on? Is it me to be just playing around and having fun with my body? Or is it something else? And I haven't decided. Yeah. So maybe I'll get eyelash extensions and just see if I like it. But I've noticed like me considering eyelash extensions maybe I've looked at my eyelashes a few times and been like, well, those eyelashes are long enough. And how hurtful is that? I don't have an answer for that. Because you know, still something that's continuing and exploring. But it's distracting me in some way from stuff that might be more important and it might be important, like I might have fun doing it so I'm not ruling it out, but I'm just, you know, saying question these things.

So these messages of who we should be as human beings are presented to us in many different ways. A massive way is through the media, through TV, films, magazines, books, comics, Reddit threads, like they are everywhere and they are taught and then they are repeated by family and friends. And you've probably repeated these norms that they know the way that human body should look like. I know I have plenty of times in my life and they become seen as a fact. A fact that fat bodies are not good bodies are not as attractive as smaller bodies. We just take it as a fact. It's a given. It's everywhere. Obviously it's a fact, as much as it's a fact that the sun is going to rise tomorrow as a fact, as much as the sky is blue, right? But it's not a fact. It is a belief.

So let me read you a little excerpt from this, New York times article, which is talking about a study which was also cited in the beauty myth, which is a book by Naomi Wolf. And the beauty myth is there's loads of good stuff in here. It's quite dense. I dunno how I managed to read it. Maybe I'm ready on audio book or something. I don't know. Anyway, I read it. And I just remember this study now, their study is not perfect. It's this lots of floors around it, but it's just I want to illustrate something. So this is an excerpt from the York times article. I will link to it below as well. So here we go. The title of the article is Study Finds TV Alters Fiji Girls' View of Body. You've gained weight is a traditional compliment in Fiji, anthropologists say. This article was written 20 years ago by the way so there might be some things in there which have changed or you know, culturally have changed. Just FYI. Okay. So you've gained weight is a traditional compliment in Fiji, anthropologists say. In accordance with traditional culture in the South Pacific nation, dinner guests are expected to eat as much as possible. A robust, nicely rounded body is the norm for men and women. ''Skinny legs'' is a major insult. And ''going thin,'' the Fijian term for losing a noticeable amount of weight, is considered a worrisome condition. But all that may be changing, now that Heather Locklear has arrived. That gives away the day or the, luckily I'm like, who is she?

Just a few years after the introduction of television to a province of Fiji's main island, Viti Levu, eating disorders -- once virtually unheard of there -- are on the rise among girls, according to a study presented yesterday at the American Psychiatric Association meetings in Washington. Young girls dream of looking not like their mothers and aunts, but like the slender stars of ''Melrose Place'' and ''Beverly Hills 90210. I'm very heavy,'' one Fijian adolescent lamented during an interview with researchers led by Dr. Anne E. Becker, director of research at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center of Harvard Medical School, who investigated shifts in body image and eating practices in Fiji over a three-year period. The Fijian girl said her friends also tell her that she is too fat, ''and sometimes I'm depressed because I always want to lose weight.

Epidemiological studies have shown that eating disorders are more prevalent in industrialized countries, suggesting that cultural factors play a role. But few studies have examined the effects of long-term cultural shifts on disordered eating in traditional societies. Dr. Becker and her colleagues surveyed 63 Fijian secondary school girls, whose average age was 17. The work began in 1995, one month after satellites began beaming television signals to the region. In 1998, the researchers surveyed another group of 65 girls from the same schools, who were matched in age, weight and other characteristics with the subjects in the earlier group. Fifteen percent in the 1998 survey reported that they had induced vomiting to control their weight, the researchers said, compared with 3 percent in the 1995 survey. And 29 percent scored highly on a test of eating-disorder risk, compared with 13 percent three years before. Girls who said they watched television three or more nights a week in the 1998 survey were 50 percent more likely to describe themselves as ''too big or fat'' and 30 percent more likely to diet than girls who watched television less frequently. Before 1995, Dr. Becker said, there was little talk of dieting in Fiji. ''The idea of calories was very foreign to them.'' But in the 1998 survey, 69 percent said that at some time they had been on a diet. In fact, preliminary data suggest more teen-age girls in Fiji diet than their American counterparts. So, I'll linked the whole article below, the New York times article.

So I know we're not talking about eating disorders here but the power of the media. So I wanted to share that as an illustration to show the power of the media and the power of these messages that you need to be thin, white, young, able-bodied and all of these other things that we've decided we need to be as humans. So media informs us and those messages are then ingrained in our brains as fact, they are shared through conversations through our own heads. You know, our own minds telling us that this is fact and it just becomes cemented in our brains. So according to e-marketer in 2019, we spend on average 12 hours and nine minutes a day consuming media. And so the average adult is awake for 15 hours and 39 minutes meaning I did the math, look at me, I'm so smart. 60% of our days consumed with our day is used by consuming media. I love consuming media. So this is no knock on how much media we consume. Like fucking, I'm like, if I need to do wee, I bring my phone and bring it to do a poo or definitely bring my phone brushing my teeth. I'm watching some and getting ready in the morning or let's do a podcast like falling asleep. I'll listening to a podcast. So no shit on the amount of media that we consume. But what is the media that you are consuming? Is the media you're consuming supporting fat positivity or is it supporting that fat bodies are bad and it doesn't have to be aggressively fat phobic? It can just be a show with lots of straight sized people that is informing you what a body should be like even if the straight sized people are like, Oh, we love fat people. You're still being conditioned to know what a body should look like. So again, media is telling us what we should look like and you know, it's not as simple as it's just the media. Lots of different things are going on at play here. But the media and what we're consuming and what's going into our brains is such a massive part of it. And it's presenting the idea that fat is bad. And I'm presenting it as a fact. And remember a fact is something that's 100% true 100% of the time when in fact the idea that fat is bad is a belief.

So let's look at beliefs. What makes up a belief? Your belief, any belief that you have is different for everyone. And so I like to think up. Think of beliefs in our brain as each belief is like a suitcase. And inside each belief suitcase we have different things that make up that belief. So if you believe that being fat is bad and you open, that suitcase is probably going to be chock-a-block filled with that time that your mom said that you would look better and of you were thin, that show you watch with a kid where they'll make in front of the fat person. That news article that you read, that interaction with your partner when you were a teenager and they said you, your belly was too big. It's going to be filled with loads or different incidences and evidence to support that belief. Now, if you currently believe that your body is not good or fat is bad or fat isn't healthy, or whatever it is that you believe you have got this suitcase that's living in your brain filled with different things to support that belief, evidence, the evidence might be very faulty, but it's still filled. And your suitcase, which is the belief, you're lugging it around with you and it's not serving you and what is in what is exactly inside there. I don't know. I can't tell you what's in your suitcase because it's your personal experience, right? And everyone's suitcase is different for fat is bad if you even have that suitcase and everyone has all these different ideas and beliefs, which all have evidence, something in the suitcase to go behind him now. So you can have a belief, which is not really that deep. Like

So let's just make up a belief. If you eat grass, then it'll make your hair turn green. And so you just saw this on a scientific article written. If you eat grass, your hair will turn green. Now that belief, the suitcase of that belief is properly just filled with that one article, that one scientific thing. And so if someone else comes along and they offer you some counter evidence, it will be really easy to take that one article out and say, Oh, actually you're looking at this. I can see this is totally bogus. I no longer believe that eating grass is going to make my hair green. But when it comes to believing that fat bodies are okay, or your body is okay, you're open that suitcase and it's going to be like fucking Pandora's box in there. And so you do something like, listen to this podcast or look at some fat bodies on the internet and it's just making a tiny dent on that suitcase because it's just absolutely filled with shit. So you need to go into that suitcase and you need to know what is in there. You might not know exactly, but you can be a detective and go through each item in there. Some things are going to stand out and some things are going to be in there hidden for a long time. And then something is going to make them reveal them to you. After years of working on this stuff. So my suitcase of you know, the belief that fat is bad I think is pretty much empty. But something could happen. For example, a global pandemic something, trauma of ticket happen where it reveals another belief that I have a fat phobic belief that I have and I'm like, Oh shit, that suitcase wasn't actually empty after all.

Let's look at this belief. Is it true? Do I want to keep it in the suitcase? Don't want to throw it out. Do I want to add something to my other suitcase, which is my body is okay and another suitcase, my fat bodies are okay. Do I want to add more evidence there? So that's what you need to do is you need to get another suitcase, which is my body is okay or fat bodies are okay, whatever it is. And you need to start filling that up. The more you fill that up with evidence, with information, with images, with good juicy fierce fatty stuff, the more you'll be taking out of that fat negative suitcase. And it might take years to go through their suitcase. It might be really hard, like there might be some things in there which will be light as a feather to remove. And there might be other things, which is like one of those, you know, in old cartoons, like the thousand pound weight thing. That's a ton. Is it? Is it 10,000 pounds? I don't know. Let's say it's a time. And it would take years to shift it and you might only be able to be pull it you know, one little inch and go. But that is what I like to see beliefs as like, you just don't believe something just because you know it, there's evidence supporting it, right. And if the evidence is flimsy, is easy to change your mind, but because you are constantly being told that it's not okay to be fat, it's a constant battle with keep trying to get that suitcase empty and it constantly being filled up again. So if you're spending 12 hours a day consuming media, I want you to be very, very, very critical about what you are viewing.

And the way to know if something is good or bad for you is to understand how you feel during and after and even before. So for example, there's this TV show in the UK called Love Island. What it is, is loads of conventionally attractive people go to an Island anyway. They're people, you know, mostly people and thin women walking around bikinis and they pair off together and it's on every single night for six weeks in the UK over the summer, I think. And the UK go bananas for it and you know, they love it. And so during the summer in, I was in the UK for a little bit. People were like, Oh God, Love Island's on, come and see it. And so I was like, well, theoretically I think this is going to be bad for me. So already I was like, this is going to be bad because I kind of knew the premise that well, there was lots of traditionally attractive people in the show. And so I sat down to watch it and for about, I sat for maybe 10 minutes and I was like, Nope, that's it done. And nothing had happened, but they weren't like, yo, fuck people suck. Nothing like that happened. Just the presence of all of those traditionally attractive bodies, which are not a true representation of the human body, the human population as a whole. So if it was, they'd be fat people on there, they'd be all sorts of different types of people on there. And that would be good to see because then you'd see fat people falling in love and fat people having fun and you know, fat people as people. And so I didn't watch it again and it kinda stuck in my mind for a couple of days after that. And I was a little bit critical because it was summer and I was in the bikini and a little bit critical of my body when I say a little bit, like a very slow cause I need to watch it for a few minutes.

But I had noticed that it had an effect and I knew I would love that show, you know, like as a guilty pleasure. I know I would love it and I would love being able to talk to other people and be like, Oh my God. Did you see what Beth did? Oh my gosh, she got drunk and then stepped off that guy. I would love that shit. I would love it. But I have to draw a line and sacrifice the entertainment of it because I know it all affect my mental health. So do you have guilty pleasures. Then, maybe cut them out? Do you have things like you'll start to notice things that are just they seem okay on the surface. Like someone's sharing nice recipes, but they might just be a little bit of judgment in there and you'll start to notice, okay, yeah, that's not good for me.

So how does what you're consuming make you feel? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel like, yes, fuck yeah, I want to go out and be my fucking fabulous self. Whatever that is. Or does it make you want to hide and not be yourself and you know, be sad, then you need to get rid of that show. So, so basically in a nutshell, you've been brainwashed with millions upon millions of messages that you've received through out your whole life from the moment that you had could have a conversation from the moment you could understand other humans, you have been told what you should look like and what is good and what is bad that will continue throughout your life. We cannot stop those messages accidentally seeping into our brains. But what you need to do is you need to go on the aggressive and reprogram your brain so that you are getting all of those positive messages in there. It is crucial. So if you have in the last year had a million messages saying that fat is bad, you need to get 1,000,001 messages in your brain that says it's okay to be fat for you to have an effect. And so you have to take action. You can't just hope that, you know, you'll just one day wake up and decide, Oh my body's okay without actually doing anything. You have to protect yourself. You have to put your mental health first to have an effect on how you're feeling about your fat body.

So, I'm talking about podcasts. My thing that I want to share with you today is the podcasts that I am really loving and honestly talking about podcasts, talking about media talking about media. I fall asleep every single night listening to a podcast. I wish that I had the desire to fall asleep listening to like, I don't know, positive affirmations or you know calm music or things like that. But what really calms me is like murder podcasts and what is it like crime, podcasts and things like that. So here are some of my favorite currently. So if you're that type of person, make sure you listen to these. So these are less crimes, these are more mystery things. So my first one is Swindled. And so it's all about different con artists. And the person who hosts it is left-leaning. So, yay. If you look at the reviews for Swindled obviously there's the person doing the podcast. It's an anonymous host didn't state their political views. And then maybe halfway through people listening to it, he started saying things that aligned him with being a liberal and the reviews, like from Trump supporters, they're like, Oh, this guy is so political and we'll, we'll, we'll, he's ruined it with his political bullshit. And I was like, Oh, what is this political bullshit? And I was like, Oh yeah, he's liberal. So yay. The next one I like, I've just started this one, but I'm really enjoying it from the BBC and it's called The Missing Crypto Queen. So there's this woman, this is the synopsis who started arrival to the bitcoin and it's called the one coin. And she basically, it was basically a pyramid scheme and she just took all the money and ran and millions and millions of dollars and people are still don't know what's going on. And so you learn about that. That's just the synopsis. And so this, this podcast series is looking into that next one. I like Con Artists, same kind of thing I'm willing to call is you know, different scam Swindlers throughout the time. The Score; Bank Robber Diaries So The Score; Bank Robber Diaries is this guy who went to prison for robbing loads of banks. He is now a reformed criminal. He goes through very detailed about how he would rob banks, what he would do with the money how he got caught, the experience. All of that experiences, how we then turned his life around. A really interesting one thing he says in it, he's a very charismatic guy. One thing he says is that money, so he would steal loads of money obviously, and he'd hide it under his bed and he says that money stinks of shit. Like big piles of money. Smells like shit. Cause he was sat in his bed and he was like, what the fuck is that smell? And he realized it was the money. How fucking gross is that cause money? Like, I don't know. People are fucking going around wiping their bum and then touching money or using money, money to what the bum or whatever. Oh man, people are disgusting. My people. So disgusting. And finally one of my all time favorites, I don't listen to this falling asleep because it's so good. I don't ever want to miss any of it. Not that I miss any of the others. Always just rewind where I fell asleep to, is All Killa No Filla. So it's talking about serial killers, but two British comedians. It's really funny. They're very British, but they have got a large North American audience and they always explain like the British things that they're saying. They're really funny and they've got a really good Facebook group too. Like lots of cool people like the fat positive and all that type of stuff. I'm not 100% fat positive cause one of the hosts lost weight, but she doesn't talk about losing weight as if it's a good or bad thing. So anyway, so I'm going to say it's fat positive.

Yeah. So reminder to leave me a review. Even if you don't want my book, why wouldn't you? Then leave me reviews good fatty karma points. I would so, so appreciate it. And the reason why it's important is because the more reviews, the more people will listen. The more the fat positive message will get out there. And this is fat positive media and fat positive media changes the lives of people who need to hear fat positive stuff. Would you ever want, everyone needs a fat positive stuff. And of course not everyone has to hear it from me because you know, I'm not the queen of fat positivity, the queen of the fat positive internet or anything. I'm just one voice, but it's important to get fat and voices out there. Okay. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today. Thank you for pressing play and look out for that special COVID Facebook live. I'm going to turn it into a podcast thingamajig now and I'll see ya on the next episode. Goodbye, my queen.

EP21 Transcript

Hello there. Welcome to episode 21 of the Fierce Fatty podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby and in today's episode we're talking about whether you can be addicted to food and or to sugar. Juicy stuff. Let's do it.


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


Welcome to spring. So exciting. Well, it depends where in the world you are. It might not be spring yet if the clock's gone backwards or forwards, wherever you are. Something I realized is that US the clocks change at a different time from the UK and so the US in the beginning of March, the clocks go forward, backwards, forward, forward, forward. The clocks go forward at the beginning of the March and the UK and Ireland and presumably a lot of the rest of Europe don't do it until the end of March. How freaking annoying is that if you talk to people internationally like I do. And you didn't realize that, like I didn't realize that before someone messaged me and was like, Oh Hey, why is our appointment showing the wrong time on my calendar? And I was like, it's not, it's the right time and then magic worked out. But the clocks change at different times and the world needs to get on time schedule, and get rid of this daylight savings malarkey.


And just everyone got on the same page. Okay. In Ireland where am I live in rural Ireland as you know. And next door is my uncle, my uncle's farm. It was the family farm and my granddad's farm and he died. And now my uncle farms it and there are sheep being born little baby lambs. Oh my gosh, it's so cute. And I went round, when I say went round that she like 20 steps away. So you feed the lambs and it's so cute because some of the lambs, sometimes they have to be they're known as pet lambs because they have to be hand fed because their mom isn't producing milk. And so the mom, the milk hasn't dropped and so the mom will go off into the field and then the baby lambs will be fed by hand. And so I went to feed some of the baby lambs and eventually there'll be adopted by other moms whose milk have dropped. But at that point they were the first lambs. And so they had to wait until more lambs were born and then they would be adopted out into a litter of other lambs. Because sheep normally have one, two or three lambs. And so if a mama sheep has one lamb, then an orphan sheep will go and have go and hang with the other lamb and join their family.


So here we go. A little bit of lamb farming knowledge, therefore you, which is obviously very unbolted and why you're listening to today's podcast or rather you are listening because this really interesting question of do you think about food all the time? Can you be addicted to food? Can you be addicted to sugar? Are you thinking about it all the time? Are you counting down the minutes until you can eat? Are you really focused on sugar and getting sugar into you and you feel really out of control? Then this episode is going to be really interesting for you and even not and you don't know if he can be addicted to food and sugar then listen on in. Cause I got some breaking down of this stuff for you to see if we can be on the same page......


Now I used to feel and believe that I was addicted to food and the reason for that was very logical. And a totally right thing to conclude from my brain, my thoughts, my thinking and my behavior. I would wake up in the morning and the first thing that I would think about is food. I'd think, yes, I'm allowed to eat. I would be like, Oh my God, it's breakfast time. How exciting I can eat something. And then when breakfast was over, I'd be like, okay, it's X amount of hours and minutes until lunch time where I'm allowed to eat again and then it be counted down. What's for dinner? Oh my gosh, can I sneak some food? Where can I get food from? I want all these types of food and I would hide food and this type of behavior and this type of feeling and thinking started when I was very young.


And so I truly believed that there was something deeply flawed about me because I was behaving like this and I would see other people with food and they would just be behaving like normal, quote unquote normal people. So there was something wrong with me, right? There was something wrong with my brain. And I have addiction in my family. So my dad was an alcoholic, so I saw what addiction type behaviors looked like and the kind of lying and sneaking around and spending your money on the substance and all that type of stuff. At one point I thought it would be a really good idea for me to go to overeat anonymous if I wanted to cure this addiction that I had to food. But I was too scared and I was just like, Oh no, you know, whatever, for whatever reason I didn't but and I'm so pleased I didn't because it would have only made me even more disordered around food.


And so what was going on there and if you have experienced this, if you are experiencing this obsession with food, this just needing it, just wanting it, desiring it, certain types of food have this way over you and you say things like, Oh, don't leave that around me. I'll eat it all up. Or you can't leave any biscuits in the cupboard with me around cause I lead them. If you are experienced in those types of things, this is what is happening. So I call it the Diet Land Swing, the diet land swing. So I want you to imagine a swing, a swing that you just swing on. You know, a swing like in the playground when you restrict and restriction is denying yourself certain things, whether it be one food group, eating less food on a whole mentally or physically denying yourself any type of restriction.


What you're doing in that moment is you're pulling the swing back as far as possible. And the more you restrict, the higher you're pulling that swing back. Now you cannot hold that swing up like that forever. It is physically impossible. I'll tell you why in a second. And so what happens when you let go of that swing is the natural thing to happen is it swings to the other side. And the other side is where you will binge, where you will feel out of control around. And that other side feels very scary. It feels very, you know, your behavior is upsetting you. It's upsetting to be in that place where you are bingeing, where you're allowing yourself food. Now, you might physically be allowing yourself certain food, but you're not necessarily emotionally allowing yourself because you're beating yourself up. And so the reaction from that and the higher the swing, one way of restriction means the higher the swing into bingeing.


And when you're at the very peak of the bingeing, there's only one way to go. And that's back into restriction. And this cycle of restriction binge will continue forever for as long as you're pulling up that swing into restriction. Now as soon as you stop pulling it back up and putting yourself on a diet saying, Oh, I mustn't eat the thing, I mustn't do this, I must not eat past this time, or whatever it is that you've decided that you shouldn't do or should do. It's making the swing higher. But as soon as you stopped doing that stuff, the swing loses its momentum. Now it's not immediately it'll lose its momentum because that's not the way swings work. It will slowly, you know, go into binge and then it will slow down a little bit of restriction because you still might be mentally restricting and slowly or rest in the middle. And the middle is food neutrality. The middle is where you would be intuitive eat, and that is what quote unquote normal is. I say quote unquote because you know who's normal, what's normal is all made up. And so that is what is happening in a analogy sense. When you feel like you are addicted to food now are you actually addicted to food? Well, maybe, if you see it depends what you think addiction is.


So addiction, let me give you the definition. According to Wikipedia, addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. Okay, let me read it again. Got into Wikipedia, addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. Okay, so are you addicted to food? My response is no. The way that I view what addiction is, because for many reasons I'm going to go into more in a second. You need to eat. So you might say with that definition, yeah I need to eat but I'm still addicted to it. Well what adverse consequences would you be experiencing from this food addiction that you perceive yourself to have? What are those adverse consequences? Are they actually as adverse as you think? Are they something that you have maybe made up something that you have been taught, which is not necessarily based in reality?


And think of that in comparison to another rewarding stimuli that has adverse consequences and what those adverse consequences look like. They look very different now. There is a lot that is going on in your body when you restrict. So when you are on a diet or any type of restriction, and I want to tell you what they are so you understand more that there is a chemical process that is happening in your brain, in your body, but is making you feel like this is even more extreme. This is a big problem for you. That this is an addiction. And once we understand that, we can say, okay, this is why I feel so out of control. So restriction makes you fixate on food. It makes food taste more delicious. So that food type, you know, whatever food is your craving, as soon as you put it in your mouth, things are happening in your brain to make that food tastes like the best fucking thing that anyone has ever created, right?


Think about when you're really, really hungry and someone puts food in front of you and you're just like, Oh my God, LA, LA, LA, LA, I need it. I need it, right? Your brain needs to help you increase those feelings of the food being delicious because it wants you to eat more. Because what is happening when you are restricting and your body is losing weight is in starvation mode. It doesn't know that you're just, you know, trying to lose five pounds or 50 pounds or whatever, and then you'll stop and then you'll eat .And again, all it knows is you have less fuel than your body needs and your body is losing weight. And so your body is like, fuck no, I don't like this. So it makes food taste more delicious. It makes food smell more delicious. And it grabs onto the calories that you consume with the food that you consume and it makes you hold onto those calories.


And another thing it does is it increases our appetite. So the hormones that make us feel hungry are increased. So that hormone one of them is ghrelin. So ghrelin is something that is made in the stomach and it will stimulate hunger by going to the brain and increasing the activity of the hunger causing nerve cells and reducing the activity of hunger inhibiting cells. So when you eat and your stomach becomes empty, the release of ghrelin increases. So ghrelin makes us feel hungry and when we're dieting, we have more ghrelin.


Now, another hormone is leptin. Leptin is an appetite suppressing hormone. So when you have had enough food, your body will release leptin to say, I'm cool. That's enough. Thank you. And other things are going on when you, when you have enough food. But leptin is released and it says, we've got enough storage here. It's like, you know, the light on your car that says we've got enough y'all. And so leptin is like, we're cool, we've got enough. Leptin goes down and so you feel more hungry and then when you eat, you are less satiated. You don't feel full. So that's what's happening when you restrict. Now, would that not drive you bananas? Would that not make you feel like something is wrong? You are just so fucking all the time. And when you eat, you don't feel as satiated as something that you might eat before maybe whatever it is you might have for dinner before you would have the same amount and feel satiated. Whereas now you're eating the same amount and you don't, and you have more food and you just don't feel satiated and you're just, you know, all these other things going on.


Other things that go on your metabolism slows down. So there is an incredible article from the New York times. I'm going to link to it in the show notes about that TV show, The Biggest Loser. I might have mentioned this before, but I'm gonna read a quote about what happens to your metabolism. So this is a quote from the article, the New York times article about the biggest loser which I will link to in the show notes. Kevin Hall, a scientist as a federal research center who admits to a weakness reality TV as we all do had the idea to follow the Biggest Loser contestants for six years. After that Victoria's night, the Victoria's night, I think he's talking about his watching the finale. The project was the first to measure what happened to people over as long as six years after they had lost large amounts of weight with intensive diet and exercise, the results of researchers said were stunning. They showed just how hard the body fights back against weight loss. It is frightening and amazing. said Dr. Hall, an expert on metabolism at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases, which is part of the National Institute of Health. I am just blown away. It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants though fat had judgment, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people off their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes. Researchers knew that just about anyone who deliberately loses weight, even if they started quote unquote normal weight or even quote unquote underweight, will have a slower metabolism when the diet ends. So they were not surprised to see that the biggest loser contestants had slow metabolisms when the show ended.


What shocked the researchers was what happened next. As the years went by and the number on the scale climb, the contestants metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to put the contestants to pull the contestants back to the original weight. So that is an excerpt from the article in the New York times about the biggest loser. Content warning there. There are O words and there is a little bit of a judgment in regards to size. There was a bit in there where I said fat, but they actually use an O word. But it's very, very interesting. Anyway, so with a slow metabolism, other things happen too.


Another thing is that your muscle mass decreases and your fat mass increases because muscle uses more energy. And we don't need our burning body to be burning energy if we are starving, right? Your body is trying to keep you alive and so it's not like, right, okay, let's burn some more energy so that we burn more calories and then we die quicker. We need to be burning less energy because we are literally starving. And because of that as well, you do not want to move your body. And so on top of that, you will feel like you're lazy because you do not have a massive desire to go out and run a marathon because your body's like, listen up. Hey, hello, we're dying. Just have a rest, grab a rest, eat something. Oh my God. If you eat something, then I'm gonna just, you know, I'm gonna love it. Please. and then you're, you know, if you're forcing yourself to go out and you're like, why do I, why don't I want to do it? It's so hard for me to do it. Well, it's because your body is begging you to stop with this regime. So I was addicted to food in the same way that I am addicted to breathing. I was addicted to food and the same way I'm addicted to drinking, I'm the same way. I am addicted to sleeping the same way I am addicted to doing a poop, just I can't stop myself every day all I'm doing is breathing in and out all the time. And no matter what I do, I can't stop myself and if I try and hold my breath for as long as possible, when I eventually have to breathe again, I take a massive gasp. And that is what's happening is when you restrict yourself, it's like you're holding your breath and it can't go on forever. It just simply cannot.


And then you take a big gasp and that big gasp is that addictive type behaviors that binge, that eating the foods that you've decided are bad. And when you're holding your breath, when you're getting to that point where you're just like, I need to breathe, I need to breathe. All you're thinking about is breathing, right? You're not thinking about what to, you know, what to watch on Netflix later. You're thinking about breathing because if you don't, then you'll die. And so you're thinking about food so much because if you don't, then you'll die. You don't eat, you will die. So all of that is enough to make you feel a rational, desperate and unbalanced and have the feeling that you are addicted to food. So you might want to say, yeah, I'm addicted to food because there's negative consequences. If I eat food because if I eat food then I get fat.


Or if I eat food, some other consequences. And that is something for you to explore in regards to fatphobia because is it a negative consequence if you happen to put on a little bit of weight or a lot of weight? Is it, is, does that make you a bad person? What's going on there? So let's talk about sugar because you might say, okay well food, okay whatever I get that we need to eat food but sugar, I am definitely addicted to sugar. Sugar, don't leave me around. Sugar, don't leave me around chocolate cause I'm just going to eat it all. I'm just crave it all the time. So if that's you, let's talk about that. Now studies have shown no conclusive evidence when looking at human brain that sugar is addictive to humans. There is no scientific evidence what so ever. People love in the diet world saying and pathologizing people by saying you have a sugar addiction.


You don't, you don't have a sugar addiction unless there's some very, very rare medical case at cases where something very strange is going on. You don't have a sugar addiction. So I mentioned this before, what behaviors of addicts, actual addicts what behaviors do they display? Are you displaying the same behaviors with addicts? So how many times have they had on that show intervention? You know, intervention when they, where they get addicts and the whole family comes around and say, if you don't change your life, then we're all going to leave you and blah, blah, blah. How many times have you seen someone on there with a sugar addiction? Never. Never. Right? Because suppose that sugar addicts don't act in the same way as people who are actual addicts, right? You're not like, Oh my God, I just need one more hit of sugar.


And if I don't get another hit or sugar, then I'm going to rob my grandma. I'm going to you know, take money from my mom's purse. I am going to destroy my life in the search of sugar. I'm going to probably lose my job because all I do all day long is eat sugar. My bag is filled with hundreds of pounds of pure sugar and I go searching for sugar late at night. And you might go searching for like chocolate late at night because you might want some and this behavior like, Oh my God, I'm such an addict because I'm going late at night shopping to get some chocolate. But it's not the same at all. Right? What happens to addicts if the behavior goes, uncheck, they hit rock bottom, they lose their families, they lose their jobs, they lose their homes.


They end up in terrible situation and of course it's absolutely not their fault. That's just what happens, right? And not always, sometimes I was functioning addicts. But you know, you're not a functioning sugar addict. And so if you were really addicted to sugar, you would be addicted to sugar in any way that it came, right? You would be guzzling bananas left, right and center because bananas have sugar. You'd be searching out ketchup cause ketchup has sugar and you'd be squatting ketchup in your mouth, bathing and ketchup. You'd be like, Oh my fucking God, mangoes, Oh, mangoes, Oh, can't get enough of mangoes and you know, lusting after them and being like mangoes, mangoes. What about like unknown ice tea? Even like, Oh my God, ice tea. I said, but are you or are you feeling like you are addicted to the foods that you have decided are bad?


That happened to have sugar. And chocolate is an example because a lot of times people will like, you know, say they're addicted to chocolate. Are you behaving indiscriminately? Any type of sugar? Because if you were really a sugar addict, you empty your cupboards for every single thing that had sugar in and would consume it until there was no sugar left in the house in any way, shape or form. But you know, addicts alcoholics will often drink mouthwash because they're addicted. And so they know where they can find alcohol in any form and because you're not addicted to sugar, you don't engage in that behavior.


So you don't necessarily need to drugs, right? So people who or alcohol or other substances that you might be addicted to, you don't need that to survive unless you have like a prescription. But I mean like the abuse of substances, you do need sugar. Your brain needs sugar to function glucose, a form of sugar is the number one source of energy for every single cell in your body. If you don't have sugar, you will die, okay? And the less sugar that you eat, the more you crave it. The fact that you're denying yourself sugar is the reason why you want it so much. Symptoms of addiction increase with more access to the substance you're addicted to. So if you are addicted to a substance, let's say a drug, the more you have, the more addicted, the more your life spirals out of control.


But the thing is with sugar symptoms of sugar addiction, decrease and disappear with access to more sugar. Okay? So if you allow yourself sugar and you allow yourself sugar in any way that you wanted in any amounts, of course at the beginning you're going to be like, Oh my God, sugar and just sugar everything. And in whatever way you want sugar, you're going to just be just having so much of it and you're going to like, see, I knew it, I'm addicted. But it's that swing again so you are going from a place of deep restriction to letting let in that swing go when you're going to go swing and the other direction where you will you binge, where you'll eat a lot of the food. But as long as you're not pulling yourself back with the judgment that you have a sugar addiction and are allow yourself all of the foods that you need, that you need, you need these foods, then slowly you become to a place of neutrality where you might, you know, really enjoy things that have sugar but you don't feel out of control.

Speaker 1: (31:54)
So in conclusion, no, you are not addicted to food unless the way that you define addiction, but then you're also addicted to having a pass. You're also addicted to sleeping. You're big sleep addict. You're also addicted to breathing. And there's no scientific evidence to show that sugar addiction is real. It doesn't mimic any other type of addiction. You need sugar to live and if you have any doubt about it, I just think about just change any type of substance that people do get addicted to and change it with sugar and you're just like, okay, it's ridiculous. People are not like, Oh my God, give me one more sugar. You know, people are not going to jail because the trying to get sugar, you know, people are not out on the street selling sugar even though some health authorities are like, we should ban sugar and we should only let you know, they have ridiculous ideas about only letting sugar being in the back of the store and all shit like that.


Oh my God. So, maddening, which is just going to make people think that they're more out of control with food and any type of substance. So, you know when I say substance, I mean chemical, which is everything is a chemical, you know, any type of food stuff. Imagine if they did that. Imagine if all of a sudden we decided, I don't know, apples, apples were elicit. Oh my God, we're all just so obsessed with apples. And then really like, we're going to keep apples at the back of the store or you can only buy a certain amount of apples or apples attacks super heavily. And people are like, Oh my God, I just don't leave me around an apple cause I'll just eat all of the apples soon to stop being like, Oh yeah, apples are delicious. Oh, maybe I'll go and see what apple selection they've got and when someone brings an apple into the house, you're like, Oh, they've got an apple. Oh my smells so good. Oh, right. It just normal by human behavior. The things that we can't have, we're telling ourselves, we kind of have, we so desperately want, like when I had braces, I couldn't buy into an Apple and the whole time I was just like, Oh, I can't wait to buy into an Apple. And that was the first thing I did when I got my braces off was a 15 year old was bite into a big, juicy apple. And then I was like, eh. And that's another thing is when you start allowing yourself all of these foods, because all of those chemical things that are happening in your body and your body is no longer needing to force you to eat and force you to stop moving, you'll start eating food and you be like, Oh, this wasn't as good as I remembered. How disappointing. Oh, I used to always deny myself this thing and it's pretty rare, you know?


Yeah. So, Hey, I haven't told you they seen a good few podcasts, but if you leave me a review on Stitcher, on Apple podcasts when I get back to North America, I'm gonna perch the show on Google. Google podcasts part is a Google podcast, but you can't access it in Europe. I didn't know this anyway, so if you're thinking I want to get onto Google, I don't know if Google do reviews anyway. But anyway, all of that rambling for me to say, leave me a review before you submit the review. Take a screenshot and email me victoria@fiercefatty.com and I will send you a digital and audio version of my bestselling book called Fierce Fatty: Love Your Body and Live Like the Queen You Already Are, which is great. And if you don't want the book and you just want to leave a review, then you get good fatty kudos points. You get a good deed, good deed points in your brain, in your life.


Hey, there's a song I'm really digging at the moment. I'm gonna play a snippet for you. It's called Tonight You Belong to Me and the version that I really like is Patience and Prudence from like 1950s. So really super sweet song. I think it might be big on Tiktok, I heard in someone's Instagram story. They were like dancing to it and I was like, Oh, that's a really pretty song. And then I found it and I've been just been listened to it like for 50,000 times and then the last two weeks so I'll leave a link to that song so you can get, if you want some, you know, old, it was actually originally written in like the 20s, and it's been covered a few times and there's been a recent cover for like falling asleep baby songs, but it's really sweet song. Yeah. So I check it out. I like it.


Yeah. So remember if you have a question that you want me to answer in the show, then in the show notes that there will be a link for you to submit your question and you can do it anonymously or you can tell me your name. And the questions which are most relevant to the show, I will absolutely answer for you because yeah, you, you'll ask some great questions and some questions, which are they might be just more suggestions and so then I will make a show out of your suggestions as well. So, yes. Okay, well, thanks for hanging out with me today. It was amazing, and I will see you next time on the Fierce Fatty podcast. Good bye.