Bonus! The REC Mailbox

then give you my very best answer. Here we go. Hi, I am new to listening to your podcast and I'm enjoying it so far. But my question or questions that I'm running into our how do you like go against the diet culture and still remain healthy? Because well, it sounds awesome to eat whatever you want, we still know that it's not healthy to have a lot of fat and heart disease and all that. And the other question I have is how do you give it a point

of loving yourself at any size? That sounds wonderful, but how do you get there? Thanks so much by hello Anonymous, Thank you for this question. First, I want to point you to three very smart people who have dedicated their lives to answering the first part of this question. Number one is doctor Lindo Bacon, who wrote Health at Every Size, Number two Carolyn Dooner, who wrote the Fuck It Diet, and number three Christy Harrison, who wrote Anti Diet. Also

look for resources on intuitive eating. Now here's my perspective as a person who's not a nutritionist but has spent almost a decade researching diet culture. I want to push you to consider that the framing of fear around having a lot of fat actually comes from a mentality of restriction. If fat or sugar or whatever weren't off limits, most people actually wouldn't crave it constantly. I want to stress that dieting and diet culture are not correlated with better

physical or mental health outcomes. It's the opposite. Dieting is correlated with a higher likelihood of depression, stress, and anxiety, as well as weight cycling and binging. Essentially, diet culture trains us not to trust our bodies natural signals around hunger, fullness,

and desire. Those signals give us important information, including when we are craving a delicious, warm cookie because we've been denied that experience for too long, or when we need water, or when we need some fiber from vegetables because our butts are sad. Your body's natural signals only come back when we stop trying to control every single thing we eat. It's certainly a bad idea to eat stuff you're deathly allergic to, or food that makes you feel pain or

physical discomfort. And if you have a condition that is triggered by certain foods, don't eat those foods. Bottom line, your body is not a terrifying, monstrous thing that has to be monitored at all times. It has wisdom. There are all sorts of ways to define health, and everyone has the right to pursue their own version of it

in a way that allows them dignity. If I could wave a magic wand and create a hypothetical world where diet culture never existed and everyone ate what they wanted, I would bet that the inhabitants of that world would one hundred percent be better off mentally and physically than the people who exist in the diet culture steep world we live in now. As for your question about how to love yourself at any size, this process looks different

for different people. When I talk about self love, I'm not talking about an experience of being blissed out about your body every single day. I'm talking about the decision to stop waging war against your body in the form of restriction and hunger. This process might start with surrender and acceptance, saying to yourself every morning, I accept this body as it is today, tomorrow, forever. I think it could also start with changing how we think about fat people.

We're taught that the worst thing that could happen to us is that we get fat, when in fact, the worst thing that could happen to us is that we live a life where we constantly feel a emotionally unstable because we're suppressing the basic human instinct to eat. I talk about some of this stuff in my new book. It's Routines, but it's also great for anyone who's new to the subject. It's called The Self Love Revolution, Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color. It comes out me

first and you can preorder it now online. Thanks for your question, Anonymous. Here's another, Hi, Virgie. My name is d and I'm from Billings, Montana, and I'm a sixty year old fat white chick and I've been fat all my life, and the conversation that I would like to change about food involves a really dear friend of mine. She's always been trim and she's just completely put together. We'll always go for a really nice meal, and I

always really look forward to it. So the first thing that happens is when the twist comes and puts the food down to say, this is so much food, I'll never be able to eat it. And I look at my plate and I think, oh, you know, this is a portion of meat, a portion of potatoes. It doesn't

look like this huge meal to me. But we'll have a nice conversation, and in the middle of the meal, she will always say, see, I'm gonna stop now and I'm going to have my meal boxed up, and I'm going to take it home and I'm going to have it for lunch and dinner tomorrow. And she says it as if she's giving me a lesson or telling me a trick. And I always say, you know, I'm going

to do that too. The thing is, truly, now that I think about it, I think I do that because I want to say to her, see, I know the trick too, I know the skinny girl trick. Well, I'll keep doing what you're doing. I love listening. Thanks d Okay, So, first of all, what your friend is doing has a name. It's called fat shaming. Is not okay. It's hurtful. Your friend has created a situation where you don't feel safe to finish your meal. It is not all on you.

It's her job to stop projecting her feelings onto you. Second of all, we have no idea what she's doing or going through, but the fact that she can't go a single meal without commenting on food makes me think she may have her own issues with food, like so many of us do. I personally would not be okay with a friend saying things like that to me. So I want to validate that you are allowed to have feelings about what she's doing, and you are also allowed to finish your damn dinner. So I want to go

through three tools you might use moving forward. First, reframing, it sounds like your friend feels a lot of pressure to perform a particular kind of behavior that's expected of women. That includes not eating a lot and talking about it all the time too. Remember how Caleb talked about performance studies. Your friend is performing this skinny girl trick, and that kind of performance stifles intimacy. To me, it's a sign of pain. It's a sign that your friend is suffering.

That doesn't mean she's not responsible for her behavior, but thinking about it that way may change how you see her behavior. Maybe it's not that she's got it all together and you don't. Maybe it's just a performance okay. Tool number two externally facing boundaries. These are boundaries you set with others, Like you could ask her to stop commenting on food when you're at dinner. You could just say something like, I care about our friendship. I know

you do too. When you say these things, I feel judged. Can we try doing a dinner where you don't say these things? Tool number three is internally facing boundaries. These are boundaries you hold within yourself for yourself, Like, before you go out to dinner, you might decide that one of your boundaries is that you are going to finish your dinner at the table, if that's what you want to do. Also, you can make a plan before you hang out again about how you're going to take care

of yourself after dinner. If she says anything like that again, good luckty. Remember you deserve to have fun at a fancy dinner. My name is Claire. I am a thirty seven year old mother of three, and I work full time as an executive director of nonprofit in Portland. I'm also recovering from an eating disorder. I entered treatment for the first time last fall, and it was one of the hardest experiences of my life. My wonderful therapist convinced me that I was sick, be I needed help, and

see I needed help sooner rather than later. Because I don't look like I'm starving to death. All of my restriction went pretty much unnoticed from my entire life. People were generally shocked to hear that I had an eating disorder. On paper, I'm not gonna lie. I look like I have it altogether. I have a leadership position. I have received awards and fellowships. You know, I've done the things. It's really difficult to communicate the magnitude of this mental

illness and disease with other people. I'm not gonna I've been in a very bad place as of late, between pressures from kids, work, and marriage. It's been very hard, and some days the eating disorder is just so loud I want to bang my head against the wall. But listening to the podcast has been amazing. It's like a door has been opened to a room full of people who feel exactly the same way I do. I feel like,

for the first time, recovery is possible. Last night I had ice cream for the first time, and I really focused on eating it with joy. It is actually a huge breakthrough for me, and you all helped me with that. Please keep doing what you're doing on the podcast. It really matters, hi, Claire. It brought the biggest smile to my face imagining you eating that ice cream with joy. That is healing. I'm really really grateful to hear you

have an amazing therapist. I might recommend asking your therapist to listen to episode three with deb Burgard and talk out what a health at every size approach to eat each treatment can look like. I believe fully in a future of recovery for you, Claire. I'm rooting for you, and I'm rooting for all of you rebel eaters. I loved tearing from you this season. I hope you'll keep calling us. I'm still listening, so if you haven't called yet and you'd like to, you're not too late. Ask

me questions. Tell me about your quarantine, food life, or whatever else you want to share. I'm going to share a secret with you. We're really hoping to make a second season of Rebel Eaters Club, and we'd love to know what you want to hear. Leave a voicemail at eight six two two three one five three eight six. That's eight six two two three one five three eight six. You can write us too, Rebel Eaters Club at gmail

dot com. Rebel Eaters Club is an original podcast from Transmitter Media, the podcast company that's like finding a box of cake mix in the back of your pantry. I'm Virgie tofar. This show is produced by Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sarah Nix. Good A Cone is Our executive producer. Dar Re Hirsch composed this season's theme song, Like what you hear on the show and want to sponsor us, Send us a note at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com and let us know.

And if you love the show, share it with your friends and head to your favorite podcast app and give us a review. It will help us grow the club. Thank you for being here.