U R Stardust with Bayley Van

of collapsing stars. He said, we are made of star stuff. And here's what your star dust body is doing right now. Your heart is pumping blood, Your lungs are trading oxygen for carbon dioxide. Tiny hairs in your ears are picking up the sound of my voice. Your brain is turning those sound waves into meaning. Your skin can feel the touch of a loved one. Your eyes can detect about one million colors, so many colors that there aren't even words to describe all of them in any human language.

Your body can dance and laugh and dream and stretch and grow and hurt and heal itself. It's amazing. Through all of those years when I was hating my wondrous body, it was there, chugging along like a chubby little chee choo train, taking care of me. My body has been my truest friend. She's got me, has had me through

all of it. She is magic. Our feelings about our bodies are almost always all tangled up with our feelings about food, and we have all sorts of feelings about food, in part because we're afraid that it will make our bodies bigger. And we've all got the message loud and clear that bigger is not okay. Ever, watch fat people get abused on The Biggest Loser, or read studies that show that fat people were twelve times more likely to

face workplace discrimination. We see the way that fat people are treated, and we are afraid of being treated like that. It's normal to be afraid of being treated like poop garbage. But here at Rebel Eaters Club, we know the solution is not attempting to make your body smaller. That just keeps you in an ltr with self hatred. I used to tell myself that I was dieting because I wanted to look better and be healthier, but really I was trying to control how other people saw me and how

they treated me. I couldn't change being a woman or a prist of color. I couldn't change the fact that I grew up working class. But I totally bought the idea that if I could control my body, I could maybe protect myself against at least some nasty judgments. Diet culture is about control, all kinds of control, and about twenty five percent of people who diet regularly eventually develop an eating disorder. Eds and diets are not the same, but they are both about controlling food when we feel

like we cannot control other aspects of our lives. I'm Virgie Tovar. This is Rebel Eaters Club. In this episode, you're going to hear from someone who's in recovery from eating disorder. Her name is Bailey. Okay, Bailey. So I texted you and asked you if there's anything you're in the mood for. So I decided to create a little menu in this fire input. I brought bubbly water, which I have a deep passion for, and then some brie, which I have a deep passion for. We met five

years ago at a reading at the San Francisco Public Library. Yes, the nerdiest meat cute ever. It happened to me she was wearing at least five necklaces, looked like an adorable goth with soft edges, and was fat like me. We were both at the library for the monthly Queer Reading series. It didn't take long before we discovered a mutual love of witchcraft, over sharing and oreos as sort of a dessert. I brought some bootleg oreos that have the mint flavor.

They're kind of holiday. Yeah, they're amazing. I've eating them and they're great. You like, drop some on the floor and you're like, I'm not above eating floor oreo. Five second rule, Yes, okay, cute. I'm really stoked on this. Hummus, I'm just gonna like it. I'm going to open up the tiny baby carrots. I have always had like mixed feelings about baby carrotsky Recently, I smoked some weed with my friend to Lenny and the only food that she

had was baby carrots, and it just changed. I was like, oh my god, yes, I kind of want us to do a dual carrot crunch. Hummus, moment, what do you think and just create the loudest crunch we can possibly create. Let's do it. And this is a crunch. This is the crunch that's going to ripple through history. This is the crunch that will be heard around the world. Bailey, Yes, let's do it. Are you ready? Yeah? Okay? One? Two? Like did you hear that? Okay, We're coming for you.

Quick note, Bailey is twenty two. When I was twenty two, I was still busy trying to squeeze my body into tiny pants and get married narcissist to love me. But Bailey, she's way wiser than I was at her age. Diet culture is what cult leaders do to cult members, depriving them of food, depriving them of energy, depriving them of sleep.

It's a method of subjugation. It's a brainwashing tool. Diet culture is like someone speaking into a microphone in your head all the time, because it's the only thing you can think about. Because when you're not eating, the only thing your body wants to do is eat. It never lets you be alone with yourself and your own thoughts to realize all of your potential. See what I mean. Bailey spent years in the throes of an eating disorder, and we're going to talk about that in detail throughout

this episode. Bailey's path to recovery is unique. Everyone who struggles with eating disorder has a different path to recovery. If you have an D, your path to recovery might look entirely different. If that sounds triggering for you right now, you might want to listen to this another time. Okay, Bailey, who are you? Oh my gosh, So, I mean every

person is like a lot of things. My like Instagram, bio slash Tinder bio version of myself is I'm a lesbian, I'm a woman of color, I'm an educator, I'm this is actually in my Instagram bioteam trauma definitely like working through that shit. I'm fat. These things are like very central to my identity, but also obviously don't make up all of who I am. Yeah, can you talk about

the role that food played in your family? Food for my whole family is so intense, it's like rough, Like literally every woman on my mom's side of the family has actively an eating disorder, probably with the exception of me, because I like do things really hard. So I like had a release of your eating disorder to the point where someone was like, we need to intervene on this shit. So I've I've like processed a lot of that, but a lot of my family is still like really deep

in it. I mean, you still live with your family. I do. I live with my mom and my little sister, right, I mean, I remember you telling me that story about

the bulls the size of the bulls house. We have the smallest bulls, like almost dull sized bulls that my mother and my sister will put like servings of ice cream into, and then like I get to break those barriers by just having like four servings, just being like, yes, I will take another serving of pasta, and another and another until I get to the equivalent of a normal size bowl of pasta. Yes. Like, when you talk about being in the depths of an eating disorder, what do

you consider sort of the origin story of it. Well, it started really young. I started restricting as soon as I realized that I had the ability too. That was probably around like seven. I stopped eating lunches and stuff. That is definitely eating disordered behavior, but it is also the behavior that is often expected of women, is to like skip a meal. Then, right before I started high school, I went to this sleepaway summer camp and my mom wasn't there, and I just had this moment where I

was like, there's no one supervising what I eat. I could just eat nothing. And so I essentially didn't meet that whole week. And honestly, those those longer periods of like extreme restriction are kind of what kick eating disorder brain into high gear. The like long periods of like essentially starvation will start to mess up your kind of biological functions of like hunger. And I did some pretty extreme restricting and actually ended up getting hospitalized a couple

of times through that. It was not fun. I don't recommend it. I'm thinking about being eight, you know, for me being eighteen years old, and I had been restricting from around the age that you were naming, like probably around seven or eight. And I remember, you know, the first time I attempted starvation or some version of it was when I was eleven. And then you know, at eighteen,

I was studying abroad in college. I was living in Italy, and I had this kind of similar thought, which was, you know, I'm in another place and I can ratchet up my restriction. And for me, it was like this fantasy of returning unrecognizable. I'm thinking about Like one movie that I used to watch religiously was this movie called She's out of Control and it starred Tony Danza and

also Chandler from Friends. You know, the idea is, like a lot of these movies, there's a sort of chubby girl with braces and glasses, and she's maybe a junior or a sophomore in high school. And over the summer she exercised is really hard. Every single day, She's just sweating and working out. And then that year of high school it sort of starts and she gets her braces off, and she gets her glasses off, she gets contacts, and she emerges as a babe, and she goes from you know,

a zero to at ten. The reward for all of her restriction and exercising all summer and losing an entire summer of her life is that boys want to be her boyfriend anyway. So, like, you know, that kind of idea that you could you could totally change what you looked like and who you were essentially over a summer.

I mean, it still is a cultural trope. Yeah, So I'm eighteen years old thinking that I'm going to radically transform be unrecognizable to my family, when I return at the international terminal, and this incentivizes me to begin eating almost nothing. And my goal is literally to eat absolute lutely as little as possible, and whenever hunger gets overwhelming,

I would eat a spoonful of food. I did that for probably about a month, and then I started the signs started to happen, of like what happens when you do that for a long time. I started to lose equilibrium. That was the first thing that happened. I used to fall all the time. I would pass out. I would just like tip over, like yep, and then equilibrium leads to nausea, and then it also right like I didn't have any calories, so I was exhausted all the time.

I remember at one point I was I fell asleep on a bench two blocks from my apartment because I was so exhausted. I couldn't make it from the downtown to my apartment, which was only a few blocks. And I had fallen asleep during the day, but I had slept through sunset, so I woke up. It's dark. I'm in a city I don't know that well by myself, and and yet all the while I knew all this

bad stuff was happening. I do not, Bailey. I did not associate any of that negative stuff with my eating behavior because I thought that the way that I was eating was healthy and positive. I mean, do you like, do you know like eating that ordered cognitive dissonance phenomena where you're like, I'm just healthy. I don't like, I don't understand why my hair is falling out. I'm eating so well. Yeah, all I've eaten is celery, And isn't

that good for you? It's just interesting how I it's such magical thinking actually, like rapid metamorphosis into an entirely different person. Oh, yes, is absurd. Yeah. Last night when we were texting, you were telling me about celery. Can you discuss the celery story? Do you feel comfort? Yes? Okay. So I had this celery oreos dichotomy. That's like literally

I thought about it in my head. I was like, there's celery and there's oreos, and I never liked celery ever, but I was like eating disorder me was like two birds with one stone. You hate this food, so you're gonna eat it less. And celery is essentially hard water that taste like armpit and like allegedly you burn more calories chewing and digesting it than is in it. So I like lived on celery for about three weeks. I ended up in the hospital after that. You can't do it.

You can't live on celery, you die, right, So I would just like like eat celery and then I'd like put an oreo in front of me and look and smell the oreo and eat the celery. Whoa. And then oftentimes at the end, I'd be like I need to eat this oreo, and I'd eat the oreo and I'd feel so bad and I'd cry and I'd be like, oh my god, I can't believe I ate that single oreo. Somehow, all of my feelings about food got concentrated like onto oreos,

and I would think about oreos all the time. I remember doing crunches in my bedroom like one oreo, two oreos, three oreos, like I like I would just like everything I thought about was in terms of like I just want to eat a oreo so bad, but I can't. I spent so much like emotional and mental energy just like thinking about food, thinking about not eating food, thinking about what would happen if I ate food? And now I just eat, which is awesome, and then I can

think about other shit. When I was in like eating disorder world was like the worst thing that could happen to me is that I would get that. And I did get that, and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. And honestly, like, as soon as I started eating again, that fear stopped existing. That fear is a product of like being fully enveloped in like the starving brain. And once you're out of that place, it's so much easier to find love and to like

internally balance those feelings. And it's just like it's so important to eat. Please eat whoa can we can? We? Just I just I need to eat an oreo right now, let's do it. Okay, Oh my god, mmm, we're back. I'm still thinking about the teen Transformation movie and the deeply fun up idea that hidden somewhere inside of you is another version of you, the real you, that's more beautiful, more perfect, and that that person is the only one

who's worthy of love. It feels deeply gendered. I mean, I don't know that dudes feel this pressure to radically transform themselves so they can just be acceptable, worthwhile, fully human, But it also feels deeply racialized. The women in these movies who could get thin and then get loved were almost always white. And years later I realized starving myself wasn't just about being as thin as possible, but being

as close to whiteness as possible. To Bailey says she always knew that was part of the deal for her. I honestly, really explicitly did have that connection in my head. I'm half black, half white. My mom's side of the family is the white side of the family. My dad's side of family is the black side of the family. I'm like relatively light skinned, and honestly, as soon as I started like visibly restricting, my aunt was like, Bailey, why are you trying to look like a white girl?

Like that connection was made really fast. Ultimately, I was trying to adhere to like a white, heteropatriarchal ideals of beauty and had this idea that somehow, like being more white would make me more safe and would make me more desirable. And I mean, ultimately I just lost a bunch of my hair and that didn't make me particularly

desirable at all. Yeah, I mean, I think back on what happened to me in childhood, where it was primarily boys emotionally torturing me day after day after day and trying to force me through this abuse to submit to their expectation that i'd be the right size. I now realize an adulthood that I was getting two lessons at once. I was getting the lesson that I should be thin, but I was getting the lesson that if I was desirable two boys, I could be safe from abuse. Yes,

they're the opposite sides of the same coin. Yes, So I feel like a lot of kind of like the everyday violence that men direct at women often has to do with deviating from like the set expectation of like what an attractive, gooid whatever malleable woman is and like a thin, quiet white woman. And I've never been any of those things. I have always been like a bit of a weirdo, loud, kind of a no at all, definitely a little eccentric, just like just like a freaking weirdo.

I've been a weirdo my whole life. I'm into it, deeply charming, thank you, Like I'm into it. It's part of my identity. I've always been this way, and I've always received like a large amount of pushback from that, and so I was like, Okay, I can't. I've tried to be less weird. I can't be less weird, but I have not tried being more thin and more white. Maybe if I adhere to these expectations in other ways,

I'll be safe from this abuse. That was definitely a lot of my thinking, and ultimately I was still deviant. Wasn't safe. Didn't super work out extremely well for me. One of the things that creeps me out so much now that I'm not restricting is that I of course it was unpleasant to be exhausted and irritable, all the things that hunger chronic hunger creates, right, like, you know,

really physical discomfort, exhaustion, irritability, all the stuff. But I remember feeling, in the depths of my physical weakness from hunger, this sense of femininity that I never felt. Oh yes, And it was so powerful and so intoxicating to me. That weakness, that frailty was a sort of coveted and prized experience for me, and it felt very exotic and special and whatever. Do you know what I'm talking I do? I was like, oh my god, I'm fainting like a

Victorian woman. Yes, but which is like, which is so tied to that white feminine yea, well, and I think like for I mean, I don't know, forgive me if I'm overstepping, but like, I think that for both of us, the white woman idea, y'all was very present in our home. Yeah, yes, very much so, me and my little sister. We didn't really grow up around my dad's side of the family. We were only around extremely thin white women. And that

was just like the way I wanted to be. I just wanted to be like, like I said, a fainting Victorian woman, small enough to be easily kidnapped. Wow, like the type of person you could just throw over your shoulder and rescue or kidnapper leave with a dragon like, Yes, small enough to be easily contained. Like that's what I was. Like. Oh, I feel so like beautiful and feminine. And even though all my hair is falling out and my skin is terrible and I have constant diarrhea from chewing sugarless gum,

I feel so sexy and feminine. Yeah, I'm thinking about who historically has benefited the most. It is you know, the closer you get to that white ideal, that thin ideal, the more access that you're going to get right relative to of course white dudes. But I kind of want to return to the concept of living with an eating disorder coming through it, Like for you, what was the breaking in the clouds moment for you that Did that happen internally or was it external? So it was a

combination of both. So I was hospitalized a couple of times. Hospitalization is super effective because it sucks and you're like, I would do anything to not have to do that again. I also was starting to have issues with my heart, which still kind of carry through to this day. And I got to the point where I was like, I'm going to die round that time, and this is I feel like this is such like a niche Bay Area experience,

but whatever. I took mushrooms for the first time, and I had this moment where I was looking at myself in the bathroom year and I was like, I have so much love for this person and I'd never had that feeling before. And as soon as I came down, that feeling went away, but I knew i'd had it.

That really was like a turning point for me. And like right after that, I graduated from the various programs I was in for my eating disorder, started on an anti psychotic medication, and after I was put on medication, I gained about one hundred and thirty pounds in one year, which was like a jarring experience. I'm not gonna lie, but basically, I'm like, I'm at the point that like, even when those feelings come up, I'm like, what am I going to do? Lose one hundred and thirty pounds? No? Right,

Like that's not gonna happen, So fuck it. Do you know how long it would take you to lose one hundred and thirty pounds? Bailey? Not fucking worth it. So I'm gonna love myself here, Yeah, in a way that I never have when I was thinner. And it's awesome totally. I mean, when we met, you were already aware of fad activism and fad acceptance. I'm curious about your introduction to it. Yeah, Honestly, I'm not sure. I feel like my introduction was probably through Tumbler, Like I was big

into Tumbler when I was in high school. And I also because i'd like been through this whole eating disordered journey. There were like little bits like there were like a couple of people who I ran into who were like doctors or psychiatrists or psychologists who were like, hey, like there's a different way to look at this then. I like, when I was around eighteen, I want to say, kind

of I had this group of friends. We were like a very alternative, very queer, even though I was still dating men and saying I was a lesbian, and we had like crazy colored hair and we're all black, and like just kind of like talked about like are very like I don't know, various intersections of oppression. And it was this moment where I was like, I'm I'm fat, I'm a freak, I'm queer, and I like I love it.

Like I just got really into it. And that was I feel like when I started to kind of build this like internal self esteem where I would just like pump myself up all the time, post so many selfies on Facebook and Instagram and just be like I'm so fucking hot, Like look at me with my like mostly shaved head, with like a kind of trolled all blue thing happening on top and my full face glitter and all this ship. And I was like, yes, I'm into it,

You're into it. Y'all are fucking into it. Yeah, totally. And I feel like that was really kind of the beginning of my self, like my real self acceptance and like self love, like fuck accepting yourself. I love myself. Yeah. What is it like being in this space of self love and especially around body and food and being living

in a house where there's this active disordered eating happening. Yes, well, I have had to set some really strong boundaries, and I feel like those strong boundaries that I've set have honestly been helpful to everyone. So these are boundaries you you sat down with. Yeah, I sat down with my mom and my sister and was like, here are some things like I'm not okay with and if I'm going to keep living with you guys, I need these things

to change. It was the sort of situation where like me and my little sister would only eat when my mom wasn't home because she'd like always say something like even if it was just like oh, oh what are you eating? That still was just like it felt so weird. I was like I'm just eating, like or like, oh, are you going to have all of that? Aren't you going to save some of that? Like I was like

we need to stop having this food interaction. I also need everyone to stop telling me to lose weight, to stop suggesting ways for me to lose weight, and to stop telling me that any of my other health issues would be better if I lost weight. And I've had this conversation at this point. We've had it a couple of times, and in general, my mom and my sister have been pretty receptive. They're trying, I guess, like I'm

thinking about how your twenty two. I'm thirty seven, and you have had all of these extraordinary realizations that it took me a really like much longer time to have. And I'm wondering if do you feel like there's something

generational about that? Do you feel like you're like you're in a generation where there are just different attitudes or more tools or I absolutely agree that there are like more tools and that the attitude towards like the way bodies can even be is like changed a lot, like a lot since like even like the early two thousands when I was in like middle school, and like technically I'm like at the edge of millennial and gen Z, and like gen Z's just trying to like function up

like in a good way yea, Like the world we live in is not working on so many levels and it needs to change. We have been completely divested of the American dream, and so there is definitely a freedom in that to like restructure and recreate, and I think that's awesome. As someone with a history of ED how does it feel to hear people talk about or endorse

aspects of diet culture. I mean, honestly, it fills me with rage, Like that is one of the few things where I like, my face will get hot, like my hands will start shaking, because I know diet culture impinges on people's personal freedom. Diet culture is a fucking intellectual muzzle that prevents specifically women from like realizing their full like psychic intellectual everything potential. It's a method of subjugation.

It's a brainwashing tool. Diet culture is what cult leaders do to cult members, depriving them of food, depriving them of energy, depriving them of sleep. Diet culture is on a certain level, like someone speaking into a microphone in your head all the time because it's the only thing you can think about. Because when you're not eating, the only thing your body wants to do is eat, because you need to eat, and so it never lets you be alone with yourself and your own thoughts to realize

all of your potential. And that's what enrages me is it's like it is like, at the very core, a brainwashing technique to force the subjugation of women. If I could drop our mic because it's not attached to a very heavy thing, would I would drop both of our mics? That was amazed balls thinking I had to ask Bailey one more question about what life is like from the other side of recovery. What does she have to say to the person who is still finding their way out

of diet culture. Imagine a world where you can eat whenever you're hungry, that you don't have to think about what else you've eaten that day. Imagine being able to go to the Santa Cruz Beach boardwalk and get a fried twinkie like you can have that, that is with a reach, you can do it. Yes, Oh my god, Yes, I love that. There is nothing wrong with your body.

There's nothing wrong with your body, no matter what your body looks like or what it can or cannot do, no matter if you have a chronic condition, whether you will live a hundred years or eighty years or thirty years. Your body is wonderful. It's a miracle. It's magical. You are magical. I know that for a lot of people, it's hard to believe that. I get it. Diet culture has hurt all of us so much, and it takes time to recover from it, lots of time, and for

some people it takes serious medical intervention. But in case you are ready to hear it, even just a little bit, I want you to know that you are precious, beyond measure. One part of this conversation really stuck with me when Bailey talked about living with her mom and sister, people who are obviously very important to her, but who have very different relationships to food and their bodies. That got

me thinking about this week's journal prompt. Here it is Bailey says she had to make some rules with her mom and sister about how they talk about their bodies and about food when she's around. What are the new rules you'd love to set for your family or friends, roommates, co workers about how they talk about food and bodies. If you want to write down your thoughts, you can set it to us at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail.

Dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight six two two three one five three eight six and your story can make it onto the show eight six two two three one five three eight six. When you're done, don't forget to give yourself the merit as you earned. It's the you Are start Us badge. You can print

it out on our website Rebel Eatersclub dot com. Next week, I'll be talking to psychologist deb Burgard about her life as an original fat activist and why we should stop controlling how we eat and just play with our food. If most people felt safe enough, what would we do with food? And we would play and you know, we would just do all the things that human beings do when we're playing. Rebel Eaters Club is an original podcast from Transmitter Media, the podcast company that's like the biggest

brownie in the pan. I'm Virgie Tovar. The show is produced by Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sarah Nix. Greta Cohen is our executive producer. Our theme song is by Dara Hirsch. Like what you hear on the show and want to sponsor us? Visit us via lipstick and Vinyl dot com and let us know. And please head to your favorite podcast app and give us a review. It will help us grow the club. See you next week. Four