Bonus! The REC Mailbox
You’ve got questions, Virgie’s got answers.
Virgie Tovar: Hey Rebel Eaters. Virgie here. Making this show over the past few months has been such a thrill. And the best part has been hearing from you. Today, I’m going to play some of the voicemails you’ve sent this season. Thank you for writing and calling. We’ve read or listened to every one of your messages, and you are all so inspiring. A few of you had some questions for me, and I want to start with this one from an anonymous rebel eater. I’ll play part of the voicemail, and then give you my very best answer. Here we go:
Anonymous: 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 are: how do you like go against the diet culture and still remain healthy? Because while 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 get to the point of loving yourself at any size? That sounds wonderful, but how do you get there? Thanks so much. Bye.
VT: 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 Dr. Lindo Bacon, who wrote “Health At Every Size." Number two, Caroline Dooner who wrote “The F*ck It Diet." And number 3, 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 the 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 bingeing.
Essentially, diet culture trains us not to trust our body’s natural signals about 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 your allergic to or food that makes you feel 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 100% be better off mentally and physically than the people who exist in the diet culture-steeped 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 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 for teens, but it’s also great for anyone who’s new to this subject. It’s called “The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color.” It comes out May 1, and you can preorder it now online. Thanks for your question, Anonymous. Here’s another:
[5:31] Dee: Hi Virgie, my name is Dee and I'm from Billings Montana. And I'm a 60 year old fat white chick and I've been fat all my life. And the conversation with 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'ill always go for a really nice meal and I always really look forward to it. So the first thing that happens is when the waitress comes and puts the food down, she'll 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 going to 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 keep doing what you're doing. I love listening. Thanks.
VT: Dee, okay, so first of all what your friend is doing has a name. It’s called fat-shaming! Fat-shaming is not ok! 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 that she may have her own issues with food, like so many of us do. I personally would not be ok 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 also are allowed to finish your damned 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 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 3 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 luck, Dee. Remember, you deserve to have fun at a fancy dinner!
[9:39] Claire: My name is Claire. I am a thirty-seven-year-old mother of three and I work full-time as an executive director of a 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 A) I was sick B) I needed help and C) I needed help sooner rather than later. Because I don't look like I'm starving to death all of my restriction with pretty much unnoticed for my entire life. People were generally shocked to hear that I had an eating disorder. On paper, I'm not going to lie, I look like I have it all together. 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 going to lie, 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.
VT: Hi Claire. It brought the biggest smile to my face imagining you eating that ice cream with joy! That is healing. I am really, really grateful to hear you have an amazing therapist. I might recommend asking your therapist to listen to episode 3 with Deb Burgard, and talk out what a Health-At-Every-Size approach to ED 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’ve loved hearing 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 gonna 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 862-231-5386. That’s 862-231-5386. 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 Tovar. The show is produced by Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sara Nics. Gretta Cohn is our executive producer. Dara Hirsch composed this season’s theme song.
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