[CLOSED] Send us your victories!

I spoke to my boss at work. There was a conversation in the lunchroom about fat women “need to have self control” and some other bs about seats on airplanes. I told my boss that I was choosing it to eat in the lunchroom for a while because the conversation made me uncomfortable. That I don’t want to be the “conversation police “ but can I would like it if in addition to not discussing religion and politics at work if we also don’t discuss people’s bodies. It was a really hard conversation to have.

Just dropping a note to say I love you guys and the pod SO SO MUCH. I’m so appreciative of these conversations and communities. Where I maybe felt alone before I now feel camaraderie.

I went to my doctor's for the first time in 7 years. I was very anxious. I never really suffered from fatphobia in the medical sector, but that is also because I was always very privileged to not have big health issues, except for mental health. But I know she used to always let me know when I gained weight compared to the previous year - nothing more nothing less. I took ''a lot'' of weight in the last few years and it's the fatest I've ever been but also the best I ever felt mentally in a long time... The appointment went super well. She simply wrote down my new weight. Nothing more nothing less. No comment on having gained weight or needing to loose weight, She simply asked the standard questions of anything special? You're feeling good? And I was on my way. I feel like that is a win, even if she might not know :) And I feel it is a victory that I battled my anxiety and I am getting myself checked again.

This happened a while ago but it still resonates. My mom was raised in a culture where being thin was pretty much everything/all a woman might be valued for, especially if you weren't drop dead gorgeous. She always could name how much I weighed to the ounce, and could also be expected to do so within an hour or so of seeing me and whatever weight I was, I was always told that if I weighed anywhere from 5-30 pounds less, I would be "better". The first thing big thing was when I was in my early 20's - I broke up with a partner and lost 20 pounds rapidly. I showed up at home pretty underweight, whereupon my mom told me my weight and then told me I should lose five or ten pounds. I was 22 and a complete mess and even in that state, I knew that her advice was not based in reality and that I needed to stop listening to her. Fast forward 15 years and my mom was still giving me this sort of advice and I finally snapped. When she started in on my weight, I informed her of all the athletic stuff I was doing to keep myself in good physical shape and suggested that until she could do those things, that she kindly stop sharing. Setting physical fitness goals and reporting them to my doctor has really helped shift the conversation for me with her as well. It helps her focus on the other numbers - not just the pounds and ounces.

My victory isn't social. It's personal, but I told my cardiologist and nutritionist about it, and hopefully that does some good. I'm perimenopausal and this has caused my already bad cholesterol to shoot up into scary territory -- like immediate referral to a lipid specialist cardiologist, ekg's, stress tests, and more. I'm taking medication now but I have unpleasant side effects at a higher doses. So even though I figured the impact wouldn't be massive, I changed my diet too. (Blood lipids are said to be about 75% genetic and 25% diet determined.) My victory is that I've been able to do a significant food shift for about three months now without triggering a resurgence of the disordered eating I had on and off in high school and college (restricting and binging). I think this was possible for a few reasons. #1 Thin privilege. The doctor and nutritionist did not tell me lose weight or imply that my weight or diet are to blame for my dyslipidemia. <-- #2 #3 #4 #5 I'm pretty sure I didn't decrease my food intake. I don't track anything (ED triggering and time consuming) but I have stayed away from hunger and restriction. I also didn't label any food as forever forbidden.

I'm a genetically thin person and I've started telling doctor's offices I don't need to be weighed. (They sometimes counter with "well, the doctor needs to know in case they prescribe something," to which I say I'll discuss it with the doctor if needed. None of these visits actually involved any prescriptions.) And I've had the language I needed to explain to my dad why he can't assume anything about a person's health from their size (yay for "population level" stats vs. individual outcomes).

I said “I’d prefer not to” when asked to be weighed at the doctors. I apologized to my best friend of 30 years for the likelyhood that I let internalized self hatred towards fatness come out and potentially cause harm to them. Resulting in a good and loving conversation. I asked people not to comment on my body or complement me. I express my happiness that brands have “more inclusive sizes” and ask for the size I need without any shame. As if I was asking for a different colour. It is so many little shifts that come from telling shame about my body to fuck off. And being allowed to literally take up space in the world.

I hope the Bananas episode is about Freelee the Banana Girl! This is only a small victory but I had a conversation with my sister about how calorie labelling on menus changes diddlysquat.

I'm a naturally small person and I've been getting braver countering people who make comments about that assuming I'll take it as a compliment. A recent example was a hairdresser saying to me "l "You're so small I bet you can eat what you want and not worry about it" My reply "Actually I try to eat plant based so I do often worry about what's in my food, not to mention my allergies to mango, I know right I love mango but it doesn't love me" Hairdresser "Oh that's not what I meant" Me "I know, but I'm not taking part in a fatphobic conversation with you. My size has nothing to do with what I eat" Silence... And yes I'm a vegan, for the planet, for the animals, not for any fad diet reasons and it's cool if you're not vegan because I totally get it's not accessible to everyone...

I said "not today" to the request to be weighed at the medical office yesterday. This time (a) it wasn't a necessary part of this visit and, (b) I didn't add the "I have issues" qualifier. My blood pressure was still higher than at home but hey, this is progress. In small things...

I am starting to allow people to include me in photos without giving my usual disclaimers and apologies. I want to be part of the party memories too!

I feel like all my good this year has just been conversational and letting myself eat what I want infront if my colleagues. One conversation with a co-worker where I shared that my friends are doing some fat activism in the city (which they call "Fat people doing activities") I could see just the wave of relief in her. It was nice and now we're closer.

I was involved with writing a mental health policy strategy document for a large mental health and got to completely overhaul the diet section. While it got somewhat diluted I managed to keep a recommendation to prioritize consideration of weight neutral public health claims and make sure all future policies include consultation with people who have lived experience with ED. Hopefully it can help shift things a bit even if compromises were made. Also, thanks MP for highlighting some of the issues and specifically encouraging me to question if weight loss was a necessity for improving public health and nutrition.

Side note: Hbomberguy’s video on Vaccines is an excellent companion to the RFK episodes for anyone interested. His humor and research is also very good.

This is the tiniest win but it felt damn good - my family is not a family of genetically or physically fat people but it is a family of generational worries among the female identifying members that they need to constantly be “watching their weight” and who also indulge in fat shaming jokes out of their own insecurities. My mother was talking about a comedian’s joke about fat people she found funny and I looked her in the eye with a flat expression and said “I don’t understand why that would be funny”. She stopped laughing and I could see the gears turning and instead of being defensive she said “yeah no I guess it’s not”.

My dad’s side of the family has a WhatsApp that is filled with diet talk. I have been including all sorts of articles about the harms of diets. Diet talk has considerably gone down. A victory!

I’m sad that I can’t share a victory because I failed, but dangit I really tried! The building I work in is currently being renovated and the 2nd floor bathrooms are now accessible as they move on to other floors. I was curious to see what they looked like, but after going in a stall I was appalled at how skinny they were; I am 5’1 and could barely get in without bumping into the toilet paper dispenser. My thought immediately went to “how would a fat person feel coming into a stall like this? Some people might not be able to even close this door.” I contacted our facilities department, asked about it on slack channels, and showed other people how small these bathroom stalls are (they agreed with me) but I can’t get anyone to listen. I’m going to continue to fight, and if I get anywhere with it i’ll be sure to write in. :)

There is a new community in Boston celebrating Fat Liberation called Bigger Bodies Boston. There was a Fat Pool Party in July that was AMAZING! More than 150 fat folx showed up. They meet once a month at a local bar for trivia night. And they are planning more events. They are on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/biggerbodiesboston/.

I'm a ballet teacher and my students are blind and visually impaired adults like myself. Before I start every cycle of my Intro class, I have a phone call with each new student and make sure they feel ready to study. I hear two misconceptions in nearly every call. One is expected: I heard that blind people will always have poor balance, is that true? And I say it's only true if you use techniques meant for sighted people. We use techniques meant for us, and you can learn to have great balance! This is always a positive conversation. The other misconception is that only skinny people can learn ballet. I explain that while it's true that some ballet companies only want to hire skinny people, that doesn't mean that there aren't thousands of amazing ballet dancers of every conceivable body type. There's nothing about body size, shape, or proportion that would stop you from learning ballet. For some reason, it's almost easier for my new students to set aside their internalized ableism than their internalized fatphobia, which makes me really sad. However! Over the years, I've built up a really supportive student body that won't tolerate either ableism or fatphobia in class! Everybody is encouraged to learn and ask questions and try, and honestly, I think that no other teacher has better students than I have. We all just come and dance as ourselves, and remember that having a blind teacher is great because I ain't watching!

I just keep pointing out to other parents that their child's BMI is included in their school records. Spread that awareness and get them pissed off, too!

It's hard to claim anything I have done as a victory as such, apart maybe from overcoming my own bias against my own fatness. That was not easy and would not have happened if it wasn't for the advocacy of fat activists. I'm not saying I'm pure but I went through the whole process... Warning, I will talk about negative body image below and though I am holding back, it may be triggering. I think my moment of illumination was when I realized that thin and straight-sized people genuinely think they're fat. I look at old pictures of me of when I was straight-sized and remember the terrible things I thought about my own body then. It's a poison that's ingested young, it's a... I don't want to say a delusion, but it is a disconnect from reality. I remember so vividly seeing this photoshopped ideal body everywhere and thinking that since I didn't look like that, there was something wrong with me. No! That is not some kind of a standard body that I was falling short of. Other people's bodies don't usually look like that either. I knew that already, I'm from a sauna culture. And I still thought there was something wrong with me. That's how virulent and deep and vicious that cultural false perception of bodies is. So, my two victories for myself were to understand that that is a false perception, and secondly to let go of the related idea that beauty has anything to do with your value as a person.

I'm still waiting for Aubrey's stirring address about how Ursula the Sea Witch is the antihero we need 😕

I’ve been the annoying person asking for evidence on EVERYTHING and refusing to repeat information without it. Unclear who exactly this is a win for, definitely not book publishers, my colleagues, or my social life

I don't know if it's gotten any traction, but every time someone asks in my perimenopause support group how others handle the weight gain, I say that I learn to love my body the way it is and then celebrate by going out for ice cream.

I told a group of colleagues that I would not be joining their group weight loss effort. I said "I'm a potato, and I have no intentions to change. I am versatile, healthy in my natural form, and everyone loves *something* about me. I'm good with being a potato." I now have a couple of coworkers who are more vocal about body acceptance... it's nice.

I once tore down a quote from Jillian Michaels about health being your personal responsibility from a bulletin board in the office. Small victories.

Tiny tiny thing but I ordered some chairs at work last year and made sure that I got some without arms - I wouldn't have thought about this before. I will also try to suggest this to colleagues going ahead. Keep being fantastic and making me think!

This was small and happened two years ago but it was one of the first active decisions I remember making to address fat phobia at more of a systems level: I used to work for a relatively large healthcare nonprofit and one day a bunch of signs were posted outside of every elevator encouraging us to take the stairs to promote better health and weight loss (both actually mentioned on the poster). I asked around for the appropriate department to contact about the posters. I emailed them and expressed that regardless of intent the signage used language that was ableist and anti-fat, encouraged shaming of fat people and people with invisible disabilities, and that whatever potential benefits to patients or staff were so minimal as to be irrelevant when considering that it reinforced harmful beliefs about health. They apologized and said they would remove the signs and reconsider the language and necessity of the signs. I never saw new signage for the rest of the time I worked there. It was pretty great to see them disappear nearly as fast as they arrived. I also wanted to note that I am a thin person with invisible disabilities and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t causing further harm in bringing attention to the anti-fatness aspect of the signage since usually the communities being advocated for near the consequences of any challenges to the status quo. I posted on my Facebook page requesting either comments or DMs from fat people about what would be the most appropriate way to address the matter if at all and got a lot of really helpful feedback and really great discussions.

clutching their pearls too tightly.

I was asked to give a presentation for the Methodist’s Women’s Supper and I chose the topic of eating disorders, fat phobia, and lost cause dieting. They couldn’t have set me up better with the prevailing diet conversation, especially when the hostess announced the menu — low fat chicken salad with healthy fruits and vegetable tray plus two desserts, one “good” and one “bad.” Segue to my topic of the day… 😁 I shared with them my personal history of dieting (my Mom took me to WW at age 7, thus it began…), disordered eating, yo yo dieting, orthorexic tendencies, and over exercising to compensate. I told them the diet industry was all bunk, enjoy the “good” cake. This was not easy. I am The pastor’s wife and I laid it all out there, pure vulnerability. But I ended with a few tips for supporting bodies of all sizes. Just like Jesus would do. Slam dunk! PS I recommended some very good books by Christy Harrison (“The Wellness Trap” and “Anti-Diet”) along your podcast, but I had to give them a “language” warning. Because I don’t want the ladies to die from

Will the utterly bananas episode be about "The United Fruit company"/ "Chiquita" and how they got the US gov to do massacres in Central America???

I wrote a piece for the NZ Herald about fat acceptance, disability and my pet rats (paywalled sorry) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/celebrating-te-wiki-o-te-reo-maori-and-disability-pride-week-now-with-rats/EN6ZDZGNAZQPLIXN7PECUS3GTQ/

I had a pastor who would mention losing weight and getting skinny every time he talked about the spiritual discipline of fasting. I took him aside and explained that I and a few other people in the church struggle with disordered eating and that getting the message of a spiritual practice as a means to lose weight is actually really harmful, especially to those of us who are trying to recover. He apologized and I haven’t heard him make comments since.

Sent y'all an email ✌️ looking forward to hearing everyone's stories! Love hearing the victories big and small x

One of the things I have been involved in is taking the energy and resources from a fat support group I joined this summer and doing the following: I am doing some deep dives and reading books on fat activism (The Body is Not an Apology for example) second I am putting myself out there without apology. This fall I am planning to hike with a size inclusive group. I am working with my church’s social justice group to make sure bodies and intersectionality are part of the conversation. (I am Catholic and our social justice teaching is fertile ground for these conversations and yes it is a progressive leaning church) 😁 I would love to personally be part of taking down every diet MLM but primarily Optavia. 😂

During a break, a colleague of mine declined a cooky because she wanted to loose some weight. We could not call it a diet, she said, but a lifestyle. I answered (as a joke) "lifestyle based on restriction" and smothered the conversation. It worked. 😀

Read the pop up notification too quickly and for a second thought I was subscribed to a podcast asking people to write in about their weight loss victories 😳🫣

It feels like too small of a victory to write in about, but just drawing boundaries and telling anyone and everyone that I don't want to discuss anything associated with diets or toxic diet culture has been my biggest win. This stuff is so tough!

I've never been called a dreamboat and now will not accept any other compliment

Oh man, I wish. My mom is such a lost cause. 😅

Does borderline yelling at people that diets dont work count? Because thats been my jam for thr last year.