This is a really different world we are living in! The stress and anxiety of the new normal got to me in the last few weeks and I didn't prepare an interview. Instead, I gathered up a few clips from past guests and put them together. I think you're going to love this compilation.

Some of the topics we cover:

-the risks of dieting

-how the fears when we drop out of diet culture are real

-why mental health is important to add to the discussion of dropping out of diet culture

-how we need to start looking at bodies differently

-how to connect to your body individually

-the power of diversifying your social media

-the importance of boundaries

-celebrate how wonderful you are

Contact links for my guests:

Deb Lesko

Amanda Murphy

Amanda Martinez Beck

Carissa Grace

Kathryn Hack

Kaitlin Anderle

Linda Tucker

Jenna Donovan

Spoon Theory:

My website:

I live in Canada but talking to people in United States is not considered International. Not truly. Technically I know that is not true but in reality I can get to the US within a few hours, so it is different than talking to someone across an ocean. With that logic, this is the very first interview that I consider an International episode. How exciting is that!?! I talked to Kayleigh Hyland about Fat! So? by Marilynn Wann and boy did we have fun. Here is a run down of what we chatted about:

-Kayleigh’s fat positive journey

-how we don’t have a fat culture but we do have a fat community

-the joke about the pound of fat

-how hard its is to think of witty comebacks when people reference weight

-the way they changed the BMI categories arbitrarily

-our connection to our bellies, betts, upper arms and chins

-discomfort with being naked and how to work on it

-what people are looking at when they look at you

-how to start accepting your body

-the word fat

-a discussion of healthy habits

-pieces of clothing on our fat positive journeys

-our additions to the heroes and villains of fat positivity

-a new segment on Fat Girl Book Club: The Lightening Round

The links mentioned in this episode include:

Fat! So? by Marilynn Wann

Kayleigh on Instagram:

Kayleigh's blog

Amanda Martinez Beck on Instagram:

Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe

Body Respect by Lindo Bacon and Lucy Aphramor

If I could have a Fat Girl Dinner Party and I could invite anyone I wanted to, Virgie Tovar would be top of my list. I have heard her on so many podcasts and I have watched her YouTube video but this book, You have the Right to Remain Fat, changed the way I looked at everything. This week on Fat Girl Book Club, Jenna Donovan from The Self-Compassion Project and I get into all the ways diet culture and fat phobia intersect with racism, classism and sexism. Some of the other things we talked about include:

-Jenna’s Health at Every Size journey

-How fitness and health clash

-Moving your body to feel good and not for weight loss. A discussion of jiggling

-The wonderful world of napping

-You don’t have to change your body

-How women are educated to be women. What rom-coms, Sex in the City and The Babysitters Club taught us

-How fat phobia has affected her life

-How diet culture has affected our lives

-Whether or not bootstrapping is just an American ideology or if it has seeped into Canadian culture

-The intersections between diets culture and sexism

-The internalization of inferiority

-The importance of language and how its being used against us

-Classism and racism in diet culture

-Why privilege is misunderstood

Enjoy this discussion and let me know your thoughts!

The Self Compassion Project Website:

The Self Compassion Project Instagram

The Self Compassion Project Facebook page:

You Have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar:

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison:

Wage gap between men and women in Canada

Timeline of the Wet'suwet'en protests happening in Canada

Normally my guest and I love the books we read but in this case, Debbie Lesko had some challenges with this book and I am so glad she did. Debbie Lesko runs the Facebook page and group, Diets Don't Work and some of the points she made about this book were valid and really important. We get into why just focusing on weight gain as the main problem with dieting is wrong and how the Health at Every Size movement has progressed since the writing of this book. We also talked about:

Links:

Diets Don't Work Facebook Page

Diets Don't Work Facebook Group

Diets Don't Work Website

Diets Don't Work on Instagram

Diets Don't Work on Twitter

Books Mentioned:

Body Respect

The Body Is Not an Apology

Anti-Diet

Embrace Yourself

Dietland

Social Media

The Body is Not an Apology

Daring Fat

Your Fat Friend

The Kangaroo Sanctuary

Cats of Instagram

Podcasts

Trust your Body Project

Confidently She

Food Psych

The Fat Lip

Fat and Faithful

I Wish I Were Me

Please connect with me on social media

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/iwishiwereme/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/iwishiweremetwt

I had such a great chat with Linda Tucker, a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Body Liberation Coach. We came at this book from such different perspectives that I think our conversation covered a lot of ground. Some of the things we talked about were:

Links from this episode:

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison

Isabel Foxen Duke

Justine DeMello's blog post on The Self-Love Diet

Virgie Tovar's Fat Babe Camp

Linda's Website

Linda Tucker Instagram

Linda Tucker's Email

Don't forget to use the hashtag #womeneatingfood!!!

On this episode I chatted with Dalia Kinsey and it was a doozy of a conversation. We covered classism, racism, sexism, weight stigma and thin privilege. This was a loaded interview that I enjoyed so much. Dalia is filled with spunk and enthusiasm that made this conversation informative and entertaining. We covered:

-Dalia's Health at Every Size journey

-The training required to be a registered dietician

-Inequality for women in terms of pay

-How the dietician training props up diets culture, classism and privilege

-Our cultural feel of becoming fat

-How thin privilege, fat phobia and weight stigma affects us all

-How Dalia first heard about HAES

-How health behaviours are not the driving factors in health outcomes

-How telling people to diet goes against Do No Harm

-The difference between correlation and causation

-Why we don't need permission from others to do anything and instead need to be prioritizing ourselves

Links:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Fat is a Feminist Issue by Suzie Orbach

Dalia's Intuitive Eating Sheet

Dalia's Podcast

Dalia's website

Resources page on my website for studies

Jorden Harbinger's podcast

Kathryn Hack and I discussed Jes Baker’s Landwhale in today’s episode. Kathryn is a body liberation artist and activist so I found her perspective on some of the topics from this book really refreshing. Some of the things we discussed include:

-Kathryn’s fat liberation journey

-Why Kathryn doesn’t live in doom and gloom about diet culture but rather in hope

-Why dualistic thinking within the fat community is too simplistic

-How much can we alter ourselves before we are no longer liberated

-How we individually connect to our bodies and why processing trauma is so important

-How the systemic oppression of fat people tries to keep people confined and how this is a system of cultural programming

-How we can use icky feelings to connect to ourselves and release trauma

-Body positivity versus body liberation

Check Kathryn out using the links here:

Kathryn’s Instagram

Kathryn’s Facebook

Other things mentioned in this episode:

This American Life Podcast

Shrill by Lindy West

Torrid

Landwhale by Jes Baker

Check out my website to read more about my work as a body image coach and to get a copy of Your Better Body Image Checklist:

My Website

This is an important book. It taught me a lot about how to love myself - not in a superficial way, but in a deep meaningful way. This conversation with J. Nicole Morgan really digs into some of the major concepts of the book and will hopefully help you to see why it is so important that we move beyond body positivity and into radical self-love. Some of the things we talk about include:

-Nicole's fat acceptance journey

J. Nicole Morgan's Instagram

J. Nicole Morgan's Twitter

J. Nicole Morgan's Book

Fat & Faithful podcast

All Bodies are Good Bodies Facebook group

By the Book podcast

My website

I loved talking about this iconic book with Amanda Murphy. She is so passionate and knowledgeable. I think you will find this discussion of changing our cultural relationship to food extremely valuable at this time of diet promotion overload. Some of the things we discussed were:

Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann

Amanda's Website

Amanda's Instagram

Amanda's E-Book

My Website

This discussion was so amazing. Amanda Martinez Beck joined me to discuss three spiritual stories that impacted her life path. These stories changed her beliefs about her body. Our conversation touched on so many things, including:

• Amanda’s journey with her body image

• How Amanda’s journey has changed her relationship with her husband, her family and her church

• Catholic fasting and why it could be detrimental to eating disorder recovery

• What is gluttony?

• Why she called herself a size dignity activist

• Asking questions and getting curious about other perspectives

• Dismantling the meaning of health

• Spoon theory

• Recognizing privilege and why it is important to call out

• The three spiritual stories that made a huge impact on Amanda’s life:

-Wounds are not bad and don’t need to be covered up

-It’s okay to fight for something you believe in

-In your brokenness and weakness, you are a treasure

• The use of the word fat

• How and why we believe what we do

• The importance of story

Love Food Podcast: https://www.juliedillonrd.com/?s=Amanda+Martinez+Beck

Fluffy Kitten Party blog about size descriptors: https://fluffykittenparty.com/2019/10/05/fategories-understanding-smallfat-fragility-the-fat-spectrum/

Spoon Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn5IBsm49Rk

Doubting Thomas: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20%3A24-29&version=NIV

Jacob becoming Israel: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+32%3A22-32&version=CEV

Saint Lawrence: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Lawrence

Amanda’s article about Oprah: http://christandpopculture.com/oprahs-best-body-and-the-body-of-christ/

J. Nicole Morgan website: https://jnicolemorgan.com

J. Nicole Morgan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jnicolemorgan/

All Bodies are Good Bodies Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/allbodiesaregoodbodies/

Your_Body_Is_Good Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your_body_is_good/

Fat and Faithful podcast: http://fatandfaithful.libsyn.com/

Lovely: How I learned to embrace the body God gave me: https://www.amazon.ca/Lovely-Learned-Embrace-Body-Gave/dp/1681922371/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?keywords=Lovely%3A+how+I+learned+to+embrace+the+body+god+gave+me&qid=1575940279&s=books&sr=8-1-fkmr1

My website: http://iwishiwereme.com