Fat Joy with Sophia Apostol

>>> This is only episode 1 of 11. To get the rest, go to: https://fatjoy.life/dcwy

The diet industry used your own personality to sell you body shame. This series shows you exactly how they did it… and how to get free.

• The racist origins of anti-fatness that led to the current $591B diet industry

• Sophia shares how her grandmother taught her how to diet
• How you were hacked is the key to getting unhacked

Poem: "Remember" by Joy Harjo, https://poets.org/poem/remember-0

>>> Get all 11 episodes here (they won't be on the public podcast feeds): https://fatjoy.life/dcwy

SOURCES:

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings, https://sabrinastrings.com/

Global weight management market valued at $591.7 billion, IMARC Group, 2025: https://www.imarcgroup.com/weight-management-market

WANT MORE?: Join a cozy group of fat folks getting unhacked together: https://fatjoy.life/wisdom-circle

Six conversations. So much creativity. And one last invitation.

In this final episode of the Creation Lab Capsule Collection, Sophia wraps the series with gratitude, reflection, and a return to ritual. After realizing she forgot to include poetry at the end of these episodes, she closes things properly with a poem.

She reflects on what the guests stirred in her, the creative risks she’s taking in her own life, and the deeper theme running through it all: fat joy as resistance.

This is also the final invitation to join Fat Joy Creation Lab, as Applications close on Friday, February 20, 2006. Please visit https://www.fatjoy.life/creation-lab for program information and the Application form.

Keep connected with Fat Joy:

Fat Joy Instagram

Fat Joy website

In this episode of the Fat Joy Creation Lab capsule collection, Sophia talks with longtime fat liberation educator, podcaster, and consultant Vinny Welsby (they/them) about building meaningful work over time without burning out or shrinking yourself to fit.

They explore creativity as a source of joy, a tool for connection, and a quiet force for cultural change. From podcasting before feeling “ready,” to building a consulting practice that brings fat liberation into corporate spaces, Vinny shares what it looks like to make things imperfectly and keep going anyway.

In this episode, they talk about:

• Why your first drafts, first episodes, and first offerings are supposed to be messy
• Turning an idea into a Minimum Viable Product instead of waiting for perfection
• Fat visibility as an act of resistance, especially in business and leadership

This episode is for you if you’re holding an idea that won’t leave you alone — and you’re ready to take one imperfect, brave step toward bringing it into the world.

To learn more about how you can tap into your creativity and take an idea from napkin scribble to something alive in the world, check out the Fat Joy Creation Lab. Applications close February 20th!!!

Vinny Welsby (they/them) is a fat activist and diversity, equity and inclusion leader. They are a world-leading expert on dismantling anti-fat bias and diet culture, a TEDx speaker, podcast host and best-selling author. Vinny is trans-non-binary and is dedicated to shifting how society views fat and queer bodies through education and compassion.

When Vinny isn’t talking about DEI stuff they love snuggling with their dog, cross-stitching swear words and singing in a pop choir.

Website: www.fiercefatty.com

Website: www.weightinclusiveconsulting.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fierce.fatty/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weightinclusiveconsulting/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fiercefatty

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

In this episode of the Fat Joy Creation Lab capsule collection, Sophia sits down with community organizer, baker, and spiritual practitioner Erica Joy (they/she) for a wide-ranging conversation about co-creation, identity, and what it means to build liberatory offerings without rushing the process.

Erica shares the story of co-creating Cosmic Healing with her sister (the multiple-person readings kay does are called "synastry") and also dives into Erica’s newest offering, Cooking Fulla Joy, a liberatory approach to food, cooking, and pleasure that actively divests from diet culture. Erica speaks beautifully about food as connection, nourishment, and joy, and why cooking support must be emotional, embodied, and communal, not prescriptive.

In this episode, we explore:

• Co-creating with different people brings unexpected gifts
• Creativity as leadership, organizing, and future-making
• Food, cooking, and pleasure as liberatory practices
• Building offerings from lived experience and integrity
• The power of affinity spaces and creating what you needed but couldn’t find

This episode is a love letter to multi-passionate people, co-creators, and anyone longing to make something meaningful without having it all figured out first.

To learn more about how you can tap into your creativity and take an idea from napkin scribble to something alive in the world, check out the Fat Joy Creation Lab. We start on March 3, 2026!

Erica Joy is a Black, fat, queer, enby who is continually machete-ing The Hydra of cishetero + anti-Black fatphobic messaging that they've received since childhood. She has been planting and cultivating a field of liberation-centered evergreens + perennials that honor her + their communities. Erica has several creative passions that ebb and flow through life, and some that stay constant like baking and cooking. Their lifelong love for food, the kitchen, and cooking has led her to begin a set of offerings called Cooking Fulla Joy to support folks through their relationship with and practices of this major aspect of life.

General link to all things Cosmic Healing: https://linktr.ee/cosmichealingfam

Cooking Fulla Joy newsletter: https://comradery.co/cookingfullajoy

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: https://instagram.com/itsericafullajoy

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

In this episode of the Fat Joy Creation Lab capsule collection, Sophia sits down with fashion, beauty, and lifestyle creator Angel Edme (she/her) for a spacious, honest conversation about visibility, boundaries, creativity, and the audacity it takes to take up space in a bigger body.

This episode weaves through themes of self-trust, immigrant family identity, body liberation, and the real tension of making a living through creative work without suffocating the creative spark itself. Angel speaks beautifully about taking baby steps toward self-love, choosing discomfort as a path to growth, and why audacity is her guiding word for the year ahead.

In this episode, we explore:

• What it’s like to be deeply visible online and still set boundaries
• Healing people-pleasing in real time, not just in theory
• Creativity as a practice of self-trust and emotional regulation
• The tension between creative freedom and financial survival
• Audacity as a fat, liberatory practice

If you’ve ever felt the pull to create something meaningful but worried about visibility, judgment, or whether you’re “allowed” to take up space, this conversation offers both permission and companionship.

To learn more about how you can tap into your creativity and take an idea from napkin scribble to something alive in the world, check out the Fat Joy Creation Lab. We start on March 3, 2026!

Angel Edme is a NYC-based fashion, beauty, and lifestyle creator known for her colorful, confidence driven approach to personal style. Angel blends storytelling, education, and everyday moments to help people feel seen and inspired. A first-generation Haitian-Jamaican American and former film/TV producer, she uses her platform to celebrate inclusivity, creativity, and the joy of self-expression.

Instagram: https://instagram.com/angel_edme

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@angel_edme

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@angel_edme

Website / Substack: https://angel-edme.substack.com

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

What if creativity doesn’t require you to be healed, fearless, or finished?

In this intimate and soul-rich conversation, Sophia is joined by Asifa Sheikh (she/her), a writer, poet, and Firefly Creative Writing facilitator, to explore what it means to create from the whole self, including grief, rage, body, memory, and hope.

In this episode, they explore:

• How creativity can be a place of belonging and agency, especially when the world feels unwelcoming
• Why grief isn’t a block to creativity, but fertilizer for deep, meaningful work
• The relationship between grief, rage, and creative fuel and how both can be alchemized into art
• What it means to create while holding multiple marginalized identities
• The myth that creativity should feel effortless and why the fight is part of the process

This episode is an invitation to stop waiting until you’re “ready,” healed, confident, or unafraid — and to begin creating with the parts of you that feel messy, tender, or unfinished.

To learn more about how you can tap into your creativity and take an idea from napkin scribble to something alive in the world, check out the Fat Joy Creation Lab. We start on March 3, 2026!

Asifa loves to write and is a writing coach at Firefly Creative Writing. Alongside her role at Firefly, Asifa also serves youth in the community. She is a loving mom to her two cats Consuela and Cicero and enjoys playing the handpan in her spare time.

Learn more about Asifa: https://fireflycreativewriting.com/asifa-sheikh

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Amanda Sabater (she/her) joins Sophia on the Fat Joy Podcast’s Creation Lab Capsule Collection. In this conversation, they explore the spiritual side of creativity — the inner nudges, intuitions, and moments of mystery that shape how ideas arrive. What begins as a chat about making art becomes a deeper reflection on what happens when creativity feels less like a task and more like a relationship.

They discuss the tension many of us feel:

• How do we stay connected to our creative selves when life feels heavy?
• How do we trust the impulses that feel both exciting and uncertain?

Together, they talk about the practices that help them tune in — rest, ritual, movement, and simply paying attention — and the barriers that make it hard to hear our own inner wisdom. Throughout, there’s an invitation to see creativity as a sacred companion that keeps reaching toward us, even when we’ve gone quiet.

If you’ve ever sensed that your creative life is also a spiritual life, this episode will feel like coming home to yourself.

To learn more about how you can tap into your creativity and take an idea from napkin scribble to something alive in the world, check out the Fat Joy Creation Lab. We start on March 3, 2026!

Josephine “Amanda” Sabater is an award-winning producer, artist, and trauma doula who births heart-centered moments that nurture self-trust. A mixed-race creator in a bigger body, she shapes decolonized, fat-liberatory experiences that honor and heal lineage wounds. Her creative collaborations include NAAFA, BronxArtSpace, the U.S. State Department, Condé Nast, Teen Vogue, NYU, and Eventbrite.

Follow her soul-led work:

Website: www.sacredwitnesss.com

IG: @sacredwitnesss

Newsletter: sacredwitnesss.substack.com

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

In this first episode of the Fat Joy Podcast’s Creation Lab Capsule Collection, Sophia sits down with singer-songwriter Mary Lambert (she/her) for an honest, energizing conversation about how creativity weaves through her life, often in ways she didn’t expect. Mary opens up about the moments when her creative instincts went quiet, the surprising places they re-emerged, and the turning points that helped her reconnect with her own voice.

Together, they explore questions many of us wrestle with:

• How do you stay creative when you’re overwhelmed?
• What do you do when doubt gets loud?
• And what if creativity is already showing up for you — just not in the ways you’ve been taught to recognize?

Mary shares thoughtful insights about the pressure to “get it right,” the freedom that comes from lowering the stakes, and the tenderness of returning to self-expression after years of self-criticism. She also talks about the specific challenges and possibilities of nurturing creativity while living in a fat body, and how reclaiming creative space can become a powerful act of self-trust.

Whether you’re trying to restart a stalled creative practice, craving more meaning in your day-to-day life, or simply wanting to hear from someone who’s walking that path with intention and honesty, this conversation offers both inspiration and real permission to begin again.

To learn more about how you can tap into your creativity and take an idea from napkin scribble to something alive in the world, check out the Fat Joy Creation Lab. We start on March 3, 2026!

Mary Lambert is a multi-platinum artist, author of the poetry collection Shame is an Ocean I Swim Across, and has performed on the Colbert Show, Ellen, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show, and the American Music Awards.

Mary’s website, Instagram, and TikTok.

https://marylambertsings.com/

https://www.instagram.com/marylambertsing/

https://www.tiktok.com/@marylambertsing

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Sophia shares why she's pausing the podcast, her biggest a-ha moments from 100 episodes, and how to stay connected to Fat Joy.

This episode's poem is Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese."

Mentioned in this episode:

Fat Joy Newsletter- subscribe for free to receive the newsletter to your inbox.

Fat Joy Writing Workshop- it's currently full, but if you're interested, let Firefly know and we'll offer it again soon.

Keep connected with Fat Joy:

Fat Joy Instagram

Fat Joy website

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.