Speaker 1: There's a cute ice cream shop across the street from
Speaker 1: Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It's called tin Pot Creamery.
Speaker 1: The store is tiny, but when it comes to ice cream,
Speaker 1: it's epic. They've got flavors like blue jasmine tea lemon
Speaker 1: cookie with rosemary, and hazelnut coffee orange yum. When I
Speaker 1: was there a few months ago, I was trying to
Speaker 1: decide what should I get. A combination A Sunday a
Speaker 1: whole tasting flight. It's like the best kind of fomo.
Speaker 1: And then I noticed my body was moving. I was dancing,
Speaker 1: just a little dance back and forth on my heels.
Speaker 1: I looked around because I was feeling a little embarrassed,
Speaker 1: and then I saw another woman. She was doing it too.
Speaker 1: I laughed and asked the cashier do people always get
Speaker 1: wriggly at the counter? Oh? Yeah, she said, it's called
Speaker 1: the ice cream dance. And then I remembered being a
Speaker 1: kid in the summer, wearing my polka dot bathing suit
Speaker 1: and the ice cream dances I would do. Back then,
Speaker 1: I played with my food all the time. I love
Speaker 1: sticking my chubby little fingers into pitted black olives. One
Speaker 1: on each finger, and then I'd PLoP all ton of
Speaker 1: them into my mouth, so I looked like a gerbil
Speaker 1: and made my friend laugh, and then I'd laugh, and
Speaker 1: then we'd start all over again. I had so much
Speaker 1: fun playing with my food. What happened to that? When
Speaker 1: did we all get the message that we had to
Speaker 1: stop turning our mashed potatoes into snowmen, or stop letting
Speaker 1: a fruit roll up turn our tongues bright red? Remember
Speaker 1: the surprise every time from pop Rocks. We are iologically
Speaker 1: designed to love eating. Pleasure is one of the ways
Speaker 1: our bodies tell us what they need to survive. It's real, good,
Speaker 1: intimate information from our bodies to our brains through our
Speaker 1: excellent senses. Pleasure is powerful. And because somewhere along the way,
Speaker 1: a lot of cultures decided that our bodies were bad, dangerous, threatening, evil,
Speaker 1: pleasure became bad too. Here in the US, it goes
Speaker 1: right back to the religious roots of this country, to
Speaker 1: a preoccupation with controlling and dominating people, production, and land.
Speaker 1: This stuff goes back to the eighteen hundreds with guys
Speaker 1: like Reverend Sylvester Graham. If that name sounds familiar, it's
Speaker 1: because of his connection to Graham Crackers. He was the
Speaker 1: leader of the dietary form movement, which believed that if
Speaker 1: you ignored your appetite for delicious and exciting food, you
Speaker 1: could learn to ignore other more dangerous desires like sex
Speaker 1: and independent digging. I mean, this dude hated masturbation. To him,
Speaker 1: it was the thing that would lead to the deterioration
Speaker 1: of the nation. He thought pleasure was a gateway to rebellion.
Speaker 1: It had to be stopped. Basically, he wanted to ban
Speaker 1: physical pleasure. He wanted to stop people from listening to
Speaker 1: the deep messages our bodies send about what they want
Speaker 1: and need. And you can still see that legacy in
Speaker 1: every supermarket with halos over diet foods and guilt free
Speaker 1: labeling about which foods are safe for our souls. But friends,
Speaker 1: it is time for rebellion. It is time to take
Speaker 1: back our appetites. Rebel eaters. We are stepping out of
Speaker 1: the shadows with our corn dogs held high because we
Speaker 1: know pleasure and play or why we're here floating around
Speaker 1: on a tiny, perfect dirt ball in space. I'm Virgie
Speaker 1: Tobar and this is Rebel Eaters Club. I want you
Speaker 1: to meet a woman who has helped so many people
Speaker 1: get back in touch with that simple pleasure in the
Speaker 1: body that I had as a kid, that I had
Speaker 1: again at the ice cream shop. Her name is doctor
Speaker 1: Deb Burgard. We are preparing the mochies. Yes, I want
Speaker 1: to describe the mochies here. So these are mild coffee
Speaker 1: flavor with jo centers. She's an eating disorder specialist and
Speaker 1: a psychologist. The first time I ever saw Deb, she
Speaker 1: was shimmy with a hula hoop around her waist. We
Speaker 1: were at a conference and she was grinning wider than
Speaker 1: anyone else. Deb loves to play with her food. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's a little plastic access ticket access. It's really erotic. Okay,
Speaker 1: should we do it? Should we dive in? Mm hmmmm.
Speaker 1: You're like the rice, rice, flower fur, and then the coffee,
Speaker 1: and then the caramel and the chewy there's like the
Speaker 1: dusting of the flower that gives it that m that
Speaker 1: one kind of sensation, and then the chewy yes part
Speaker 1: of it, and then the ice cream and it's like
Speaker 1: all these different textures and the coffee part of it
Speaker 1: is just so evocative for me. My grandmother used to
Speaker 1: love Howard Johnson's coffee ice cream and it was like
Speaker 1: such a big deal. We would go out to get
Speaker 1: Howard Johnson's, you know, it was just a treat, like
Speaker 1: Howard Johnson of the hotels. Yea, oh my gosh. That
Speaker 1: was actually my first job too. I was like working
Speaker 1: behind the counter in Saint Louis, you know, at the
Speaker 1: Howard Johnson's. And anyway, so the coffee flavors evoked the
Speaker 1: hojo passed. I love that. And my grandmother who was brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant and pretty much hated people in general, but love me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are some of my favorite people too. Yeah. She
Speaker 1: was really before her time. She played jazz piano and
Speaker 1: she always smoked like unfiltered striffields that would sort of
Speaker 1: hang off of under her of religion. Yes, And when
Speaker 1: she was in college, and she went to college at sixteen,
Speaker 1: she tried to sneak out all the time, this was
Speaker 1: like in the twenties and go down to Manhattan and
Speaker 1: listen to the jazz in Manhattan. And so she was
Speaker 1: just a rebel, you know. And she had told me
Speaker 1: one time she wanted to be a psychologist. She wanted
Speaker 1: to study with Pavlov at Cornell whoa and her dad
Speaker 1: was kind of like, no, you're going to Connecticut College
Speaker 1: for Women proper, blah blah blah blah blah. So you
Speaker 1: come from a history of rebellious women, I guess I do.
Speaker 1: Deb came of age when fat activism was new. It
Speaker 1: got started officially in nineteen sixty nine with the establishment
Speaker 1: of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and Better
Speaker 1: than Acceptance. Deb and the people she was working with,
Speaker 1: we're interested in how fat people could thrive, and that
Speaker 1: radical idea was the spark that took us from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine to what we now call body positivity. I'm
Speaker 1: a psychologist and I have been doing that for quite
Speaker 1: a while, officially since the early nineties, but when I
Speaker 1: started was pretty active in second wave feminism in college
Speaker 1: in the late seventies. And then when I came here
Speaker 1: to go to graduate school, I started teaching a dance
Speaker 1: class for fat women and I called it we dance
Speaker 1: like nothing keeps no place on words, just like we dance.
Speaker 1: And I said, this is for women over two hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: because again, let's not like beat around the bush. I
Speaker 1: want people who are in who are a higher weight
Speaker 1: to really get it that I'm not talking about you know,
Speaker 1: people who are you know, fussing about not being the
Speaker 1: media a perfect, perfect body, right, And we had like
Speaker 1: six or seven years run of this incredible, community building, fun,
Speaker 1: amazing thing. And I had to quit to write my
Speaker 1: dissertation because my dissertation was like languishing. I had already
Speaker 1: written a book called Great Shape with Pat Lyons. Yes,
Speaker 1: we were both really interested in what does it look
Speaker 1: like to provide access to physical activity that isn't you know,
Speaker 1: kind of framed around weight loss. You know, we talked
Speaker 1: in the book about there's not really you know, how
Speaker 1: important was to understand this is not an obligation of
Speaker 1: fat people, yes, but it's a right, like you should
Speaker 1: have gear the works and fits, and you should have
Speaker 1: environments that are free from weight stigma, and you should
Speaker 1: you know, be able to not have to you know,
Speaker 1: also struggle with the oppression at the same time that
Speaker 1: you're trying to live your life. Right. Yes, So that
Speaker 1: class was awesome. Absolutely. I kind of want to go
Speaker 1: to your early days in becoming an eating disorder specialists.
Speaker 1: I'm so curious. Well, I did have a teenage a
Speaker 1: sort of stretch of six years or so from maybe
Speaker 1: thirteen to nineteen. My mom took me to wait Watchers
Speaker 1: at thirteen. I was trying to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: do the dieting thing in the summer, you know, and
Speaker 1: so I think I wait cycle a fair bit. And
Speaker 1: I remember coming back to college and I had kind
Speaker 1: of dissociated that summer. I mean, I just spent the
Speaker 1: summer lying out, you know, lying out in the sun
Speaker 1: and eating tuna from a cam yeah, with nothing. And
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of, you know, coming to in the
Speaker 1: fall as I'm walking back to my dorm and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to I'm sort of feeling my hip bones, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, what the fuck just happened? And I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: why is this a good thing? Yes, I don't feel
Speaker 1: like myself and I don't really know why I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: You know. There was there was supposed to be this
Speaker 1: reason for me to be thinner, that it would give
Speaker 1: me something. But I was just so you know, lucky.
Speaker 1: I was at the college I wanted to be at.
Speaker 1: I was involved with who I wanted to be involved with.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was kind of like, I've got
Speaker 1: what I want, So what is this for? Right? You know?
Speaker 1: I felt powerful in other ways, right, I remember being
Speaker 1: in fifth grade and I had gone to a new
Speaker 1: school and there were girls like going steady with boys already,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was kind of like, oh no,
Speaker 1: I had thought, oh my god, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: wait by a phone for a boy to call me,
Speaker 1: Like what the hell? You know. It was just kind
Speaker 1: of thinking, I can't win this game. I want to
Speaker 1: play a game that I can win, you know, like
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't can't win this game.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to be that girl. But there are
Speaker 1: things that I am really good at, and so I
Speaker 1: invested in those things, I think, And so this sort
Speaker 1: of dieting thing through my teens was sort of a
Speaker 1: you know, kind of good, good faith effort to conform,
Speaker 1: you know, which kind of blew up finally, you know,
Speaker 1: and kind of like, no, this is the last vestige
Speaker 1: of this thing. But it's just kind of not. And
Speaker 1: you know, as my sister, you know, was coming along
Speaker 1: four years later and really doing more of the conventional stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, and sort of being successful at it, but
Speaker 1: also developing an eating disorder, you know, it was really
Speaker 1: weighing on me. You know, I was worried about her.
Speaker 1: She was really struggling at some points in time, and
Speaker 1: my mom had struggled so much weatherweight, and my dad's
Speaker 1: been had been a weight cycler and been so exposed
Speaker 1: to all that stuff in med school and and so
Speaker 1: I think I just I ended up doing these intellectual
Speaker 1: searches that were really about what is the effect of
Speaker 1: the culture on our feelings about our bodies and our
Speaker 1: relationship with our bodies and our ability to take care
Speaker 1: of and be motivated to feel like nurturing ourselves. And
Speaker 1: then when I was in grad school interviews, I remember
Speaker 1: them asking me what do you want to do your
Speaker 1: research on? And I was saying, you know, women in
Speaker 1: our appetites. I want to do stuff on our appetites.
Speaker 1: I want to look at desire and how do we
Speaker 1: how do we resist and how do we deal with
Speaker 1: violence about it? And how do we deal with you know,
Speaker 1: oppression around it, and how do we fight for our
Speaker 1: our well being? You know? Yeah, And I guess my
Speaker 1: whole you know kind of coming of age was also
Speaker 1: the coming of age of the first stages of this field,
Speaker 1: which there's so much wrong with it. Absolutely, What are
Speaker 1: some of the major issues you see in the world
Speaker 1: at eating disorder treatment and diagnosis. Well, there's a real
Speaker 1: investment that a lot of the specialists in eating disorder
Speaker 1: have in making sure that anorexia is more of a
Speaker 1: purity standard of white supremacy than an actual disease, Like
Speaker 1: that makes an actual disease category. Okay. So one of
Speaker 1: the ways that that manifests is that you have to
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people believe you have to
Speaker 1: be emaciated to be diagnosed with anorexia. And my analogy
Speaker 1: for that is always to have them think about, let's
Speaker 1: say your plane and it's forty thousand feet and you
Speaker 1: lose an engine. Are you going to wait to say, oh,
Speaker 1: we should do something about that until you are almost
Speaker 1: you know, skinning the mountaintops, you know, like guys like,
Speaker 1: is that what you want? So here's a fact. All
Speaker 1: sorts of people, with all sorts of bodies can have
Speaker 1: eating disorders. But even in ED treatment, people get different
Speaker 1: treatments depending on the size of their bodies. Your body
Speaker 1: experiences food restriction as a threat. It does not like threats.
Speaker 1: After you stop restricting, whether it's a diet you read
Speaker 1: about in a magazine or an ED, your body will
Speaker 1: do the magical healing work of gaining weight. This is
Speaker 1: called weight restoration. That's when your body tries to get
Speaker 1: itself to a place where it feels safe and good again,
Speaker 1: and that place that weight where it feels safe. It's
Speaker 1: known as the set point. Set point is the weight
Speaker 1: range in which your body functions best. It's why dieting, restriction,
Speaker 1: and even surgical intervention don't tend to work long term.
Speaker 1: But in most ED recovery, doctors prescribe a weight for you,
Speaker 1: a kind of target weight, regardless of what your natural
Speaker 1: set point is. So that means the wisdom of your
Speaker 1: body can be at odds with what the doctor has
Speaker 1: deemed to be your target weight, and that is a problem.
Speaker 1: When your set point is higher than your doctor's target weight,
Speaker 1: then you will likely find yourself being encouraged to start
Speaker 1: restricting again, even though you're in recovery for an eating disorder.
Speaker 1: This is really backwards and really harmful. It reintroduces fatphobia
Speaker 1: when that's a big part of what in fact, a
Speaker 1: lot of people in ED recovery are trying to heal from.
Speaker 1: So fed up. But there is a simple solution. Stop
Speaker 1: equip a low weight with wellness and if you're fat.
Speaker 1: Guess what you are? Not a failed thin person, You're
Speaker 1: just a person whose body thrives at a bigger size.
Speaker 1: It can be as simple and neutral as that. All
Speaker 1: of this to say dieting doesn't work. Some of us
Speaker 1: are just bigger, and restricting food might make our bodies
Speaker 1: smaller for a period of time, but by far, most
Speaker 1: people who diet gain the weight back because their bodies
Speaker 1: want to be bigger, because embedded in some of our
Speaker 1: genes is the lesson that bigger bodies are more likely
Speaker 1: to survive. We're going to talk more on that after
Speaker 1: the break. We're back. Before the break, I was talking
Speaker 1: about how when most people diet, they gain the weight
Speaker 1: back because their bodies want to be the size they were,
Speaker 1: not the size they were dieting to achieve. And the
Speaker 1: reason why is embedded in our DNA. People who are
Speaker 1: on the planet right now, at least if we look
Speaker 1: like let's take the United States as an example, two
Speaker 1: out of three of us apparently had ancestry where people
Speaker 1: were able to be geniuses at making bodies out of
Speaker 1: two little fuel, right, because we're two out of three
Speaker 1: of us are maintaining these bigger bodies on the same
Speaker 1: basic intake, right, yes, And so these people, these one
Speaker 1: to three people, they think they're the norm, but maybe
Speaker 1: their ancestry didn't include a bunch of famines, right or
Speaker 1: as many or whatever. They had some other thing that
Speaker 1: they were good at. You know, they had some other
Speaker 1: trait that they were good at that people survived, right, Like,
Speaker 1: this is why biological diversity is good in a species.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of different challenges that we're facing.
Speaker 1: But you know, when I think about how much the
Speaker 1: capacity to slow down your metabolism when you don't have
Speaker 1: enough food or get a lot to eat, when you
Speaker 1: have access to food or store it instead of you know,
Speaker 1: making it disappear in the form of heat or energy
Speaker 1: movement or something, those those things are kind of tossed
Speaker 1: off and like like, we don't need that anymore. What
Speaker 1: planet are you living on? Like this? You know, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true at all. Like we have this
Speaker 1: incredible uncertainty that we're we're looking at right now, and
Speaker 1: you know we're gonna I think we're gonna absolutely need
Speaker 1: these capacities and they're not bugs, they are features. Yeah, yus,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing, right, Like, I think that
Speaker 1: this is extraordinary, that this is magic, right, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it is, it's I just feel like there's such
Speaker 1: a simplification of what the magic stuff that our bodies
Speaker 1: really do, like the amount of strategies that our bodies
Speaker 1: have for all this stuff and what we really don't
Speaker 1: know and how amazing it all is. And you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to find a path, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: trying to find the path with somebody who's just you know,
Speaker 1: got a little tiny ember because they're just almost gone
Speaker 1: from from this disease, and you know that could be
Speaker 1: somebody in a higher way too, could be anywhere along
Speaker 1: the on the weight spectrum, and trying to really help
Speaker 1: them feel like they deserve to be here, and they
Speaker 1: absolutely deserve to eat, and they deserve to get fatter,
Speaker 1: and they deserve to take up this space and they're precious.
Speaker 1: Do you see dieting as intel like whatever the average
Speaker 1: American considers a regular diet. Do you see it as
Speaker 1: part of a spectrum of disordered eating? Do you see
Speaker 1: them as in different buckets or how do you conceptualize
Speaker 1: restriction behavior? I think of it as a trained behavior
Speaker 1: that is a response to the accusation that you have
Speaker 1: been sinful in your eating. It goes back to the
Speaker 1: religious idea. I think, you know, if you're fat and
Speaker 1: we don't like fat people, that means that you're not
Speaker 1: right with God. I think the roots of all of
Speaker 1: this are the same oppression, Yes, and it hits people
Speaker 1: differently based on your privilege. You are the first person
Speaker 1: who taught me that our relationship to food is metaphorical.
Speaker 1: For me, I think about my history of dieting and
Speaker 1: restricting and attempting to starve myself was it was a
Speaker 1: lot of things. I mean, it was about trying to
Speaker 1: assimilate into an American ideal, an ideal of whiteness. But
Speaker 1: it was also in many ways an attempt to gain
Speaker 1: control over my experience of abuse. Because the mean, the
Speaker 1: fat phobes around me were saying, I will stop abusing you,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I mean most of them were straight boys, right,
Speaker 1: I will not only will I stop abusing you, I
Speaker 1: will then proceed to try to have sex with you.
Speaker 1: If you just stop being fat, I'll value you. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think there's kind of this is
Speaker 1: often something I talk about where people, I mean, especially
Speaker 1: for me, as like a fat girl being taught fat phobia.
Speaker 1: I was learning that not only was something was wrong
Speaker 1: with my body, but also that the best thing that
Speaker 1: I could possibly get would be sexual desire from men.
Speaker 1: And for a lot of feminine people who are fat,
Speaker 1: that lesson comes together. There's sort of like one trauma
Speaker 1: and it explains I mean, it certainly explains a lot
Speaker 1: of my sexual history because I literally felt no autonomy, right, Like,
Speaker 1: my understanding of safety was entirely tied up with masculine
Speaker 1: sexual approval. But anyway, Oh, but to kind of like
Speaker 1: get back to this right, like, you know, there's no
Speaker 1: way that what I ate was actually going to control
Speaker 1: my experience of abuse, and yet I truly believed that
Speaker 1: on some level. And so I'm curious if you can
Speaker 1: kind of talk about the functionality of our relationship to
Speaker 1: this thing that we all need, that we engage with
Speaker 1: every single day. Oh so, oh, you're just so smart,
Speaker 1: Just such a pleasure to talk to you. They tell
Speaker 1: you what you're supposed to do. And when you're when
Speaker 1: you have less power, when you're younger, when you have
Speaker 1: less privilege, Yeah, you have to do it, right, I
Speaker 1: feel like you have to do it. I talked to
Speaker 1: people a lot about you know kind of you know,
Speaker 1: you had to do this thing, and now you have
Speaker 1: to show yourself that you can do the opposite. And
Speaker 1: what does it look like after you've convinced yourself of that?
Speaker 1: Like what is it? What's next? You know, like what
Speaker 1: is this? Really? That's the exciting thing to me? Yes,
Speaker 1: I think about for me, you know, that moment of
Speaker 1: transition from hating my body and all that stuff. It
Speaker 1: didn't feel viable to hop over until I saw a
Speaker 1: femininity that really resonated with me. And that was when
Speaker 1: I was introduced to fat activism. And these were queer
Speaker 1: fat mostly women fems, and they a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of us are working class, and it's like that
Speaker 1: kind of bombastic, over the top, amazing femininity comes from
Speaker 1: the working class, comes from people of color. And so
Speaker 1: it was like this kind of thing where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I see myself in you, and I can be this
Speaker 1: superlatively feminine person in my fat body. But it really
Speaker 1: was a hearkening back to my own path. Yes, on
Speaker 1: some level, you know, it's the it's the connection with
Speaker 1: your actual magic in your ancestry, right, It's totally it's
Speaker 1: not a version of it. That's been fed through white
Speaker 1: supremacy and burped out on the other side. Right when
Speaker 1: you are at these crises moments of divesting and kind
Speaker 1: of going I'm not really going to do this, yes,
Speaker 1: because I'm not going to do this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to fucking do this. Yes, you you're sort of in
Speaker 1: a crisis because you're like, well, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: Like what does this look like? Like? Who am I?
Speaker 1: What do I pull forward in my awareness and myself
Speaker 1: and my history and my culture and my traditions and
Speaker 1: the other people who I know in my community? What
Speaker 1: am I going to give energy to? What am I nurturing?
Speaker 1: Right about this? Yes, I mean to go back to
Speaker 1: the concept of of like leaving diet culture, which is
Speaker 1: major right, And I think like one of the conversations
Speaker 1: that's emerging more and more is really what are you
Speaker 1: giving up when you leave? Right? Because you're giving up
Speaker 1: suffering and poopoo garbage and like your's like really traggy,
Speaker 1: but you're giving up all the what the poop poo
Speaker 1: garbage represents, which is acceptance and and everybody I really
Speaker 1: believed of that, Like we all like and I think
Speaker 1: about you know, I have this relationship to my biological family,
Speaker 1: for instance, where I'm like, I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of problems there, a lot, right, I know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of harm, and yet there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that will always want them to love me. There's a
Speaker 1: part of me that will always want their approval. And
Speaker 1: I think the truth is we as wherever we grow up,
Speaker 1: we have that relationship on some level to our culture.
Speaker 1: And so what does it look like to not only
Speaker 1: have the true sight of being like, wow, my dad
Speaker 1: is a horrible person aka America, Like, my dad has
Speaker 1: a really violent pass and I have hopes for him
Speaker 1: to recover, but I can't actively be like engaging in
Speaker 1: his delusions anymore. And then to sort of say, not
Speaker 1: only am I able to see that now, but I
Speaker 1: actively have to step back from him and I can't
Speaker 1: keep waiting on his approval. I remember the early days
Speaker 1: of leaving die culture, and it was like dancing in
Speaker 1: the streets, and you know, it was just a very
Speaker 1: celebratory and then the sobering reality kind of a few
Speaker 1: years in where I'm like, oh wow, that was a
Speaker 1: big decision. And I think one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: there's such a giant schism right now is because you know,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of other just perspectives and ways of
Speaker 1: being in the world that have come into the public
Speaker 1: square in such a beautiful and boisterous and and and magnificent,
Speaker 1: you know kind of way, and the existing culture of
Speaker 1: you know, middle aged white guys, you know, is kind
Speaker 1: of kind of blown off the table. And then people
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I have no place in this
Speaker 1: next thing, or I have to fight for it to
Speaker 1: go back to this, to the what it was before
Speaker 1: and m and when we really we kind of think
Speaker 1: about that in sort of abstract terms, but in some
Speaker 1: weird way, I think we're talking about a desperate feeling
Speaker 1: of can I bridge the worlds with you? You know?
Speaker 1: Can I bridge these worlds of who you are and
Speaker 1: who I am? Can you sort of stretch enough to
Speaker 1: know me, you know, and know the ways that I'm
Speaker 1: different from you and know the ways that I'm that
Speaker 1: what you've what you're thinking is actually harming me, you know, Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean this is brave territory, yes, um. And I
Speaker 1: think that's that's what gives me some kind of hope,
Speaker 1: you know, because I see people doing it, you know, Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I guess this is a big one. If you could
Speaker 1: have a magic wand and fix some of the problems
Speaker 1: you see in your office out in the world with
Speaker 1: diet culture, what like, what would you do with this
Speaker 1: wand what would change? How would people like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess like to bring it back to food, how
Speaker 1: would people interact with food in this magical world where
Speaker 1: there aren't all of these intensely layered issues we would
Speaker 1: play and you know, we would have so much more
Speaker 1: room for the satisfying aspects of creating and nurturing each
Speaker 1: other and being able to cherish that we're in these bodies.
Speaker 1: Part of this opportunity to be in this space suit
Speaker 1: that is a human body. Yes, is the experience that
Speaker 1: we have of something that's not you you're going to
Speaker 1: take into your body, Yes, and it's going to become
Speaker 1: part of you. Yeah. And that's just just so intimate, right,
Speaker 1: and it's so and it's so amazing that we do
Speaker 1: it with each other. Yes, StEB, it's been so amazing
Speaker 1: talking to you. Thank you. I've been so good. Thanks
Speaker 1: for I think about my good friend's son, Atticus. I
Speaker 1: remember going out with the two of them when Addie
Speaker 1: was one year old. We were out shopping for incense
Speaker 1: and rose courts, as one does, and he starts screaming
Speaker 1: at the top of his lungs. Turns out he was hungry.
Speaker 1: When we finally sat him down with a scrambled egg
Speaker 1: and buttery toast, he started bouncing in his high chair.
Speaker 1: He began to throw air kisses at everyone around him.
Speaker 1: That is how amazing it feels to feed our bodies.
Speaker 1: Eating gives us pleasure, It makes us dance in public.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't we play with food? Why wouldn't we celebrate the
Speaker 1: way it puts us around a table with the people
Speaker 1: we love most. It gives us life. So for this
Speaker 1: week's journal prompt, I'm thinking of that image of deb
Speaker 1: at the conference hula hooping. What if we all stopped
Speaker 1: thinking of food as diet. What if movement didn't just
Speaker 1: mean exercise. What if food and movement were just things
Speaker 1: we do for pleasure, for fun. What would look different
Speaker 1: in your life if fun was the goal. If you
Speaker 1: want to write down your thoughts, you consent it to
Speaker 1: us at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com or
Speaker 1: leave us a voicemail at eight six two two three
Speaker 1: one five three eight six and your story could make
Speaker 1: it onto the show. That number is eight six two
Speaker 1: two three one five three eight six. When you're done,
Speaker 1: don't forget to give yourself the merit badge you earned,
Speaker 1: the move and eat for Fun badge. You can print
Speaker 1: it out on our website, reb Eatersclub dot com. Then
Speaker 1: go find the Rebel Eaters Club Spotify playlist and show
Speaker 1: us your happy food dance. Tag us on social with
Speaker 1: hashtag Rebel Eaters Club All one word, or tag us
Speaker 1: at Transmitter Pods. Next week, we're talking to chef Fresh
Speaker 1: Roversant about how food is a connector not just to ourselves,
Speaker 1: but to our communities, to the earth, and to our ancestors. Oh,
Speaker 1: these foods are good, and these foods are bad, and
Speaker 1: often in the bad category falls these culturally significant foods
Speaker 1: from me that my parents and grandparents and ancestors have
Speaker 1: grown up eating and brought over and how colonization and
Speaker 1: all of that has like ripped that apart. Rebel Eaters
Speaker 1: Club is an original podcast from Transmitter Media, the podcast
Speaker 1: company that's a perfect byte. I'm Virgie Tovar. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by See Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Sarah Knicks. Greta Cohen is our executive producer. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by Dara Hirsch. Please head to your
Speaker 1: favorite podcast app and give us a review. It will
Speaker 1: help us grow the club. See you next week.