Speaker 1: For years and years, I did not appreciate all the beautiful,
Speaker 1: magical things my body does every day. For years and years,
Speaker 1: all I could see was how my body didn't measure
Speaker 1: up to the Western ideal, with all its sexism and
Speaker 1: racism and fatphobia. I hated my body. I cursed it,
Speaker 1: I starved it. Now, when I think about my body,
Speaker 1: I think of a quote from astronomer Carl Sagan about
Speaker 1: how the elements that make up our DNA, our teeth,
Speaker 1: and our blood, those elements were made in the interiors
Speaker 1: of collapsing stars. He said, we are made of star stuff.
Speaker 1: And here's what your star dust body is doing right now.
Speaker 1: Your heart is pumping blood, Your lungs are trading oxygen
Speaker 1: for carbon dioxide. Tiny hairs in your ears are picking
Speaker 1: up the sound of my voice. Your brain is turning
Speaker 1: those sound waves into meaning. Your skin can feel the
Speaker 1: touch of a loved one. Your eyes can detect about
Speaker 1: one million colors, so many colors that there aren't even
Speaker 1: words to describe all of them in any human language.
Speaker 1: Your body can dance and laugh and dream and stretch
Speaker 1: and grow and hurt and heal itself. It's amazing. Through
Speaker 1: all of those years when I was hating my wondrous body,
Speaker 1: it was there, chugging along like a chubby little chee
Speaker 1: choo train, taking care of me. My body has been
Speaker 1: my truest friend. She's got me, has had me through
Speaker 1: all of it. She is magic. Our feelings about our
Speaker 1: bodies are almost always all tangled up with our feelings
Speaker 1: about food, and we have all sorts of feelings about food,
Speaker 1: in part because we're afraid that it will make our
Speaker 1: bodies bigger. And we've all got the message loud and
Speaker 1: clear that bigger is not okay. Ever, watch fat people
Speaker 1: get abused on The Biggest Loser, or read studies that
Speaker 1: show that fat people were twelve times more likely to
Speaker 1: face workplace discrimination. We see the way that fat people
Speaker 1: are treated, and we are afraid of being treated like that.
Speaker 1: It's normal to be afraid of being treated like poop garbage.
Speaker 1: But here at Rebel Eaters Club, we know the solution
Speaker 1: is not attempting to make your body smaller. That just
Speaker 1: keeps you in an ltr with self hatred. I used
Speaker 1: to tell myself that I was dieting because I wanted
Speaker 1: to look better and be healthier, but really I was
Speaker 1: trying to control how other people saw me and how
Speaker 1: they treated me. I couldn't change being a woman or
Speaker 1: a prist of color. I couldn't change the fact that
Speaker 1: I grew up working class. But I totally bought the
Speaker 1: idea that if I could control my body, I could
Speaker 1: maybe protect myself against at least some nasty judgments. Diet
Speaker 1: culture is about control, all kinds of control, and about
Speaker 1: twenty five percent of people who diet regularly eventually develop
Speaker 1: an eating disorder. Eds and diets are not the same,
Speaker 1: but they are both about controlling food when we feel
Speaker 1: like we cannot control other aspects of our lives. I'm
Speaker 1: Virgie Tovar. This is Rebel Eaters Club. In this episode,
Speaker 1: you're going to hear from someone who's in recovery from
Speaker 1: eating disorder. Her name is Bailey. Okay, Bailey. So I
Speaker 1: texted you and asked you if there's anything you're in
Speaker 1: the mood for. So I decided to create a little
Speaker 1: menu in this fire input. I brought bubbly water, which
Speaker 1: I have a deep passion for, and then some brie,
Speaker 1: which I have a deep passion for. We met five
Speaker 1: years ago at a reading at the San Francisco Public Library. Yes,
Speaker 1: the nerdiest meat cute ever. It happened to me she
Speaker 1: was wearing at least five necklaces, looked like an adorable
Speaker 1: goth with soft edges, and was fat like me. We
Speaker 1: were both at the library for the monthly Queer Reading series.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long before we discovered a mutual love
Speaker 1: of witchcraft, over sharing and oreos as sort of a dessert.
Speaker 1: I brought some bootleg oreos that have the mint flavor.
Speaker 1: They're kind of holiday. Yeah, they're amazing. I've eating them
Speaker 1: and they're great. You like, drop some on the floor
Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm not above eating floor oreo. Five
Speaker 1: second rule, Yes, okay, cute. I'm really stoked on this. Hummus,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like it. I'm going to open up
Speaker 1: the tiny baby carrots. I have always had like mixed
Speaker 1: feelings about baby carrotsky Recently, I smoked some weed with
Speaker 1: my friend to Lenny and the only food that she
Speaker 1: had was baby carrots, and it just changed. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, yes, I kind of want us to
Speaker 1: do a dual carrot crunch. Hummus, moment, what do you
Speaker 1: think and just create the loudest crunch we can possibly create.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. And this is a crunch. This is
Speaker 1: the crunch that's going to ripple through history. This is
Speaker 1: the crunch that will be heard around the world. Bailey, Yes,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Are you ready? Yeah? Okay? One? Two?
Speaker 1: Like did you hear that? Okay, We're coming for you.
Speaker 1: Quick note, Bailey is twenty two. When I was twenty two,
Speaker 1: I was still busy trying to squeeze my body into
Speaker 1: tiny pants and get married narcissist to love me. But Bailey,
Speaker 1: she's way wiser than I was at her age. Diet
Speaker 1: culture is what cult leaders do to cult members, depriving
Speaker 1: them of food, depriving them of energy, depriving them of sleep.
Speaker 1: It's a method of subjugation. It's a brainwashing tool. Diet
Speaker 1: culture is like someone speaking into a microphone in your
Speaker 1: head all the time, because it's the only thing you
Speaker 1: can think about. Because when you're not eating, the only
Speaker 1: thing your body wants to do is eat. It never
Speaker 1: lets you be alone with yourself and your own thoughts
Speaker 1: to realize all of your potential. See what I mean.
Speaker 1: Bailey spent years in the throes of an eating disorder,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about that in detail throughout
Speaker 1: this episode. Bailey's path to recovery is unique. Everyone who
Speaker 1: struggles with eating disorder has a different path to recovery.
Speaker 1: If you have an D, your path to recovery might
Speaker 1: look entirely different. If that sounds triggering for you right now,
Speaker 1: you might want to listen to this another time. Okay, Bailey,
Speaker 1: who are you? Oh my gosh, So, I mean every
Speaker 1: person is like a lot of things. My like Instagram,
Speaker 1: bio slash Tinder bio version of myself is I'm a lesbian,
Speaker 1: I'm a woman of color, I'm an educator, I'm this
Speaker 1: is actually in my Instagram bioteam trauma definitely like working
Speaker 1: through that shit. I'm fat. These things are like very
Speaker 1: central to my identity, but also obviously don't make up
Speaker 1: all of who I am. Yeah, can you talk about
Speaker 1: the role that food played in your family? Food for
Speaker 1: my whole family is so intense, it's like rough, Like
Speaker 1: literally every woman on my mom's side of the family
Speaker 1: has actively an eating disorder, probably with the exception of me,
Speaker 1: because I like do things really hard. So I like
Speaker 1: had a release of your eating disorder to the point
Speaker 1: where someone was like, we need to intervene on this shit.
Speaker 1: So I've I've like processed a lot of that, but
Speaker 1: a lot of my family is still like really deep
Speaker 1: in it. I mean, you still live with your family.
Speaker 1: I do. I live with my mom and my little sister, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember you telling me that story about
Speaker 1: the bulls the size of the bulls house. We have
Speaker 1: the smallest bulls, like almost dull sized bulls that my
Speaker 1: mother and my sister will put like servings of ice
Speaker 1: cream into, and then like I get to break those
Speaker 1: barriers by just having like four servings, just being like, yes,
Speaker 1: I will take another serving of pasta, and another and
Speaker 1: another until I get to the equivalent of a normal
Speaker 1: size bowl of pasta. Yes. Like, when you talk about
Speaker 1: being in the depths of an eating disorder, what do
Speaker 1: you consider sort of the origin story of it. Well,
Speaker 1: it started really young. I started restricting as soon as
Speaker 1: I realized that I had the ability too. That was
Speaker 1: probably around like seven. I stopped eating lunches and stuff.
Speaker 1: That is definitely eating disordered behavior, but it is also
Speaker 1: the behavior that is often expected of women, is to
Speaker 1: like skip a meal. Then, right before I started high school,
Speaker 1: I went to this sleepaway summer camp and my mom
Speaker 1: wasn't there, and I just had this moment where I
Speaker 1: was like, there's no one supervising what I eat. I
Speaker 1: could just eat nothing. And so I essentially didn't meet
Speaker 1: that whole week. And honestly, those those longer periods of
Speaker 1: like extreme restriction are kind of what kick eating disorder
Speaker 1: brain into high gear. The like long periods of like
Speaker 1: essentially starvation will start to mess up your kind of
Speaker 1: biological functions of like hunger. And I did some pretty
Speaker 1: extreme restricting and actually ended up getting hospitalized a couple
Speaker 1: of times through that. It was not fun. I don't
Speaker 1: recommend it. I'm thinking about being eight, you know, for
Speaker 1: me being eighteen years old, and I had been restricting
Speaker 1: from around the age that you were naming, like probably
Speaker 1: around seven or eight. And I remember, you know, the
Speaker 1: first time I attempted starvation or some version of it
Speaker 1: was when I was eleven. And then you know, at eighteen,
Speaker 1: I was studying abroad in college. I was living in Italy,
Speaker 1: and I had this kind of similar thought, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm in another place and I can ratchet
Speaker 1: up my restriction. And for me, it was like this
Speaker 1: fantasy of returning unrecognizable. I'm thinking about Like one movie
Speaker 1: that I used to watch religiously was this movie called
Speaker 1: She's out of Control and it starred Tony Danza and
Speaker 1: also Chandler from Friends. You know, the idea is, like
Speaker 1: a lot of these movies, there's a sort of chubby
Speaker 1: girl with braces and glasses, and she's maybe a junior
Speaker 1: or a sophomore in high school. And over the summer
Speaker 1: she exercised is really hard. Every single day, She's just
Speaker 1: sweating and working out. And then that year of high
Speaker 1: school it sort of starts and she gets her braces off,
Speaker 1: and she gets her glasses off, she gets contacts, and
Speaker 1: she emerges as a babe, and she goes from you know,
Speaker 1: a zero to at ten. The reward for all of
Speaker 1: her restriction and exercising all summer and losing an entire
Speaker 1: summer of her life is that boys want to be
Speaker 1: her boyfriend anyway. So, like, you know, that kind of
Speaker 1: idea that you could you could totally change what you
Speaker 1: looked like and who you were essentially over a summer.
Speaker 1: I mean, it still is a cultural trope. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen years old thinking that I'm going to radically
Speaker 1: transform be unrecognizable to my family, when I return at
Speaker 1: the international terminal, and this incentivizes me to begin eating
Speaker 1: almost nothing. And my goal is literally to eat absolute
Speaker 1: lutely as little as possible, and whenever hunger gets overwhelming,
Speaker 1: I would eat a spoonful of food. I did that
Speaker 1: for probably about a month, and then I started the
Speaker 1: signs started to happen, of like what happens when you
Speaker 1: do that for a long time. I started to lose equilibrium.
Speaker 1: That was the first thing that happened. I used to
Speaker 1: fall all the time. I would pass out. I would
Speaker 1: just like tip over, like yep, and then equilibrium leads
Speaker 1: to nausea, and then it also right like I didn't
Speaker 1: have any calories, so I was exhausted all the time.
Speaker 1: I remember at one point I was I fell asleep
Speaker 1: on a bench two blocks from my apartment because I
Speaker 1: was so exhausted. I couldn't make it from the downtown
Speaker 1: to my apartment, which was only a few blocks. And
Speaker 1: I had fallen asleep during the day, but I had
Speaker 1: slept through sunset, so I woke up. It's dark. I'm
Speaker 1: in a city I don't know that well by myself,
Speaker 1: and and yet all the while I knew all this
Speaker 1: bad stuff was happening. I do not, Bailey. I did
Speaker 1: not associate any of that negative stuff with my eating
Speaker 1: behavior because I thought that the way that I was
Speaker 1: eating was healthy and positive. I mean, do you like,
Speaker 1: do you know like eating that ordered cognitive dissonance phenomena
Speaker 1: where you're like, I'm just healthy. I don't like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand why my hair is falling out. I'm eating
Speaker 1: so well. Yeah, all I've eaten is celery, And isn't
Speaker 1: that good for you? It's just interesting how I it's
Speaker 1: such magical thinking actually, like rapid metamorphosis into an entirely
Speaker 1: different person. Oh, yes, is absurd. Yeah. Last night when
Speaker 1: we were texting, you were telling me about celery. Can
Speaker 1: you discuss the celery story? Do you feel comfort? Yes? Okay.
Speaker 1: So I had this celery oreos dichotomy. That's like literally
Speaker 1: I thought about it in my head. I was like,
Speaker 1: there's celery and there's oreos, and I never liked celery ever,
Speaker 1: but I was like eating disorder me was like two
Speaker 1: birds with one stone. You hate this food, so you're
Speaker 1: gonna eat it less. And celery is essentially hard water
Speaker 1: that taste like armpit and like allegedly you burn more
Speaker 1: calories chewing and digesting it than is in it. So
Speaker 1: I like lived on celery for about three weeks. I
Speaker 1: ended up in the hospital after that. You can't do it.
Speaker 1: You can't live on celery, you die, right, So I
Speaker 1: would just like like eat celery and then I'd like
Speaker 1: put an oreo in front of me and look and
Speaker 1: smell the oreo and eat the celery. Whoa. And then
Speaker 1: oftentimes at the end, I'd be like I need to
Speaker 1: eat this oreo, and I'd eat the oreo and I'd
Speaker 1: feel so bad and I'd cry and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I can't believe I ate that single oreo. Somehow,
Speaker 1: all of my feelings about food got concentrated like onto oreos,
Speaker 1: and I would think about oreos all the time. I
Speaker 1: remember doing crunches in my bedroom like one oreo, two oreos,
Speaker 1: three oreos, like I like I would just like everything
Speaker 1: I thought about was in terms of like I just
Speaker 1: want to eat a oreo so bad, but I can't.
Speaker 1: I spent so much like emotional and mental energy just
Speaker 1: like thinking about food, thinking about not eating food, thinking
Speaker 1: about what would happen if I ate food? And now
Speaker 1: I just eat, which is awesome, and then I can
Speaker 1: think about other shit. When I was in like eating
Speaker 1: disorder world was like the worst thing that could happen
Speaker 1: to me is that I would get that. And I
Speaker 1: did get that, and it was probably the best thing
Speaker 1: that ever happened to me. And honestly, like, as soon
Speaker 1: as I started eating again, that fear stopped existing. That
Speaker 1: fear is a product of like being fully enveloped in
Speaker 1: like the starving brain. And once you're out of that place,
Speaker 1: it's so much easier to find love and to like
Speaker 1: internally balance those feelings. And it's just like it's so
Speaker 1: important to eat. Please eat whoa can we can? We?
Speaker 1: Just I just I need to eat an oreo right now,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Okay, Oh my god, mmm, we're back.
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking about the teen Transformation movie and the
Speaker 1: deeply fun up idea that hidden somewhere inside of you
Speaker 1: is another version of you, the real you, that's more beautiful,
Speaker 1: more perfect, and that that person is the only one
Speaker 1: who's worthy of love. It feels deeply gendered. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know that dudes feel this pressure to radically
Speaker 1: transform themselves so they can just be acceptable, worthwhile, fully human,
Speaker 1: But it also feels deeply racialized. The women in these
Speaker 1: movies who could get thin and then get loved were
Speaker 1: almost always white. And years later I realized starving myself
Speaker 1: wasn't just about being as thin as possible, but being
Speaker 1: as close to whiteness as possible. To Bailey says she
Speaker 1: always knew that was part of the deal for her.
Speaker 1: I honestly, really explicitly did have that connection in my head.
Speaker 1: I'm half black, half white. My mom's side of the
Speaker 1: family is the white side of the family. My dad's
Speaker 1: side of family is the black side of the family.
Speaker 1: I'm like relatively light skinned, and honestly, as soon as
Speaker 1: I started like visibly restricting, my aunt was like, Bailey,
Speaker 1: why are you trying to look like a white girl?
Speaker 1: Like that connection was made really fast. Ultimately, I was
Speaker 1: trying to adhere to like a white, heteropatriarchal ideals of
Speaker 1: beauty and had this idea that somehow, like being more
Speaker 1: white would make me more safe and would make me
Speaker 1: more desirable. And I mean, ultimately I just lost a
Speaker 1: bunch of my hair and that didn't make me particularly
Speaker 1: desirable at all. Yeah, I mean, I think back on
Speaker 1: what happened to me in childhood, where it was primarily
Speaker 1: boys emotionally torturing me day after day after day and
Speaker 1: trying to force me through this abuse to submit to
Speaker 1: their expectation that i'd be the right size. I now
Speaker 1: realize an adulthood that I was getting two lessons at once.
Speaker 1: I was getting the lesson that I should be thin,
Speaker 1: but I was getting the lesson that if I was
Speaker 1: desirable two boys, I could be safe from abuse. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're the opposite sides of the same coin. Yes, So
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of kind of like the
Speaker 1: everyday violence that men direct at women often has to
Speaker 1: do with deviating from like the set expectation of like
Speaker 1: what an attractive, gooid whatever malleable woman is and like
Speaker 1: a thin, quiet white woman. And I've never been any
Speaker 1: of those things. I have always been like a bit
Speaker 1: of a weirdo, loud, kind of a no at all,
Speaker 1: definitely a little eccentric, just like just like a freaking weirdo.
Speaker 1: I've been a weirdo my whole life. I'm into it,
Speaker 1: deeply charming, thank you, Like I'm into it. It's part
Speaker 1: of my identity. I've always been this way, and I've
Speaker 1: always received like a large amount of pushback from that,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, Okay, I can't. I've tried
Speaker 1: to be less weird. I can't be less weird, but
Speaker 1: I have not tried being more thin and more white.
Speaker 1: Maybe if I adhere to these expectations in other ways,
Speaker 1: I'll be safe from this abuse. That was definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of my thinking, and ultimately I was still deviant.
Speaker 1: Wasn't safe. Didn't super work out extremely well for me.
Speaker 1: One of the things that creeps me out so much
Speaker 1: now that I'm not restricting is that I of course
Speaker 1: it was unpleasant to be exhausted and irritable, all the
Speaker 1: things that hunger chronic hunger creates, right, like, you know,
Speaker 1: really physical discomfort, exhaustion, irritability, all the stuff. But I
Speaker 1: remember feeling, in the depths of my physical weakness from hunger,
Speaker 1: this sense of femininity that I never felt. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: And it was so powerful and so intoxicating to me.
Speaker 1: That weakness, that frailty was a sort of coveted and
Speaker 1: prized experience for me, and it felt very exotic and
Speaker 1: special and whatever. Do you know what I'm talking I do?
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I'm fainting like a
Speaker 1: Victorian woman. Yes, but which is like, which is so
Speaker 1: tied to that white feminine yea, well, and I think
Speaker 1: like for I mean, I don't know, forgive me if
Speaker 1: I'm overstepping, but like, I think that for both of us,
Speaker 1: the white woman idea, y'all was very present in our home. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: very much so, me and my little sister. We didn't
Speaker 1: really grow up around my dad's side of the family.
Speaker 1: We were only around extremely thin white women. And that
Speaker 1: was just like the way I wanted to be. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be like, like I said, a fainting
Speaker 1: Victorian woman, small enough to be easily kidnapped. Wow, like
Speaker 1: the type of person you could just throw over your
Speaker 1: shoulder and rescue or kidnapper leave with a dragon like, Yes,
Speaker 1: small enough to be easily contained. Like that's what I was. Like. Oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so like beautiful and feminine. And even though
Speaker 1: all my hair is falling out and my skin is
Speaker 1: terrible and I have constant diarrhea from chewing sugarless gum,
Speaker 1: I feel so sexy and feminine. Yeah, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: who historically has benefited the most. It is you know,
Speaker 1: the closer you get to that white ideal, that thin ideal,
Speaker 1: the more access that you're going to get right relative
Speaker 1: to of course white dudes. But I kind of want
Speaker 1: to return to the concept of living with an eating
Speaker 1: disorder coming through it, Like for you, what was the
Speaker 1: breaking in the clouds moment for you that Did that
Speaker 1: happen internally or was it external? So it was a
Speaker 1: combination of both. So I was hospitalized a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Hospitalization is super effective because it sucks and you're like,
Speaker 1: I would do anything to not have to do that again.
Speaker 1: I also was starting to have issues with my heart,
Speaker 1: which still kind of carry through to this day. And
Speaker 1: I got to the point where I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to die round that time, and this is I
Speaker 1: feel like this is such like a niche Bay Area experience,
Speaker 1: but whatever. I took mushrooms for the first time, and
Speaker 1: I had this moment where I was looking at myself
Speaker 1: in the bathroom year and I was like, I have
Speaker 1: so much love for this person and I'd never had
Speaker 1: that feeling before. And as soon as I came down,
Speaker 1: that feeling went away, but I knew i'd had it.
Speaker 1: That really was like a turning point for me. And
Speaker 1: like right after that, I graduated from the various programs
Speaker 1: I was in for my eating disorder, started on an
Speaker 1: anti psychotic medication, and after I was put on medication,
Speaker 1: I gained about one hundred and thirty pounds in one year,
Speaker 1: which was like a jarring experience. I'm not gonna lie,
Speaker 1: but basically, I'm like, I'm at the point that like,
Speaker 1: even when those feelings come up, I'm like, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do? Lose one hundred and thirty pounds? No? Right,
Speaker 1: Like that's not gonna happen, So fuck it. Do you
Speaker 1: know how long it would take you to lose one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pounds? Bailey? Not fucking worth it. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna love myself here, Yeah, in a way that
Speaker 1: I never have when I was thinner. And it's awesome totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, when we met, you were already aware of
Speaker 1: fad activism and fad acceptance. I'm curious about your introduction
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, Honestly, I'm not sure. I feel like
Speaker 1: my introduction was probably through Tumbler, Like I was big
Speaker 1: into Tumbler when I was in high school. And I
Speaker 1: also because i'd like been through this whole eating disordered journey.
Speaker 1: There were like little bits like there were like a
Speaker 1: couple of people who I ran into who were like
Speaker 1: doctors or psychiatrists or psychologists who were like, hey, like
Speaker 1: there's a different way to look at this then. I like,
Speaker 1: when I was around eighteen, I want to say, kind
Speaker 1: of I had this group of friends. We were like
Speaker 1: a very alternative, very queer, even though I was still
Speaker 1: dating men and saying I was a lesbian, and we
Speaker 1: had like crazy colored hair and we're all black, and
Speaker 1: like just kind of like talked about like are very
Speaker 1: like I don't know, various intersections of oppression. And it
Speaker 1: was this moment where I was like, I'm I'm fat,
Speaker 1: I'm a freak, I'm queer, and I like I love it.
Speaker 1: Like I just got really into it. And that was
Speaker 1: I feel like when I started to kind of build
Speaker 1: this like internal self esteem where I would just like
Speaker 1: pump myself up all the time, post so many selfies
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram and just be like I'm so
Speaker 1: fucking hot, Like look at me with my like mostly
Speaker 1: shaved head, with like a kind of trolled all blue
Speaker 1: thing happening on top and my full face glitter and
Speaker 1: all this ship. And I was like, yes, I'm into it,
Speaker 1: You're into it. Y'all are fucking into it. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that was really kind of the
Speaker 1: beginning of my self, like my real self acceptance and
Speaker 1: like self love, like fuck accepting yourself. I love myself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What is it like being in this space of self
Speaker 1: love and especially around body and food and being living
Speaker 1: in a house where there's this active disordered eating happening. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I have had to set some really strong boundaries, and
Speaker 1: I feel like those strong boundaries that I've set have
Speaker 1: honestly been helpful to everyone. So these are boundaries you
Speaker 1: you sat down with. Yeah, I sat down with my
Speaker 1: mom and my sister and was like, here are some
Speaker 1: things like I'm not okay with and if I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep living with you guys, I need these things
Speaker 1: to change. It was the sort of situation where like
Speaker 1: me and my little sister would only eat when my
Speaker 1: mom wasn't home because she'd like always say something like
Speaker 1: even if it was just like oh, oh what are
Speaker 1: you eating? That still was just like it felt so weird.
Speaker 1: I was like I'm just eating, like or like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you going to have all of that? Aren't you
Speaker 1: going to save some of that? Like I was like
Speaker 1: we need to stop having this food interaction. I also
Speaker 1: need everyone to stop telling me to lose weight, to
Speaker 1: stop suggesting ways for me to lose weight, and to
Speaker 1: stop telling me that any of my other health issues
Speaker 1: would be better if I lost weight. And I've had
Speaker 1: this conversation at this point. We've had it a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and in general, my mom and my sister
Speaker 1: have been pretty receptive. They're trying, I guess, like I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about how your twenty two. I'm thirty seven, and
Speaker 1: you have had all of these extraordinary realizations that it
Speaker 1: took me a really like much longer time to have.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if do you feel like there's something
Speaker 1: generational about that? Do you feel like you're like you're
Speaker 1: in a generation where there are just different attitudes or
Speaker 1: more tools or I absolutely agree that there are like
Speaker 1: more tools and that the attitude towards like the way
Speaker 1: bodies can even be is like changed a lot, like
Speaker 1: a lot since like even like the early two thousands
Speaker 1: when I was in like middle school, and like technically
Speaker 1: I'm like at the edge of millennial and gen Z,
Speaker 1: and like gen Z's just trying to like function up
Speaker 1: like in a good way yea, Like the world we
Speaker 1: live in is not working on so many levels and
Speaker 1: it needs to change. We have been completely divested of
Speaker 1: the American dream, and so there is definitely a freedom
Speaker 1: in that to like restructure and recreate, and I think
Speaker 1: that's awesome. As someone with a history of ED how
Speaker 1: does it feel to hear people talk about or endorse
Speaker 1: aspects of diet culture. I mean, honestly, it fills me
Speaker 1: with rage, Like that is one of the few things
Speaker 1: where I like, my face will get hot, like my
Speaker 1: hands will start shaking, because I know diet culture impinges
Speaker 1: on people's personal freedom. Diet culture is a fucking intellectual
Speaker 1: muzzle that prevents specifically women from like realizing their full
Speaker 1: like psychic intellectual everything potential. It's a method of subjugation.
Speaker 1: It's a brainwashing tool. Diet culture is what cult leaders
Speaker 1: do to cult members, depriving them of food, depriving them
Speaker 1: of energy, depriving them of sleep. Diet culture is on
Speaker 1: a certain level, like someone speaking into a microphone in
Speaker 1: your head all the time because it's the only thing
Speaker 1: you can think about. Because when you're not eating, the
Speaker 1: only thing your body wants to do is eat, because
Speaker 1: you need to eat, and so it never lets you
Speaker 1: be alone with yourself and your own thoughts to realize
Speaker 1: all of your potential. And that's what enrages me is
Speaker 1: it's like it is like, at the very core, a
Speaker 1: brainwashing technique to force the subjugation of women. If I
Speaker 1: could drop our mic because it's not attached to a
Speaker 1: very heavy thing, would I would drop both of our mics?
Speaker 1: That was amazed balls thinking I had to ask Bailey
Speaker 1: one more question about what life is like from the
Speaker 1: other side of recovery. What does she have to say
Speaker 1: to the person who is still finding their way out
Speaker 1: of diet culture. Imagine a world where you can eat
Speaker 1: whenever you're hungry, that you don't have to think about
Speaker 1: what else you've eaten that day. Imagine being able to
Speaker 1: go to the Santa Cruz Beach boardwalk and get a
Speaker 1: fried twinkie like you can have that, that is with
Speaker 1: a reach, you can do it. Yes, Oh my god, Yes,
Speaker 1: I love that. There is nothing wrong with your body.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with your body, no matter what your
Speaker 1: body looks like or what it can or cannot do,
Speaker 1: no matter if you have a chronic condition, whether you
Speaker 1: will live a hundred years or eighty years or thirty years.
Speaker 1: Your body is wonderful. It's a miracle. It's magical. You
Speaker 1: are magical. I know that for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe that. I get it. Diet culture
Speaker 1: has hurt all of us so much, and it takes
Speaker 1: time to recover from it, lots of time, and for
Speaker 1: some people it takes serious medical intervention. But in case
Speaker 1: you are ready to hear it, even just a little bit,
Speaker 1: I want you to know that you are precious, beyond measure.
Speaker 1: One part of this conversation really stuck with me when
Speaker 1: Bailey talked about living with her mom and sister, people
Speaker 1: who are obviously very important to her, but who have
Speaker 1: very different relationships to food and their bodies. That got
Speaker 1: me thinking about this week's journal prompt. Here it is
Speaker 1: Bailey says she had to make some rules with her
Speaker 1: mom and sister about how they talk about their bodies
Speaker 1: and about food when she's around. What are the new
Speaker 1: rules you'd love to set for your family or friends, roommates,
Speaker 1: co workers about how they talk about food and bodies.
Speaker 1: If you want to write down your thoughts, you can
Speaker 1: set it to us at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail.
Speaker 1: Dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight six
Speaker 1: two two three one five three eight six and your
Speaker 1: story can make it onto the show 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 as you earned.
Speaker 1: It's the you Are start Us badge. You can print
Speaker 1: it out on our website Rebel Eatersclub dot com. Next week,
Speaker 1: I'll be talking to psychologist deb Burgard about her life
Speaker 1: as an original fat activist and why we should stop
Speaker 1: controlling how we eat and just play with our food.
Speaker 1: If most people felt safe enough, what would we do
Speaker 1: with food? And we would play and you know, we
Speaker 1: would just do all the things that human beings do
Speaker 1: when we're playing. Rebel Eaters Club is an original podcast
Speaker 1: from Transmitter Media, the podcast company that's like the biggest
Speaker 1: brownie in the pan. I'm Virgie Tovar. The show is
Speaker 1: produced by Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor is
Speaker 1: Sarah Nix. Greta Cohen is our executive producer. Our theme
Speaker 1: song is by Dara Hirsch. Like what you hear on
Speaker 1: the show and want to sponsor us? Visit us via
Speaker 1: lipstick and Vinyl dot com and let us know. And
Speaker 1: please head to your favorite podcast app and give us
Speaker 1: a review. It will help us grow the club. See
Speaker 1: you next week. Four