Virgie Tovar returns for our 100th episode! The inimitable fat-acceptance activist shares what she's been up to in the 2 years since she first appeared on Food Psych (episode #45), why you can't be body-positive and actively pursue weight loss at the same time, how the history of the body-positive movement left it open for misinterpretation, why fat acceptance and body liberation are better terms for what we really want than body positivity, how people with thin privilege can help the movement for fat liberation (and how that helps *everyone*), how her relationship with sex has changed as a result of some big changes in her life, why "The American Dream" can be so oppressive and why stepping out of it has been so liberating for her, and lots more!

Virgie Tovar is an author, activist, and one of the nation's leading experts and lecturers on fat discrimination and body image. She is the founder of Babecamp, a 4-week online course designed to help those who are ready to break up with diet culture, and she started the hashtag campaign #LoseHateNotWeight. Find her online at VirgieTovar.com.

Get $50 off Babecamp Summer Session June 5-30, a 4-week online course lovingly designed by body image expert Virgie Tovar for women who are ready to break up with diet culture and take up their rightful place in the babe pantheon. Just click on the yellow "flashsale" button at www.virgietovar.com/babecamp.html!

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We Discuss:

• Virgie’s latest projects, including Babecamp, her online course that helps women break up with diet culture

• Embracing body jiggle

• Looking at diet culture and fatphobia through the lens of feminism

• The problem with the shift of fat liberation and fat acceptance to mainstream body positivity

• How the origin of the body image conversation lies in feminist and queer politics

• The issues with “choice feminism”

• How to have compassion for those pursuing weight loss while also calling bullshit

• Fatphobia in eating disorder recovery

• The importance of believing and listening to fat people about their experiences of oppression

• The fear of letting go of the thin ideal, diet culture, and the diet mentality

• How to find our own authentic happiness in spite of cultural ideals

• Intuitive eating and liberating our relationship with food

• The formula for healing

• The path from intellectualism to embodiment

• Self-trust

• Sexual exploration and liberation

• How to honor your genuine desires instead of merely following a narrative  

• Trauma and sexual pleasure

• Creating space for transformation

• Self-compassion and acceptance as the keys to healing

Resources Mentioned

Some of the links below are affiliate links. Affiliates or not, we only recommend products and services that align with our values.

• Virgie’s column at Wear Your Voice Magazine

• Charlotte Cooper

• We Were Feminists Once by Andi Zeisler

• Bitch Media

• Fellow body image coach Isabel Foxen Duke

• Dietland by Sarai Walker

• Lindy West’s Food Psych episode

• The Talkspace therapy app

• Virgie’s Instragram

• Every Body Yoga by Jessamyn Stanley

• Flyover Fashion Fest