Body Kindness

I’m replaying a fan favorite (and one of my favorite episodes) of Body Kindness from one of my favorite teachers. What if we all were fat activists? It’s an interesting thought for people who are finally at the place of rejecting diets and a singular (thin) standard for beauty and health. Activism is not always getting angry and standing on the street with a sign screaming. Sometimes it IS that, but there are lots of forms of “activism” if you take a broader definition. You can throw a pool party and rock your swimwear. You can tell the nurse, “I don’t step on the scale.” You can tell yourself “I am on your side” and anyone who treats you badly based on weight can get the push back. Fat activism is just as much about practicing self-care and self-compassion as it is about getting angry. Tune in to hear my conversation with long-time Fat Activist and author of Fat!So? Marilyn Wann joins me to discuss why it’s wrong when people say “you should lose weight for health reasons”. She shares ideas for fat activism t

Weight stigma is harmful to human health at all sizes. The medical community upholds weight stigma and harms the very people they should be helping by weighing patients without informed consent, blaming weight on non weight related concerns like earaches and wrist pain, and recommending weight loss based on the unscientific BMI measurement. Medicine must work from the inside out to eradicate the problems they have perpetuated. Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani author of the book Sick Enough has made weight inclusive medical care a priority at her Denver based telemedicine clinic and she shares her ideas for why doctors must act to eradicate weight stigma on this episode. --- About Dr Gaudiani Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS, FAED, is the Founder and Medical Director of the Gaudiani Clinic. Board Certified in Internal Medicine, she completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard, medical school at Boston University School of Medicine, and her internal medicine residency and chief residency at Yale. Dr. Gaudiani has been a le

Grab a pen paper and get ready for some serious healing. It’s time to write about your relationship with your body. No matter how painful your past, you can cultivate what you desire through the power of the pen. Tune in to hear my “sorry body” letter from August 2016 and Bernie’s “peace offering” from July 2019. You don’t want to miss his reading and our reflection. We discuss the abuse he faced as a child and his post traumatic growth. Plus we share our best advice for anyone who wants to do this self reflection work. Need more inspiration and reflection prompts? Join our #scalesmash challenge this summer. It’s free! - BodyKindnessBook.com/scalesmash --- Get the Body Kindness book It's available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Read reviews on Amazon and pick up your copy today! Order signed copies and bulk discounts here! --- Donate to support the show Thanks to our generous supporters! We're working toward our goal to fund the full season. Can you donate? Please visit our Go Fund Me page. --- Get

Dawn Serra is a sex and relationship coach who has dedicated her life to helping others orient towards pleasure so that we can heal the shame we carry around sex and deepen the trust we have in our bodies. In this episode, we talk about the historical and very culturally relevant reasons today that women struggle with sex today. You'll learn why sex is a social skill, why it's OK to have a fraught relationship to sex and how to change it, including how to tell your partner if you’ve been faking orgasms. And of course because TMI is a habit of mine, I share more details about my lack of sex experience— and how uncomfortable I was going through the process. I hope it helps you lean in to your discomfort, heal whatever is bothering you about sex and sexual health, and give yourself permission to experience more pleasure. Toward the end we answer a Body Kindness reader question who asked about sex when you have PTSD from sexual abuse and violence. You don't want to miss the resources and advice Dawn offers. --- A

Bernie Salazar, former NBC Biggest Loser “winner” and frequent guest for my series Learn and Grow, joins me to rant on the Nike Fat Mannequin debacle. We love the mannequin and want to see more size diversity in fitness culture. We strongly reject the fat phobia expressed by some people with large platforms, especially the harmful article in the Telegraph. Plus, we revisit my interview with “fan favorite” Ragen Chastain. The Guinness World Record holder for heaviest female marathoner joins me in a conversation in supporting more athletes at every size and creating clothes and equipment that work with their bodies. Ragen will help inspire you to reframe exercise in your life away from body shame and weight loss goals - at any size! Tune in to learn some of the unspoken ways we are excluding higher weight people from movement as a society and how we can change. --- Links mentioned in this episode Sophia Tassew in The Independent: Nike’s plus-sized mannequins don’t ‘promote’ obesity – they reflect reality. Why

In my second interview with Sabrina Strings, PhD, author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, we discuss why only white women’s bodies were subjects of control in historical fat phobia. Dr. Strings shares the history of the BMI development and its flaws. We share personal stories for how BMI and weight bias in medicine harms people today. Dr. Strings also shares how she was discouraged from even writing this book. Visit bitly.com/bkind120 for show notes and episode transcript. Listen to Part One of the conversation at bitly.com/bkind119. Sabrina String is an Asst. Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She was a recipient of the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship with a joint appointment in the School of Public Health and Department of Sociology. She has been featured in The Feminist Wire, Yoga International, and LA Yoga. Her writings can be found in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body

Sabrina Strings, PhD is the author of the new book Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. In this two-part interview, we discuss how she was able to connect racism with fatphobia, control of women’s bodies historically and through today’s diet culture, and how medicine’s use of the BMI metric is problematic and harmful. Dr. Strings shares why weight loss should not be part of the health equation and instead we should be seeking access to safe, nutritious food for all people at every size. Sabrina String is an Asst. Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She was a recipient of the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship with a joint appointment in the School of Public Health and Department of Sociology. She has been featured in The Feminist Wire, Yoga International, and LA Yoga. Her writings can be found in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society and Feminist Media Studies. Sabrina

In part two of my series on BURNOUT, which is also the title of a new book by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, we’re discussing why you should stop fighting your “inner critic” (that voice in your head constantly shouting at you, judging you and shaming you). In reality, this “madwoman in the attic” is trying to tell you something valuable about who you are, which can be really helpful in moving forward from BURNOUT because you stop pretending to be who the world wants you to be. Tune in to learn about the bikini industrial complex (BIC) and why it sucks so bad. More important, what you can do to build resistance to the BIC and reclaim your “new hotness”. You’ll also learn the value in connecting to something larger than yourself to help move the world closer to what you long envision it to be, even if it doesn’t come true in your lifetime. I’d love to imagine a world free from diets, body shame, the BIC, and BURNOUT. Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., is a sex educator and author of Come As You Are: The surprising new science

Burnout is the stress resilience book I’m recommending to friends and clients from now on. This two-part podcast series with Emily and Amelia Nagoski will explain why. We all have stress, but we aren’t all completing the stress cycle, which can have real health consequences. Learn about “human giver syndrome”  and why the opposite is not “taker syndrome”— which is what I used to think. Find out how the patriarchy... ughhhh plays a role in women’s burnout. Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., is a sex educator and author of Come As You Are: The surprising new science that will transform your sex life. Her job is to travel all over the world, training therapists, medical professionals, college students, and the general public about the science of women’s sexual wellbeing. Amelia Nagoski, D.M.A. (it stands for Doctorate of Musical Arts), is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Music at Western New England University. Her job is to run around waving her arms and making funny noises and generally doing whatever it takes to he

How would it feel to get an extra one to two hours of sleep per night? If the thought of that sounds absolutely amazing then you're like most people who don't get enough sleep. (side effects include daytime feelings of being drunk! fatigue! irritability!) Get our real life complaints and realistic advice for mindset and habit shifts that help. --- Get the Body Kindness book It's available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Read reviews on Amazon and pick up your copy today! Order signed copies and bulk discounts here! --- Donate to support the show Thanks to our generous supporters! We're working toward our goal to fund the full season. Can you donate? Please visit our Go Fund Me page. --- Get started with Body Kindness Sign up to get started for free and stay up to date on the latest offerings --- Become a client Check out BodyKindnessBook.com/breakthrough for the latest groups and individual support sessions --- Subscribe to the podcastWe're on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio. Enjoy the show

In this two-part episode, fellow anti-diet mom Virginia Sole-Smith and I discuss the ways in which culture sabotages parents, especially moms, by upholding unhelpful beliefs about food and weight. Virginia shares her rock bottom moment of what it took to finally give her daughter chocolate milk and why she had to unlearn much of what she learned from culture, her childhood, and her work as a writer and editor within the health and beauty industry. Please tune in to part two of our conversation on Virginia’s " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Comfort Food podcast to get the full conversation, including some of my best tips for parents in setting boundaries with love and kindness. -If you’d like more parenting support, check out the Body Kindness episodes I have flagged as best for parents. Body Kindness and The Eating Instinct books can help you make sense of culture, personal values, and finding a workable path for your family. I’m available for 1/1 virtual counseling if you think tailored support could make a

In this episode listeners ask us what is the most difficult thing in leaving diet culture for the Body Kindness philosophy, how to practice self-compassion when feeling body shame, what to do about stress and anxiety related weight loss, and how to handle the fear of weight gain with intuitive eating. Rebecca shares her concerns for the disordered eating patterns with advice and encouragement to move forward. Links mentioned Loving Kindness meditation podcast Kristen Neff website EDRDpro website Sharon Salzberg website Taylor Wolfram Vegan Dietitian (and mentee of Rebecca's) Body Kindness Mentor Program Intuitive Eating podcast themes --- Get the Body Kindness book It's available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Read reviews on Amazon and pick up your copy today! Order signed copies and bulk discounts here! --- Donate to support the show Thanks to our generous supporters! We're working toward our goal to fund the full season. Can you donate? Please visit our Go Fund Me page. --- Get started with B

Stress has a function and so does emotional eating. How you relate to stress and frame your views of emotional eating can make all the difference in how you feel about your body. In this powerful Learn and Grow episode, you'll learn why Bernie needed to stop restricting in order to realize that it would help cut back his stress eating even when his life stress continued to rise. SOS: support our show at GoFundMe.com/BodyKindness. Pick up Body Kindness wherever books are sold and start healing your relationship with yourself. Music: A Good Start from the American Dreams Soundtrack by Monplaisir, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org --- Get the Body Kindness book It's available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Read reviews on Amazon and pick up your copy today! Order signed copies and bulk discounts here! --- Donate to support the show Thanks to our generous supporters! We're working toward our goal to fund the full season. Can you donate? Please visit our Go Fund Me page. --- Get started with Body Kindness

Storytelling is a powerful way to examine how culture constructs beauty standards and upholds appearance privilege. In this episode, Kimberly Dark, author, yoga teacher, and retreat leader performs a reading of her poem about Marilyn Monroe and her mom teaching her how to smile like a woman down to the exact degree angle of the head tilt. Listen as I share how my decision to “reflect and retreat” helped me explore my relationship to my body, heal emotional wounds, and grow in my social justice work. About Kimberly Kimberly Dark is a writer, professor and raconteur, working to reveal the hidden architecture of everyday life one clever essay, poem, and story at a time. She uses humor, surprise and intimacy to help audiences discover their influences, and reclaim their power as social creators. Kimberly teaches in Sociology and Women's Studies at CSU, San Marcos. She also teaches writing and theatre courses for Cal State Summer Arts. Kimberly Dark has written award-winning plays, taught and performed for a wide

Dr. Jennifer Webb is back on the podcast to share outcomes of our Body Kindness research study examining mindful self-care and depressive symptoms in pregnancy and 5 years postpartum. Tune in to learn about the novel outcomes and get some advice you can use -- really it's good advice for anyone -- pregnant or not. We all have a body and we can all heal our relationship to it. Pick up Body Kindness wherever you get books and audiobooks. Get started with Body Kindness for free - bodykindnessbook.com/start About Dr. WebbDr Jennifer Webb studies body image in women as part of her research at UNC Charlotte MIND-BATCH lab. She is a Harvard and University of Southern California trained health psychologist. Dr Webb received her bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Harvard University, Master’s in Psychology from the University of Southern California, and PhD in Psychology also from the University of Southern California. Books and research mentioned Dr. Webb’s research to date Dr. Webb loves these books:

Don’t miss this important episode in the Learn & Grow Series. We talk about one of the longest studies on weight cycling and dieting — a study that followed the Biggest Loser contestants from Season 8 for six years. I help Bernie understand the outcomes of the journal article and how he can make peace with his experiences and move forward with body kindness instead of dieting. The study found that their bodies had “fought to regain weight”. Six years after the show: all but one contestant had regained a significant portion of their lost weight – an average of 70% their resting metabolisms had permanently slowed, burning an average 500 fewer calories a day than other people their age and size they had significantly lower levels of leptin, the body’s satiety hormone. A heads up: in this episode Bernie discusses his temporary weight loss and excessive efforts on The Biggest Loser. So take care of yourself when deciding to listen. My hope is that our collective anger will feel like a salve to the wounds of c

I'm loving this show today, all about anxiety and girls with bestselling author Dr. Lisa Damour. Her new book has just been released: Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. We discuss what's normal and actually beneficial for teen girls when it comes to stress and anxiety, when you should worry, as well as the options available for talking with girls and young women to reduce their stress and anxiety on everything from embracing their bodies, dating to setting boundaries. We also get into an important conversation on microaggressions and racism -- pressures from our culture girls can't control, but we as parents and helping professionals can help all girls get through. About Lisa Lisa Damour writes the monthly Adolescence column for the New York Times, serves as a regular contributor to CBS News, maintains a private psychotherapy practice, consults and speaks internationally, is a Senior Advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University, and

Why do higher weight folks get denied treatment for hip replacements, IVF, and even adoption? Find out the ways our culture excludes fat people even when research contradicts our approaches. My guest is Fiona Willer, HAES dietitian, academic, educator and creator of the HealthNotDiets Digest. About Fiona Fiona Willer's mission is to empower health professionals to adopt weight neutral practice by providing support and training in how and why to do so. In short, she wants to destroy the perception and practice of 'dietitian as food police.' As an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian and university lecturer in nutrition and dietetics, she values nourishment, autonomy, authenticity and evidence based practice. Her academic research areas are dietetic private practice benchmarking, interprofessional learning and HAES integration into dietetics. A love for research and presenting has led Fiona into presenting professional development workshops for HAES integration into clinical practice since 2013. Fiona has c

Bernie Salazar has been a student of the body kindness philosophy for over two years. But early on in his practice, The Biggest Loser was still a popular show and Bernie was still trying to make sense of what it meant to be healthy. Though he was deeply concerned about the well-being of the contestants, he still had his own self love and compassion “work” to do. His original “Loser letter,” which you’ll hear again in this show, still had some disordered logic and diet talk. Now, we come full circle in this episode with a deep reflection on culture, the show, and who gets access to feeling happy and safe in their body. Bernie shares that his true, happy and healthy self was always meant to have a fat body. And he is finally embracing it. He encourages all of us to keep practicing body kindness and heal our relationships with ourselves. --- Get the Body Kindness book It's available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Read reviews on Amazon and pick up your copy today! Order signed copies and bulk discounts

In the last segment of our series featuring readers sharing their powerful stories, we hear from two trauma survivors, one who was abused and spent most of her life with an undetected eating disorder and one who experienced trauma from dieting on weight watchers, including needing two back surgeries from running injuries sustained while being encouraged to do more and push harder to reach her weight goal. Don’t miss these emotional testimonials about the power of Body Kindness in taking back your life. --- Get the Body Kindness book It's available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Read reviews on Amazon and pick up your copy today! Order signed copies and bulk discounts here! --- Donate to support the show Thanks to our generous supporters! We're working toward our goal to fund the full season. Can you donate? Please visit our Go Fund Me page. --- Get started with Body Kindness Sign up to get started for free and stay up to date on the latest offerings --- Become a client Check out BodyKindnessBook.com