Welcome to the intuitive eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity and health at every size, and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies.
Happy New Year to you. I hope you had a good Christmas and a good new year. And by that I mean I hope it was restful and peaceful and as good as it can be for you. Ours was fine. It was OK as you know, I was croaking before Christmas. Well, that just got worse, didn't it? That just got worse. So I had COVID, and then I had a chest infection and then I got the flu. So for a good four weeks or so, I didn't do an awful lot. So Christmas was alright. Christmas Day was nice. Had family over in the day, had a really good Christmas dinner and had some more family over in the evening and had some fun. Played games and stuff. Was absolutely wiped out by the end of the day. And then, over the next few days, it just got worse and worse and yeah, I spent the gap between Christmas and New Year mostly sleeping, mostly sleeping.
And then New Year was pretty dull affair because it was feeling so rubbish. And then New Year's Day I had a bit of a tantrum, because the New year had been so rubbish and I was like, that's it, the decorations, they were all coming down. The trees coming down, everything's going, Christmas is over. And so I de-Christmassed my house. Yeah, so that was Christmas and New Year. It was just full of full of the lurgy, really.
It wasn't terrible. Don't get me wrong, I've. You know, not complaining. It's not been that bad. Could just have done without the sickness in the house. And then of course, afterwards, everybody else gets it as well. So that's gone through the house like wildfire. And as you can probably hear I'm still croaking. So I'm still not recovered, but I don't feel terrible. So that's OK. It's all right.
I hope you've had a good one, though. I hope you've had a really nice break. I hope it's been peaceful. I hope it's been restful. Hope it's been everything you wanted it to be. Really hope you had some nice presents. I've got tickets to go and see Lizzo. How cool is that? So excited. So yeah, I'm gonna go see Lizzo. And yeah, I just had some nice stuff, some nice stuff.
Lots of chocolate, lots of alcohol. That's alright. I'm perfectly happy with that. Nice that I don't feel the need to eat it all and drink it all. That's the beauty of not dieting in the New year. I don't feel the need to just blitz my way through all the chocolate in the house and all the Christmas food. Still got a mountain of cheese in the fridge. That's because we've been ill. So Boxing Day would usually be cheese eating day. New Year's Eve would also be a cheese eating day. Yeah, it's all still in the fridge. All the really nice cheese is still in the fridge. It will get eaten just when we're ready to eat it.
There's no point in eating if you do not feel like eating it. You just don't enjoy it the same way as if it really took your fancy. So yeah, lots of Christmas food still in the house, and that's all good. Don't feel the pressure to get rid of it. If you enjoy it eat it when you're going to enjoy it. Don't feel the pressure to shovel it all in and get rid of it just so that it's not in the house anymore. There's no reason why it can't be in the house for you.
So then the last week of not really started working again yet that's this week coming. I had diarised to not work last week because you know what the beauty of being self-employed is? That you can take proper downtime. And proper downtime is really important because I don't know about you if you're self-employed or if you know somebody that's self-employed but I think people just think we sit at home and don't do very much. But the reality is your mind is constantly whirring. Your mind is constantly, "what about this? What about that? What about the other? What if I did this? What if I did that? I really should be working. I shouldn't be sat down on the sofa". That's the kind of mindset that I'm always in. So I have made a point of not doing any work these last couple of weeks, so I just literally posted a couple of times on social media. Last week was really chilled.
I haven't really done a lot this weekend. It's been great. I've been doing my pool referees exams this weekend. So that's gonna be good. If I pass? No, when I pass? Yep so official referee. And what else? Been watching the snooker today. What a match that's been already. Won't bore you with the details because if you're not into these things I don't want to bore you for the next few minutes, but yeah, great start to the year, The Masters, the 2023 masters. And that's about it. That's the extent of activity that I've been up to in these past few weeks, but now we're into a new year, aren't we? And that's awesome.
New Year, back into the weekly podcasts, back into regular posting, back into the membership. So that will start again in these next couple of weeks. Well, the membership is always running, but the activity kicks off again really soon. And this week coming I'm running a new year challenge, which you can join in. Even if it's already started, if it's within the week that this podcast airs, you're welcome to still come and join in. It starts on the Monday, which is the day that this podcast airs, and for seven days here we go in live in the challenge group every day for about half an hour.
Got some information to give you and then a little bit of a task for you to do for you to dive into your relationship with food and your body. The world around you, the influences on your eating, that sort of stuff. And it's a challenge to help kick start your new year without a diet and give you a really positive start to the year. To start intuitive eating if you haven't started that yet. This challenge will help you do that, so I will put the link in the show notes. There we go, and you can click that and just come and join the challenge. It's going to be really good. It's going to be really fun.
So to kickstart this year's podcast episodes, today I want to have a rant. Yes I'm going to moan. Not a miserable moaning, but you'll understand why I'm going to have a rant when I start ranting. The amount of crap that I have seen over the Christmas period advertising dieting and telling you that you are not good enough and that you need to lose weight and that you need to be better somehow and you need to be more active and you need to do this and you need to do that. The amount of that I've seen this last couple of weeks is insane.
Now I see this stuff around me anyway because I'm tuned into it. But it made me wonder whether you would necessarily see it all, or if you did see it, would you appreciate how much of it there was around you? So I thought, let's talk about this today and then you can start to see all these dieting influences around you, if you're not already. And then you can see how ridiculous the diet industry is, OK? You can see how much they put it in your face that you need to change yourself and the ridiculous measures that they go to.
Obviously I've had a Slimming World leaflet through my front door. Of course. What diet Rep would be a diet Rep without a leaflet drop or two at New Year? So that's obviously made its way straight to the bin. My husband just took it to the bin. He didn't even say anything about it. I saw it though. I saw it in the bin. I saw it in the recycling. Yeah, I think he can do without my ranting every time one comes through the door. They come so often here. So often. I mean, what a waste of money. For starters, I don't understand why leaflet drops are even a thing anymore.
If I was a consultant, I would not be going door to door dropping paper through people's doors. What a waste of money. What a waste of time. What a waste of paper. How bad for the environment. And for God's sake, stop it. We don't want to diet. So that leaflet made its way to the recycling bin before I'd even seen it. I've given up wondering what to do with these leaflets. Now one day I will do something interesting with them, you know, and I've said it before, but set them on fire or use it to line a cat litter tray or something, but yeah. No thanks, Slimming World. Goodness sake, I don't want them.
And then there's my emails. How's your inbox looking? How many emails do you have that have got diet messages in them? Even from people who have nothing to do with dieting. So many of my emails are New year, new you or intimating that you have to have willpower and you have to start the new year as you need to go on and you need to, I don't really know why, but they just seem to factor weight loss into things that even don't relate to weight loss.
For example, I get emails about email marketing OK, that I subscribe to them because I do email marketing, so it's useful for me to know tips and tricks on email marketing. So why would you expect in an email marketing email to hear about weight loss? Well, of course at this time of year, an example of why I should contact somebody by email is to encourage them to lose weight this year, or start a new routine this year, start a new exercise program, start a new plan, start a new routine of some kind. Why Is it that weight loss is always an example that people use? Anything related to change? Anything related to motivation? Anything related to willpower, to changing your habits? They all use weight loss as an example.
Even if they're not selling a weight loss product. Even if they're just trying to encourage you to change your habits, change your routines. It always goes a little bit like, "oh, if you want to be more motivated this year, if you want to lose weight this year, if you want to get a new job this year". Why is weight loss on that list? Why is weight loss on a list of things that we're probably striving for in our lives this year? It's not. Thank you. Take them out of emails, take it out of emails where it's not warranted. So if you get emails like that or if you get some kind of social message that uses weight loss as an example, please do message them back. Please do send them a message back and say I'm sorry, why would you think I want to lose weight? Why are you encouraging me to lose weight?
You know, the more we highlight these things to people, the better. They might be more considerate of their messaging then.
I think the most disgusting thing I've seen this couple of weeks is an episode of 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Now, if you're not in the UK, I don't know if you'd be familiar with this, but it's a game show and it's based around words and numbers. Sounds very basic, doesn't it? But it's actually for quite intelligent people. That's original countdown.
And then there's a show called 8 Out Of 10 Cats, which is another kind of celebrity game show type thing, panel show. And then they combined the two so that they had a funny version of the words and numbers game show. If you're in the UK, is that a fair representation? I don't know. Go on YouTube. Have a look there. Eight out of 10 cats does countdown. That's what it's called.
And on this show this week over Christmas period, between Christmas and New Year, there was a guy on there who came on in a fat suit. Now Joe Wilkinson on this show comes on as a bit of a bit of a joke character anyway. He comes on, everybody laughs at him. He's one of those people, i think you either really like his humour or you don't. I do not. Anyway.
But he comes on in this fat suit, making jokes about himself and how he's put on weight over Christmas. Then he tries to fire himself out of a cannon. And gets stuck, obviously. And then he's doing something else where he's writing on a whiteboard and he drops the pen and oh, the struggle to pick it up because he's so fat. And then the fat suit has the crack of the backside, shall we say, hanging over the top of the jeans. All those kind of gross things that just make a real mockery of fat people. That's what he was doing.
And the panel were in hysterics and the audience find it funny. We had visitors at the time. They found it funny. I don't find it funny, I find it disgusting. And I was really quite shocked because they do push the boundaries on that show a little bit sometimes but that was just blatant taking the mick out of fat people. Really horrible. Absolutely disgusting. I there's not a lot I can say about that really, just that it was it really wasn't very pleasant to watch. Once again, fat people being the brunt of people's jokes. It's not funny.
And I really don't know why the show writers of programmes like this think that it's acceptable. Why are fat people such an easy target? Why are they seen to be something that it's OK to take the mick out of? Just awful. Just really horrible.
Then I stumbled across a podcast. Another podcast. And get this. It's called... hang on... 'Not skinny, but not fat'. And I promise you I don't go looking for this stuff. They just come up because obviously the algorithms have tuned in to the fact that I have an interest in this stuff, so it's probably a little bit confused about whether I want to see this stuff or not. But anyway, I get this thing came up in my feed on one of the social media platforms and it's a podcast episode with one of the Kardashians.
Now the content of the episode was irrelevant. I didn't watch it. I didn't listen to it. I would say watch it because it's also a visual. It's on YouTube as well. I didn't watch it. I didn't listen to it. Turns out a few of the Kardashians have been on there because I had a little look into this. And it's massive. And I was like, why is it called not skinny but not fat? Automatically that gets my hackles up anyway.
But then when I went into it, I found this line from an interview that she did and the host did. March 2022. And she says, "OK, I hate the name now. I think it was literal for me when I started. I started with memes and I felt my whole life that I wasn't skinny and I wasn't fat". If you hate the name so much, change it. If you don't like it, if you think it's not right, change it. I mean, not skinny, but not fat? That kind of to me implies that she's not particularly happy to be seen as fat but she can't classify herself as skinny.
Why do you have to put yourself in that mid range bracket? Who cares? Naming a podcast something like that is not OK. And you know what? It's got nothing to do with weight or anything either. It's just entertainment news, celebrity news, pop culture. So it's not even anything weight related awful.
What else did I see on social media? Walk and lose weight. There's an app. Walking to lose weight. You put in things like your build, your height, your weight, that sort of stuff. You put in how far maybe you'll walk and it will tell you how much weight you will lose, or it will tell you how far you need to walk to lose weight. Walk and lose weight, for God's sake.
How about walk for your health? Walk because it makes you feel good. Walk because it gives you mental clarity. Walk because it's good for your cardio health. Walk for joy, just walk because you enjoy it. Not walk and lose weight.
And that was kind of the better of the bad stuff that I saw on social media. So what else did I see? A mouth spray that reduces your appetite. A hypnotic gastric band. Yeah, you can just think yourself then now. You just have this mental ability to restrict your eating and it shrinks your stomach, and it makes you not eat much and you lose weight. Hypnotic gastric band. How bloody ridiculous.
A lip balm that stops you wanting sugar. That's right, lip balm. To stop you eating certain types of food how? How does that work? I don't know how it works, I think that's ridiculous. But since when can you stop your body wanting a certain type of food because you've put a certain lip balm on? I think it's something to do with your sense of smell and stuff because it's right under your nose and so it affects your smell and your taste and stuff. I think that might be something to do with it.
I also saw a nose ring that works in the same sort of way. Yep, you wear this clear nose ring. It just sits in across the bit, the bottom of your nose and stops you wanting to eat certain things and hope you lose weight, yeah?
Personalised nutrient gummies. Now don't get me wrong, there is a place for having things like vitamins and minerals and certain nutrients in a sweet form. In a gum form. A candy form. But for me, that's things like children who don't have a very varied diet and need to support their system with other vitamins and minerals and stuff and sweets are a good way to get kids to take those in. Or adults that are having some kind of medical condition that means they are nutrient deficient. Maybe they can't take tablets. Maybe they can't stomach them. Maybe that's just their preferred way of having vitamins and minerals and nutrients that they're missing. I mean, who doesn't like sweets, right? That's all good. But as a weight loss aid? As a way to stop you eating certain foods? Personalized nutrient gummies? That is a money making thing if ever I saw it.
Tell us your history. We will tell you what you need for your own personal body and your own system, your personal nutrition. We will do something personal to you. What a load of nonsense. It's rarely personalized anyway. You're going to get the same as a lot of other people. They're just gonna package it up as something that's personalized for you. So no, not acceptable.
And then going shopping, there's stuff in the shops everywhere. I mean, aside from the magazines, because obviously the magazines are all full of new year new me rubbish, but things like portion control plates, argh.
Portion control plates -a plate that tells you have to have this amount of your plate in vegetables, have this amount of your plate in carbohydrates, what a load of rubbish. Ah God. And it's all there alongside all the other new year new me rubbish. It's all there alongside the dieting tools. I just hate it so much. Because all it makes you do is consider whether you need to lose weight or not.
You know what? That does not need to be your primary goal this year. That does not need to be the focus for this January. How about this year we focus on being the best we can be mental health wise. How about we focus on being the best we want to be physically. But by that I mean comfortable in our own skin, wearing comfortable clothes, appreciating our bodies, self-care that sort of thing. Why can't that be our focus this year?
Why does everything have to be about weight loss? So, you can see all of the ridiculous things that are around you when you start looking for them. I mean, this list is just a small list of the stuff that I've seen. I would be here for hours if I actually detailed every single thing that I've seen this last few weeks encouraging weight loss.
You don't have to do that. You can ignore those things. You don't need them. You have other priorities in your life. Focus on your mental health. Focus on appreciating your body and making sure your body is comfortable as it is now. Focus on enjoying your job, your kids, your pets. Just life. Life is too short to be all consumed by weight loss.
So that's my message. It's my message to you today. See all of the rubbish around you. See all of these crap things that are being sold to us as things that we need. Could you imagine if I went and I bought all of those things on that list? Can you imagine if I bought the plate and the nose ring and the gummies and the lip balm and the mouth spray, and then thought about it to lose weight, and then did a load of walking and did the diets that are being sold, you know, the leaflets that are being dropped through the door. Oh and don't get me wrong, I haven't forgotten about the Cambridge plan that's also being sold left, right and centre. If you did all of that, it would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?
So let's focus on the things that really do matter. Let's focus on being the best you can be health wise for you this year. Make that your priority this new year.
Come and get in the challenge with me this week. It'll kick start your year. It will help you to really bed in the fact that you don't need to diet. I know this time of year is tough. I know that the pressure is real and I know that right now you're being dragged into it. I know that if you're not currently dieting, you're probably fighting really hard to not join your diet again. Stick with me. Let's do it. Let's do this year together. Ok? Go ahead, get in the challenge. I will see you in there.
I'm going for a drink because my throat is bone dry now. I'll speak to you next week. See ya bye.
Happy New Year to you. I hope you had a good Christmas and a good new year. And by that I mean I hope it was restful and peaceful and as good as it can be for you. Ours was fine. It was OK as you know, I was croaking before Christmas. Well, that just got worse, didn't it? That just got worse. So I had COVID, and then I had a chest infection and then I got the flu. So for a good four weeks or so, I didn't do an awful lot. So Christmas was alright. Christmas Day was nice. Had family over in the day, had a really good Christmas dinner and had some more family over in the evening and had some fun. Played games and stuff. Was absolutely wiped out by the end of the day. And then, over the next few days, it just got worse and worse and yeah, I spent the gap between Christmas and New Year mostly sleeping, mostly sleeping.
And then New Year was pretty dull affair because it was feeling so rubbish. And then New Year's Day I had a bit of a tantrum, because the New year had been so rubbish and I was like, that's it, the decorations, they were all coming down. The trees coming down, everything's going, Christmas is over. And so I de-Christmassed my house. Yeah, so that was Christmas and New Year. It was just full of full of the lurgy, really.
It wasn't terrible. Don't get me wrong, I've. You know, not complaining. It's not been that bad. Could just have done without the sickness in the house. And then of course, afterwards, everybody else gets it as well. So that's gone through the house like wildfire. And as you can probably hear I'm still croaking. So I'm still not recovered, but I don't feel terrible. So that's OK. It's all right.
I hope you've had a good one, though. I hope you've had a really nice break. I hope it's been peaceful. I hope it's been restful. Hope it's been everything you wanted it to be. Really hope you had some nice presents. I've got tickets to go and see Lizzo. How cool is that? So excited. So yeah, I'm gonna go see Lizzo. And yeah, I just had some nice stuff, some nice stuff.
Lots of chocolate, lots of alcohol. That's alright. I'm perfectly happy with that. Nice that I don't feel the need to eat it all and drink it all. That's the beauty of not dieting in the New year. I don't feel the need to just blitz my way through all the chocolate in the house and all the Christmas food. Still got a mountain of cheese in the fridge. That's because we've been ill. So Boxing Day would usually be cheese eating day. New Year's Eve would also be a cheese eating day. Yeah, it's all still in the fridge. All the really nice cheese is still in the fridge. It will get eaten just when we're ready to eat it.
There's no point in eating if you do not feel like eating it. You just don't enjoy it the same way as if it really took your fancy. So yeah, lots of Christmas food still in the house, and that's all good. Don't feel the pressure to get rid of it. If you enjoy it eat it when you're going to enjoy it. Don't feel the pressure to shovel it all in and get rid of it just so that it's not in the house anymore. There's no reason why it can't be in the house for you.
So then the last week of not really started working again yet that's this week coming. I had diarised to not work last week because you know what the beauty of being self-employed is? That you can take proper downtime. And proper downtime is really important because I don't know about you if you're self-employed or if you know somebody that's self-employed but I think people just think we sit at home and don't do very much. But the reality is your mind is constantly whirring. Your mind is constantly, "what about this? What about that? What about the other? What if I did this? What if I did that? I really should be working. I shouldn't be sat down on the sofa". That's the kind of mindset that I'm always in. So I have made a point of not doing any work these last couple of weeks, so I just literally posted a couple of times on social media. Last week was really chilled.
I haven't really done a lot this weekend. It's been great. I've been doing my pool referees exams this weekend. So that's gonna be good. If I pass? No, when I pass? Yep so official referee. And what else? Been watching the snooker today. What a match that's been already. Won't bore you with the details because if you're not into these things I don't want to bore you for the next few minutes, but yeah, great start to the year, The Masters, the 2023 masters. And that's about it. That's the extent of activity that I've been up to in these past few weeks, but now we're into a new year, aren't we? And that's awesome.
New Year, back into the weekly podcasts, back into regular posting, back into the membership. So that will start again in these next couple of weeks. Well, the membership is always running, but the activity kicks off again really soon. And this week coming I'm running a new year challenge, which you can join in. Even if it's already started, if it's within the week that this podcast airs, you're welcome to still come and join in. It starts on the Monday, which is the day that this podcast airs, and for seven days here we go in live in the challenge group every day for about half an hour.
Got some information to give you and then a little bit of a task for you to do for you to dive into your relationship with food and your body. The world around you, the influences on your eating, that sort of stuff. And it's a challenge to help kick start your new year without a diet and give you a really positive start to the year. To start intuitive eating if you haven't started that yet. This challenge will help you do that, so I will put the link in the show notes. There we go, and you can click that and just come and join the challenge. It's going to be really good. It's going to be really fun.
So to kickstart this year's podcast episodes, today I want to have a rant. Yes I'm going to moan. Not a miserable moaning, but you'll understand why I'm going to have a rant when I start ranting. The amount of crap that I have seen over the Christmas period advertising dieting and telling you that you are not good enough and that you need to lose weight and that you need to be better somehow and you need to be more active and you need to do this and you need to do that. The amount of that I've seen this last couple of weeks is insane.
Now I see this stuff around me anyway because I'm tuned into it. But it made me wonder whether you would necessarily see it all, or if you did see it, would you appreciate how much of it there was around you? So I thought, let's talk about this today and then you can start to see all these dieting influences around you, if you're not already. And then you can see how ridiculous the diet industry is, OK? You can see how much they put it in your face that you need to change yourself and the ridiculous measures that they go to.
Obviously I've had a Slimming World leaflet through my front door. Of course. What diet Rep would be a diet Rep without a leaflet drop or two at New Year? So that's obviously made its way straight to the bin. My husband just took it to the bin. He didn't even say anything about it. I saw it though. I saw it in the bin. I saw it in the recycling. Yeah, I think he can do without my ranting every time one comes through the door. They come so often here. So often. I mean, what a waste of money. For starters, I don't understand why leaflet drops are even a thing anymore.
If I was a consultant, I would not be going door to door dropping paper through people's doors. What a waste of money. What a waste of time. What a waste of paper. How bad for the environment. And for God's sake, stop it. We don't want to diet. So that leaflet made its way to the recycling bin before I'd even seen it. I've given up wondering what to do with these leaflets. Now one day I will do something interesting with them, you know, and I've said it before, but set them on fire or use it to line a cat litter tray or something, but yeah. No thanks, Slimming World. Goodness sake, I don't want them.
And then there's my emails. How's your inbox looking? How many emails do you have that have got diet messages in them? Even from people who have nothing to do with dieting. So many of my emails are New year, new you or intimating that you have to have willpower and you have to start the new year as you need to go on and you need to, I don't really know why, but they just seem to factor weight loss into things that even don't relate to weight loss.
For example, I get emails about email marketing OK, that I subscribe to them because I do email marketing, so it's useful for me to know tips and tricks on email marketing. So why would you expect in an email marketing email to hear about weight loss? Well, of course at this time of year, an example of why I should contact somebody by email is to encourage them to lose weight this year, or start a new routine this year, start a new exercise program, start a new plan, start a new routine of some kind. Why Is it that weight loss is always an example that people use? Anything related to change? Anything related to motivation? Anything related to willpower, to changing your habits? They all use weight loss as an example.
Even if they're not selling a weight loss product. Even if they're just trying to encourage you to change your habits, change your routines. It always goes a little bit like, "oh, if you want to be more motivated this year, if you want to lose weight this year, if you want to get a new job this year". Why is weight loss on that list? Why is weight loss on a list of things that we're probably striving for in our lives this year? It's not. Thank you. Take them out of emails, take it out of emails where it's not warranted. So if you get emails like that or if you get some kind of social message that uses weight loss as an example, please do message them back. Please do send them a message back and say I'm sorry, why would you think I want to lose weight? Why are you encouraging me to lose weight?
You know, the more we highlight these things to people, the better. They might be more considerate of their messaging then.
I think the most disgusting thing I've seen this couple of weeks is an episode of 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Now, if you're not in the UK, I don't know if you'd be familiar with this, but it's a game show and it's based around words and numbers. Sounds very basic, doesn't it? But it's actually for quite intelligent people. That's original countdown.
And then there's a show called 8 Out Of 10 Cats, which is another kind of celebrity game show type thing, panel show. And then they combined the two so that they had a funny version of the words and numbers game show. If you're in the UK, is that a fair representation? I don't know. Go on YouTube. Have a look there. Eight out of 10 cats does countdown. That's what it's called.
And on this show this week over Christmas period, between Christmas and New Year, there was a guy on there who came on in a fat suit. Now Joe Wilkinson on this show comes on as a bit of a bit of a joke character anyway. He comes on, everybody laughs at him. He's one of those people, i think you either really like his humour or you don't. I do not. Anyway.
But he comes on in this fat suit, making jokes about himself and how he's put on weight over Christmas. Then he tries to fire himself out of a cannon. And gets stuck, obviously. And then he's doing something else where he's writing on a whiteboard and he drops the pen and oh, the struggle to pick it up because he's so fat. And then the fat suit has the crack of the backside, shall we say, hanging over the top of the jeans. All those kind of gross things that just make a real mockery of fat people. That's what he was doing.
And the panel were in hysterics and the audience find it funny. We had visitors at the time. They found it funny. I don't find it funny, I find it disgusting. And I was really quite shocked because they do push the boundaries on that show a little bit sometimes but that was just blatant taking the mick out of fat people. Really horrible. Absolutely disgusting. I there's not a lot I can say about that really, just that it was it really wasn't very pleasant to watch. Once again, fat people being the brunt of people's jokes. It's not funny.
And I really don't know why the show writers of programmes like this think that it's acceptable. Why are fat people such an easy target? Why are they seen to be something that it's OK to take the mick out of? Just awful. Just really horrible.
Then I stumbled across a podcast. Another podcast. And get this. It's called... hang on... 'Not skinny, but not fat'. And I promise you I don't go looking for this stuff. They just come up because obviously the algorithms have tuned in to the fact that I have an interest in this stuff, so it's probably a little bit confused about whether I want to see this stuff or not. But anyway, I get this thing came up in my feed on one of the social media platforms and it's a podcast episode with one of the Kardashians.
Now the content of the episode was irrelevant. I didn't watch it. I didn't listen to it. I would say watch it because it's also a visual. It's on YouTube as well. I didn't watch it. I didn't listen to it. Turns out a few of the Kardashians have been on there because I had a little look into this. And it's massive. And I was like, why is it called not skinny but not fat? Automatically that gets my hackles up anyway.
But then when I went into it, I found this line from an interview that she did and the host did. March 2022. And she says, "OK, I hate the name now. I think it was literal for me when I started. I started with memes and I felt my whole life that I wasn't skinny and I wasn't fat". If you hate the name so much, change it. If you don't like it, if you think it's not right, change it. I mean, not skinny, but not fat? That kind of to me implies that she's not particularly happy to be seen as fat but she can't classify herself as skinny.
Why do you have to put yourself in that mid range bracket? Who cares? Naming a podcast something like that is not OK. And you know what? It's got nothing to do with weight or anything either. It's just entertainment news, celebrity news, pop culture. So it's not even anything weight related awful.
What else did I see on social media? Walk and lose weight. There's an app. Walking to lose weight. You put in things like your build, your height, your weight, that sort of stuff. You put in how far maybe you'll walk and it will tell you how much weight you will lose, or it will tell you how far you need to walk to lose weight. Walk and lose weight, for God's sake.
How about walk for your health? Walk because it makes you feel good. Walk because it gives you mental clarity. Walk because it's good for your cardio health. Walk for joy, just walk because you enjoy it. Not walk and lose weight.
And that was kind of the better of the bad stuff that I saw on social media. So what else did I see? A mouth spray that reduces your appetite. A hypnotic gastric band. Yeah, you can just think yourself then now. You just have this mental ability to restrict your eating and it shrinks your stomach, and it makes you not eat much and you lose weight. Hypnotic gastric band. How bloody ridiculous.
A lip balm that stops you wanting sugar. That's right, lip balm. To stop you eating certain types of food how? How does that work? I don't know how it works, I think that's ridiculous. But since when can you stop your body wanting a certain type of food because you've put a certain lip balm on? I think it's something to do with your sense of smell and stuff because it's right under your nose and so it affects your smell and your taste and stuff. I think that might be something to do with it.
I also saw a nose ring that works in the same sort of way. Yep, you wear this clear nose ring. It just sits in across the bit, the bottom of your nose and stops you wanting to eat certain things and hope you lose weight, yeah?
Personalised nutrient gummies. Now don't get me wrong, there is a place for having things like vitamins and minerals and certain nutrients in a sweet form. In a gum form. A candy form. But for me, that's things like children who don't have a very varied diet and need to support their system with other vitamins and minerals and stuff and sweets are a good way to get kids to take those in. Or adults that are having some kind of medical condition that means they are nutrient deficient. Maybe they can't take tablets. Maybe they can't stomach them. Maybe that's just their preferred way of having vitamins and minerals and nutrients that they're missing. I mean, who doesn't like sweets, right? That's all good. But as a weight loss aid? As a way to stop you eating certain foods? Personalized nutrient gummies? That is a money making thing if ever I saw it.
Tell us your history. We will tell you what you need for your own personal body and your own system, your personal nutrition. We will do something personal to you. What a load of nonsense. It's rarely personalized anyway. You're going to get the same as a lot of other people. They're just gonna package it up as something that's personalized for you. So no, not acceptable.
And then going shopping, there's stuff in the shops everywhere. I mean, aside from the magazines, because obviously the magazines are all full of new year new me rubbish, but things like portion control plates, argh.
Portion control plates -a plate that tells you have to have this amount of your plate in vegetables, have this amount of your plate in carbohydrates, what a load of rubbish. Ah God. And it's all there alongside all the other new year new me rubbish. It's all there alongside the dieting tools. I just hate it so much. Because all it makes you do is consider whether you need to lose weight or not.
You know what? That does not need to be your primary goal this year. That does not need to be the focus for this January. How about this year we focus on being the best we can be mental health wise. How about we focus on being the best we want to be physically. But by that I mean comfortable in our own skin, wearing comfortable clothes, appreciating our bodies, self-care that sort of thing. Why can't that be our focus this year?
Why does everything have to be about weight loss? So, you can see all of the ridiculous things that are around you when you start looking for them. I mean, this list is just a small list of the stuff that I've seen. I would be here for hours if I actually detailed every single thing that I've seen this last few weeks encouraging weight loss.
You don't have to do that. You can ignore those things. You don't need them. You have other priorities in your life. Focus on your mental health. Focus on appreciating your body and making sure your body is comfortable as it is now. Focus on enjoying your job, your kids, your pets. Just life. Life is too short to be all consumed by weight loss.
So that's my message. It's my message to you today. See all of the rubbish around you. See all of these crap things that are being sold to us as things that we need. Could you imagine if I went and I bought all of those things on that list? Can you imagine if I bought the plate and the nose ring and the gummies and the lip balm and the mouth spray, and then thought about it to lose weight, and then did a load of walking and did the diets that are being sold, you know, the leaflets that are being dropped through the door. Oh and don't get me wrong, I haven't forgotten about the Cambridge plan that's also being sold left, right and centre. If you did all of that, it would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?
So let's focus on the things that really do matter. Let's focus on being the best you can be health wise for you this year. Make that your priority this new year.
Come and get in the challenge with me this week. It'll kick start your year. It will help you to really bed in the fact that you don't need to diet. I know this time of year is tough. I know that the pressure is real and I know that right now you're being dragged into it. I know that if you're not currently dieting, you're probably fighting really hard to not join your diet again. Stick with me. Let's do it. Let's do this year together. Ok? Go ahead, get in the challenge. I will see you in there.
I'm going for a drink because my throat is bone dry now. I'll speak to you next week. See ya bye.
