Totally and Obviously Fucked Up is a pro-intersectional, anti-oppression, vegan magazine that aims to extend the conversation beyond the plate. Since 2007, T.O.F.U. has been independently publishing the work of authors, artists, activists, and other awesome associates in order to do exactly that. Thanks to readers like you, their words and artwork have been seen around the world. For more information, please visit tofumagazine.com. ©2018 T.O.F.U. Magazine
About The Cover I chose a peach pit for a number of reasons. Obviously, it relates to food and eating. However, specifically using a pit goes beyond that. First, many may not consider it as visually appealing as a peach. So, in a way, it represents the ugly truth beneath. In regard to some eating disorders (EDs), this could relate to either the way someone sees themselves or it could be the fact that suffering with an ED can often be ignored by others who see weight loss and thinness as great, no matter the reason. Also, peach pits contain toxins that can prove fatal in high doses. For some, especially those in the “clean-eating” community, all that’s needed is one exposé on the dangers of common fruit to eliminate them from their plate and Instagram accounts. On a positive note, the pit also contains a seed. Through love, it can grow to be something beautiful. Hopefully, thanks to the contributions of the authors and artists, this issue will prove to be a source of love and growth, both within the community and yourself. Cover and related peach photos: Devon Crosby Editor ryan@tofumagazine.com
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Artistic Folks Julia Feliz Brueck
Meneka Repka
Julia Feliz Brueck is a decade long vegan, mother of two, scientist, and published author and illustrator. She is also the founder of Sanctuary Publishers, a vegan book publisher that gives back to marginalized communities with every book sold.
Meneka Repka is an artist and teacher living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She holds a PhD in education, and teaches both university and high school courses. She also runs Nooch Greeting Cards, and is a co-founder of VegFest Calgary.
fb: juliafelizbrueck & sanctuarypublishers
ig: @meneka_repka & @noochgreetingcards
Samantha Fung
Ryan Stanley
Samantha Fung is an animal rights artist, activist, and hunt saboteur who lives in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Having recovered from an eating disorder, Sam’s work also covers topics such as fat shaming, the influence of the media, and self-care. ig: @oneheartillustration
Matt Gauck
Ryan Stanley is an illustrator, musician, and dad currently residing in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. When he’s not drawing or playing music, he puts responsible teenagers behind the wheel. w: cursedarrows.bandcamp.com ig: @fox_killdeer
Wanni Wang
Matt Gauck is a freelance illustrator and screen printer living the rural life in Whittier, North Carolina, USA. He spends most of his time drawing, skateboarding, and watching bad horror movies. He is also good at handstands.
Wanni Wang is an artist/illustrator based in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. A transplant from Hong Kong, she aims to promote and capture the sense of wonderment in daily life, and the goodness that fuels the fight for more justice, mercy, and kindness.
w: mattgauck.com | ig: @veganpatches
w: wanniwanni.com | ig: @wwanni
Writers Hannah-Phoebe Bowen Muffy J. Davis Kristy Draper Lisa Febre Pamela Fergusson
Special Thanks Rachael McBride Lyndsay Penner Jackie Stanley Rey Weyler Taylor Wolfram
Kudos to my Patreon subscribers who went above and beyond the usual pledge level: Dan Hanley Don Nicholson me&you. body. Reiner Beh Also, continued thanks and appreciation to A Well-Fed World for supporting the work of T.O.F.U. financially through their grant program.
From the Editor Out of all the topics T.O.F.U. has focused on, I think disordered eating has to be the one where I felt I was in over my head the most. In some ways, that was a good thing. Over the years, I’ve had lots of folks tell me that having the magazine cover uncomfortable topics was helpful in many ways, so I guess being uncomfortable myself was a sign that I was doing something right... right? Granted, there were times when I really debated it, especially when it came to figuring out the cover (something I usually have a concept for before I even really start looking for contributors) and when I had a number of prospective authors turn me down due to how triggering the topic was for them. Sure, having folks disappear around a deadline or simply ghost me was par for the course with any issue, but reading replies from individuals who didn’t want to discuss their ED, recovery, etc. had me thinking that maybe this was the topic I should steer clear of. On top of that, even though I was accustomed to having little personal experience with the focus topics in the past, this time around I had no more than a general knowledge of the disordered eating community. So, it seemed likely that I would stumble while trying to bring people together to talk about such a sensitive issue, and that’s what scared me the most. Of course, as many would argue, it’s within such uncomfortable situations that one can really learn and grow. Thanks to the authors and artists who volunteered their time and talents (along with their understanding as I clumsily tried to work with them) to create pieces for this issue, I feel like I’ve done just that. Hopefully, you will too. Sincerely,
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Table of contents
Issue #13 > Disordered Eating
A Different Path > 03 Veganism is Not an Option > 09 Ignore the Propaganda, Listen to Your Body > 15 Confessions of a Picky Eater > 23 Carrying the Weight > 31 For the Animals, Not For Myself > 41 Be a Picky Reader > 47 Taking the Next Step > 53 Coping With Storytelling > 59 Content Warning: articles within this issue contain references to restrictive or disordered eating, violence against animals, depression, and suicidal thoughts/actions.
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A Different Path Words by Kristy Draper | Illustration by Matt Gauck
With the new year comes a barrage of advertisements that promise a healthier and new and improved version of you. Didn’t you hear, the diet industry has found a significant breakthrough to help you lose that belly fat and arm flab once and for all. Even better - try going vegan and see the pounds just melt away! A vegan diet can cure high blood pressure, alleviate the need to take all medications, and it even wards off cancer. In case you’re not convinced, you can hear daily testimonies from celebrities and professional athletes about their new-found love of eating vegan because of the weight loss, increased performance, and other benefits. Throughout my life, I’ve heard and seen messages similar to the above. In fact, at almost any age, I can remember a commercial about a diet or fitness related product, a newscast showing the bellies of fat people and debating the “obesity
epidemic” in our country, and advertisements in magazines adoring people that looked nothing like me. From this, I learned at an early age what I needed to strive to become, and that I should do it through any possible means. I am a fat vegan. I was a fat non-vegan. I’ve been fat all my life. The fat shaming started at a young age for me. I was the largest kid in all my elementary school classes and along with that came many jokes about my size. My aunts, uncles, and grandparents made sure to let me know that my size was repulsive, not caring that I was only seven years old. Now at 36, I am a seasoned veteran of the diet industry. I have tried every diet that has been conjured up in a laboratory or a boardroom. Slim fast bars, drinking shots of collagen, and even rubbing my belly in a particular direction for 10 minutes each night. Nothing worked. I was still fat. Even a former boss tried to talk me into having gastric bypass
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surgery. She was having the surgery and wanted me to be skinny with her so we could both wear bikinis by the summer. After many sleepless nights thinking about the operation, I opted not to have the surgery. She went through the surgery and had multiple health complications because of it. In 2012, I became a vegetarian. My change was not for health reasons, but because I wanted my lifestyle to finally align with my thoughts, feelings, and ethics. Those same reasons turned me vegan in 2014. My husband, also a large person when I met him, became a vegetarian in 2012 with me and then he went vegan only a few months later. After becoming vegetarians, we both lost weight over the first couple of months. That wasn’t a goal, but I thought hot-damn! Throughout most of my teen years and into early adulthood, I had had a secret goal: I wanted to write one of those inspiring weight loss stories that I read in the fitness magazines, and now I had unlocked the secret to weight loss. I wanted to scream at the world that I was finally almost just like everyone else, thin and happy. For me, the link between being thin and being happy was a solid line. Smaller, Thinner, Better I started paying more attention to how eating a plant-based diet could help me lose weight. I found a plant-based nurse practitioner in Austin, TX, where I was living at the time, and begged for an appointment. I was so excited to work with someone who could teach me about healthy eating and habits. My first appointment was in March 2015. It was a complete disaster. She was baffled that I was that fat and I was a vegan. Without even running lab tests, she told me I was pre-diabetic (and on the verge of being a diabetic) and that I had to change all my eating habits before my soon-to-be premature death. We hadn’t even discussed what I ate. It was just her perception based on my size.
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She immediately had me start taking 2,500 mg of Metformin, a diabetic medicine, every night. My mother, who is diabetic, wasn’t even taking half that dose. The nurse practitioner told me that this drug would help me lose weight and regulate my insulin level. Again, this was all before I received my initial lab results. I felt like I didn’t have a choice in this decision. She made me feel so small (figuratively) and that I was the lowest form of a person. I think I had every negative side effect while taking Metformin. I was constantly nauseous, dizzy to the point where I couldn’t stand up, let alone be able to workout for any amount of time, and I even gained weight! I was told to stick it out until my next appointment, scheduled for three weeks later. At that point, my lab results were back. My blood sugar level was normal, and the only concerning number on the report was my vitamin D level. I was given the option to stop taking Metformin if I wanted but was heavily advised against it. I stopped. She then turned to my diet. I wasn’t allowed to have any grains, wheat, or sugar for at least three months. She was even offended by the five dates that I used in my homemade almond milk. I was to only eat a tiny portion of fruit per week and no avocados either. For the next three months, I killed myself on the treadmill while consuming very few calories. I lost 40 pounds in just a little over three months. There it was, the magic recipe for weight loss. Pushed to the Edge I had to go to the doctor every three months and have blood drawn before each visit. But I soon realized this was not a sustainable life. My weight loss had slowed down a great deal. My mental attitude declined into almost a depression whenever I had to miss one workout. I wasn’t happy. I was hungry all the time. For inspiration, I started joining online communities for plant-based weight loss and seeking out local groups as well. I started reading
Thin is healthy. Thin is beautiful. We have created these labels to place our fellow humans into categories. There are almost seven billion people living on this planet, and we all have our own unique bodies. Many of us do not fit into certain categories.
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blogs, posts, and comments about fat vegans. So many people sounded like the nurse practitioner that I had been seeing. I would see people questioning how a person could be vegan and fat. “Don’t the fatties know how easy it is to lose weight eating vegan?” I couldn’t believe the negativity within the vegan community. Aren’t vegans supposed to be more compassionate? I mean, good grief, I am now fat-shamed by my fellow vegans! I was told I didn’t look like a vegan and even heard that I wouldn’t be taken seriously in the activist community because of my size. I couldn’t please anyone! Veganism changed my entire life. I became aware of so many injustices in relations to animals, our environment, and even how human rights are connected. I educated myself on how my actions affect all beings and the physical world. However, I was led to believe that I would never make a difference, just because of my size. Coupled with fat shaming, it seems that lately there has been a big push for “clean-eating,” labeling bad food versus good food, or even using the term “junk-food vegan.” Every doctor, nutritionist, or selfproclaimed diet expert has the magic formula for you to look great and feel good. I used to frequent a salad bar style restaurant in Austin where the saying, “Eat Good. Look Good.” was painted in ten–foot high lettering on their main wall. That slogan always made me feel uneasy because I felt if I weren’t eating a salad for every meal then I wouldn’t look good. Plus, I didn’t feel like I belonged in the restaurant because I didn’t believe a single person in there would think that I looked good. It goes back to thinking thin is beautiful and labeling a certain food as “good food.” What about feeling good? I didn’t eat a salad because I wanted to look good, I ate it because it tasted good and I liked the way my body felt after eating it.
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Finding My Way Back The term “body acceptance” is new to me. Hearing it the first time was equivalent to learning the word “quinoa” before I became vegetarian. I couldn’t wrap my head around the words or the meaning. Intentionally thinking that I can accept the person that I am today, knowing I may never be thin but I could be healthy, was a hard concept to grasp. Body acceptance is not something that is discussed in mainstream media. Our media and culture have conditioned us to think and believe what is healthy and beautiful. Thin is healthy. Thin is beautiful. We have created these labels to place our fellow humans into categories. There are almost seven billion people living on this planet, and we all have our own unique bodies. Many of us do not fit into certain categories. These categories have only enabled us to see a person and quickly judge how they live their lives based on the way they look. But, looks are deceiving, and not everything is always how it appears. We need to start learning ways to accept ourselves as we are and lead by example in our language and thinking. I know this is easier said than done. It is a daily battle for me and most likely will always be a battle. I am lucky to have a spouse and friends who support me and help me rationally digest the information I consume from medical professionals, my peers, and the media. I could have easily stayed on the path of constantly thinking about ways to lose weight and filing away all the mental images and information I was receiving. I was hurting myself mentally and physically and distancing those around me while doing so. I know others who have not been as fortunate as me with a support system or a breakthrough to help right themselves. Some of them have chosen to share their stories in this issue, some share their struggles in other ways, and others sadly lost the battle and are no longer with us.
Speaking up against food and body-shaming is essential to shifting our culture’s thought process and language. In doing so, we are creating a support network. Ensuring not only our health and well-being, but also ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of others in which we are connected. It is easy to be unaware of all the direct and indirect connections we have with other individuals. But we hold great power in how we think, act, and communicate. One small sentence could change the course of someone’s life or even our own.
Kristy Draper is a vegan lifestyle coach & educator, as well as a cooking coach and mentor. She is currently earning a Master of Arts in Humane Education through the Institute for Humane Education, where she is studying the connections between humans, non-human animals, the environment, and our culture. She lives in Vancouver, Washington, USA with her husband, three rescued companion cats, and a feisty rescued guinea pig. ig: @vegfullife | t: @vegfullife fb: kristy.seisdraper
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Veganism Is Not An Option Words by Rey Weyler | Illustration by Meneka Repka
I’m privileged in more than one way and absolutely willing to admit it. One of my privileges has come in the form of my mother. No mother is perfect—and certainly, dealing with a hostile, mentally ill teenager didn’t improve her temperament—but many people in my situation never have the kind of support I’ve received from her. She has, at times, been a pedestal, a cheerleader, and an avid supporter. For example, she was willing to listen to me in ways that treatment providers were not. Since she could see through the eating disorder to who I was/am as a person, she was the only person who defended my veganism and allowed me to remain vegan during various periods of recovery. She knew that I could feel intense empathy for others (including other species), and could see that I did not want to breach my values for recovery. I am so grateful for the role she played in helping my veganism grow to the major aspect of my activism that it is now.
At the age of ten, even with a very supportive mother, I began to struggle with severe depression, low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts and attempts, anxiety, and self harm. Five years later, I began my foray into trying to defeat my own body. I had learned that everything I did was a mistake, that I was stupid for making mistakes, and that I should be shamed for making them. My body was only valuable if it was small. Thus, in the chaos of what felt like an inability to control my ineptitude, I began yo-yo diets, which consisted of mostly self-made starvation diets. When I turned 16, I became vegan, admittedly at a skewed period of time. The irony, though, is that I did not become vegan to lose weight, to be healthy, or to avoid foods. I had wanted to give up animal products, but held the genuine belief that it was simply too hard. So when I discovered that I could restrict food without too much trouble, I
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realized animal products were not as important as I’d believed they were. It’s hard to convince anyone, from my mom to my treatment providers, that this thinking isn’t disordered. I know my eating disorder better than anyone; I’ve lived with it for five years. It still surprises me at times, but I know that my decision to be vegan and stay vegan is not routed in disorder. It doesn’t cause me distress or anxiety. It doesn’t introduce a dichotomy of wanting to forgo animal products vs. wanting to consume them, the way an argument between myself and my eating disorder always does. Thankfully, even with all of the treatment providers who were against my wish to stay vegan, my mom refused to give up on me as a person. She refused to give up on the extent of my humanity, even in the face of a daunting illness. Leave Your Values Behind Depending on where you are in this discussion-that is, if you’ve had an eating disorder or had a loved one with an eating disorder, and you or your loved one is/was vegan, you might know how this goes. If you haven’t, the conversations usually consist of the following: “We encourage you to eat meat and animal products when you come into treatment because vegetarianism and veganism are often a way to restrict.” “I don’t know if I can continue to see you if you aren’t willing to at least be vegetarian.” “This program will not permit you to be vegan.” “You have to at least eat, you know, cheese, milk, and eggs.” “There is a lot of research that suggests that you cannot fully recover from an eating disorder as a vegan.” Just the idea of being vegetarian is still seen
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as so strange and out of the ordinary that this is the way eating disorder treatment is approached-viewing it as something that could not possibly come alongside values. Many treatment providers will not work with you if you are vegetarian, let alone vegan. However, allergies to gluten, dairy, and nuts (even the most mild ones), whether discovered before or during treatment, are accommodated. This is not to say that being vegan or vegetarian is medical in the way that allergies are--but rather, that people can go through treatment and successfully recover with adapted diets. The last comment eats at me (no pun intended) the most. We barely have good research on patients with anorexia recovering at all, because it is still miserably under-researched. Second of all, in four years in and out of four different facilities specifically for eating disorders, and two not specifically for eating disorders, I have never once met or heard of a single vegan who was recovering or in recovery. I find it hard to believe that somehow, in the small amount of research available on anorexia itself, we have found “a lot” of data on veganism in recovery. And, um, let’s be honest here--how biased do you think that research was? Don’t get me wrong, I know that veganism can be a form of restriction. I don’t want to deny that or insist that the future of veganism relies on those with eating disorders giving up animal products/ continuing in restrictive veganism--different people need to be in different places to make that choice. I don’t want to invalidate the difficulty of working with dietary restrictions amidst a serious mental illness that revolves around food. I understand the hesitation that treatment providers and centres have in working with veganism—it is harder to have a variety of meals. However, the thing is that veganism is not inherently restrictive. When everyone around you is eating animal products—for example, when the meals
How do you take in the vegan media where you are shamed for consuming animal products when you are in the hospital and being tube-fed Ensure made with dairy, or having to choose between eating the food they give you, which may have cheese, milk, eggs, or going back to the tube-feed?
other clients may eat in treatment centres contain animal products—that is when it becomes restrictive. Suddenly, you can’t have a large proportion of snacks or meals that others are being given, but you aren’t cutting out a food group. You aren’t saying, “I won’t eat fat or carbs because they will make me gain weight”. You’re just stuck without any options that you would normally choose. Shamed If You Do, Tube-Fed If You Don’t What my real issue is here is just how dependent we are on factory farmed animals. When I was in treatment, I had no option but to forgo my veganism for vegetarianism--but we never had meals that were vegan and those who did not follow the vegetarian plan were never made vegan meals. Basically, if it didn’t involve animal products, it wasn’t even a possibility. With this sort of mentality, both in treatment centres and with health professionals, how do you prove to people that after years of being in and out of treatment centres and being consumed by an eating disorder, giving up animal products is a choice that helps your recovery, rather than hindering it? How do you take in the vegan media where you are shamed for consuming animal products when you are in the hospital and being tube-fed Ensure made with dairy, or having to choose between eating the food they give you, which may have cheese, milk, or eggs, or going back to the tube-feed? How do you consume media when you cannot have discussions
about veganism with many of your friends because of the nature of their and your own illnesses? I have gone into treatment and consumed animal products. Many times. Through this I still considered myself a vegan at heart, and I made vegan choices when I was able. Over the past few years, through navigating debilitating mental illness and ethical choices around food, I learned so much about both mainstream and intersectional veganism, the animal product industry, mental health and mental illness, and also about the systems and patterns of oppression and exploitation that our societies have been built upon. In my recovery, learning about the systems of food production, processing, and consumption, has been incredibly powerful for me. It is information that I have been motivated to seek out by the same values that drive my veganism, which is a passion of love far beyond the obsession of an eating disorder. Being able to make the changes in my life that I have, especially giving things up or changing the way I do things, has reminded me that I absolutely have control over what I will forgo and what I will not. My eating disorder was rooted in giving up food, giving up calories, as well as sacrificing time to exercise, to reach the level of willpower I saw as so important. To change my body in the way that I thought I wanted. It was driven by the beliefs of a culture that you have to demonstrate willpower over what you enjoy to be a better human--at least when it comes to aesthetics.
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But even though in adapting veganism and in learning so much more about the world I have given up animal products and many practices, it is not in any way about my willpower. I have no drive to just quit and eat that cheese pizza. It’s about my values. So for myself, having veganism as a starting point for the things in my life I have changed and want to continue to change allowed me to develop the sense of understanding of where my intentions come from. Having come from a place where, despite loving animals, I blindly accepted the practices of commercially farming them, I have been able to learn that the real challenge to change is often being open to looking at your own viewpoints and beliefs in a new light--being willing to see them as not as good for the planet as they could be. And when you look at just how damaging the human race is to this earth and to itself--don’t we owe it to the planet to be open to change our ideas and our lifestyles, when that is possible? Alice Walker was the speaker of a quote I read recently with which I immediately fell in love. She said, “Activism is the rent we pay for living on this planet.”
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Being vegan and striving to make vegan choices is a complicated path when you mix it with any kind of disordered eating. Not only did I have to fight it out with some providers, but I now have to be especially careful with my lifestyle and what aspects of culture I let influence my life. I have to be powerful in places where vegan culture means the promotion of starvation “cleanses” and bodynegative diets. Yet now I have a path through my recovery. A purpose. Even the heavy aspects of it have meaning because veganism is more to me than what I choose to eat or wear. It is OK to feel helpless to know there is still something to work towards, with a foundation of who I am and what I care about.
Rey Weyler has been vegan for about five years. They are the proud parent of two rescue horses who they work with at liberty to ensure that their happiness and wellbeing always comes first. Rey also writes a lot of poetry, some related to activist themes and some more based on personal themes. ig: @reynbowanarchy & @reynbowink tumblr: @reynbowink
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Ignore the Propaganda, Listen to your body Words and Photos by Taylor Wolfram, MS, RDN, LDN
I wasn’t always a non-diet dietitian. In fact, if you were to read my social media posts (cringe) from a decade or so ago, they would be abrasive rants about why you should go vegan and how you’re a hypocrite if you say you love animals but continue to eat/wear/exploit them. You’d find grotesque animal abuse photos and videos as well as “stats” from pro-vegan documentaries to convince you that you had to go vegan to escape a certain death from heart disease and diabetes. It’s not often that our careers directly intertwine with our activism, but as a registered dietitian nutritionist, mine do. It all started when I was in college. After several months as a vegetarian, I joined my university’s animal rights group, learned about the atrocities of the dairy and egg industries, and went vegan soon after. As a pre-med-turnednutrition-major, I was eager to bring compassionate eating to the masses.
Looking back at it, it’s easy to see how my approach to animal rights activism changed along with shifts in my relationship to food, exercise, and my body. Although I had a brief period of disordered eating as a teen, I had a fine relationship with food when I went vegan. Like many young women, I did wish I was thinner and leaner. But this negativity toward my body didn’t impact my eating much at that point in time. It wasn’t until the juicing, cleansing, detoxing, whole foods, no-salt, no-oil trend that became really popular circa 2011 that I slipped into disordered patterns. Unfortunately, I was getting all of these ideas from the vegan community. I trusted these people, many of them doctors, because I believed they were helping people get healthy. And as a nutrition major, I obviously cared about health. That’s what I wanted to do with my life, help people get healthy.
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I remember being so proud one night when I came home from a grueling spin class, drenched in sweat, and ate an entire head of steamed cauliflower for dinner (unsalted, of course) and nothing else. If grueling exercise and low-fat plant-based eating was supposed to make me strong, then why did I feel weak inside? Why did I feel like I had to override so much of my body’s natural instincts to eat in a way that supposedly was good for me? The more I had these veggie-rexic meals, the stronger my cravings for salty, fatty, sugary foods became. I would stuff myself to the point of nausea when eating out or feel out of control around a package of Oreos. I know now that this behavior is typical of someone who is dieting — it’s called the restrict-binge cycle. You might be familiar with it — some people call it being “good” during the week and eating “bad” on weekends. It’s feeling the need to restrict your calorie intake or only eat raw produce the day after you indulge. It’s the “last supper” frame of mind before starting a new diet. This is exactly the type of behavior I now help clients overcome. Things got even worse in grad school. Instagram became mainstream and the social media landscape changed forever. Vegan activists, fitness bloggers, and plant-based foodies had a new platform upon which to spread their messages. There was no shortage of #fitspo and #thinspo accounts on which to set your goals. I filled my feed with vegan food and fitness content and even made internet friends with which to share my “journey.” Even though my body mass index (BMI) was in the “normal” range, I got a number in my head that I needed to weigh and was determined to reach it. I started lifting weights to “get lean” and build muscle. Strong was the new skinny, they said. I downloaded the calorie counting app everyone was obsessed with and started logging my food intake. I would wake up before the sun, juice some veggies, do a workout in my room, go to my
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On weekends, I’d allow myself some food I no was like the floodgates had opened. I was so for the weekend and just go wild. Monday re new week with renewe
ormally wouldn’t have during the week, and it o ashamed I would give up tracking my intake eturned with a wave of guilt, and I’d start the ed willpower to restrict.
clinicals, and then hit the gym on the way home. I convinced myself this was for health. I was finally going to get the body I wanted and would do so healthfully. I wasn’t anorexic, and I was eating tons of veggies. What’s not healthy about that, right? Turns out I had a condition known as orthorexia nervosa — an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating1. Even though I had this new weight loss goal, the restrict-binge cycle didn’t stop — it got worse. On weekends, I’d allow myself some food I normally wouldn’t have during the week, and it was like the floodgates had opened. I was so ashamed I would give up tracking my intake for the weekend and just go wild. Monday returned with a wave of guilt, and I’d start the new week with renewed willpower to restrict. After many months of this, I eventually did get down to that goal weight. And you know what? I wasn’t healthier. My life wasn’t better. I wasn’t happier. I wasn’t more successful. My boyfriend didn’t love me more. This new low was in no way sustainable, and I was exhausted from the fight. My weight slowly crept back up as I intermittently tracked, restricted, and overate. I felt totally lost. I had lost touch with my body, and I didn’t know how to eat or exercise in a truly healthful way because I had been following advice from people on the internet for so long. Luckily, I began to detach from that weight loss goal and had more important things to focus on what with wrapping up my Master’s degree, studying for the RD exam, and looking for a job. The restrict-binge cycle became less extreme, but it was still there. I still felt the need to stick to a specific workout schedule and burn calories any chance I got. My first job as a dietitian was working in longterm care at a facility that was home to older adults with varying levels of need. Nutrition care in this setting is drastically different from that in a hospital — there were only a handful of “diets” and they were
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reserved for special cases. The vast majority of residents were able to eat whatever they wanted. If someone with diabetes also has dementia, do you think you’re going to teach them about carb counting and moderating their added sugar intake? Absolutely not. Isn’t it ironic how for most of our younger lives we’re trying to control and restrict our food, but at the end of our lives we’re lucky to have an appetite at all? It dawned on me that it was unlikely any of my residents wished they had spent more time and energy on dieting and weight loss. It was time with family, friends, and loved ones that they valued most. It wasn’t long before the science nerd in me felt unfulfilled and so I took a job offer working in nutrition research. Working a desk job was totally jarring and disconnected me from direct patient care. I started seeing a small number of private clients on the side, mostly for weight loss. I used motivational interviewing techniques to explore their motivations and challenges and develop strategies for portion control. I was doing everything I was taught in the weight management trainings I went through. But it wasn’t working. My clients continued to have strong cravings, struggle with portion control, and experience ups and downs on the scale. Was I a bad dietitian? Were my counseling skills underdeveloped? I began to doubt my own efficacy in my chosen profession. Enter Intuitive Eating2 and the Health At Every Size3 approach. I first learned about Intuitive Eating when I was a dietetic intern, but totally wrote it off as BS — obviously people had to control their food intake, otherwise they’d balloon up. We’re in the middle of an “Obesity Epidemic” for goodness sakes! (Turns out morbidity and mortality risk aren’t as strongly linked with body size as we once thought)4. It wasn’t until I was at a loss with my weight loss clients that I revisited Intuitive Eating and actually read the book. I began reading research on this intriguing concept, listening to podcasts from
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I have the privilege of being a thin, white, cis, hetero, conventionally attractive female and when I speak up against fat-shaming and healthshaming in the community, I am met with not just defensiveness and derision, but downright hostility. I can’t image how they treat people who actually live in the very bodies they’re scorning. ACTIVISM • ISSUE #13
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dietitians using it in practice, watching webinars from the Association for Size Diversity and Health5, and joined social media groups of dietitians and therapists using the Health At Every Size approach with their clients. I also was lucky enough to attend an in-person workshop on the approach. Contrary to common misconception, these approaches don’t “promote obesity” or throw nutrition out the window. Instead, they encourage individuals to rely on internal, rather than external, cues to help them decide when, what, and how to eat and exercise. They help people reach their body’s natural weight without restricting food or obsessively exercising. While dietary restriction and weight loss attempts are linked with poorer health and weight gain in the long run, research on Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size has found participants didn’t gain weight — instead they improved or at least maintained their dietary quality and had high retention rates (whereas a large portion of weight loss study participants drop out)2. After a solid year of gobbling up as much information as I could, I was reborn as a non-diet dietitian. I knew that shutting out diet culture and tuning into our bodies’ wisdom was key to realistic and sustainable healthy habits. I realized that one need not be vegan to be healthy and that shaming people into veganism is not only cruel and unhelpful, it also backfires on the vegan movement. Over the years, my vegan activism has shifted from leafleting and protesting to writing and coaching. I’m by no means discounting the former — in fact I miss the sense of community they cultivated. I just realized that the best use of my skills as a nutrition expert and vegan wasn’t to convince people to go vegan, but to help vegans find peace with food and enhance the approachability of the lifestyle through modelling vegan health in a balanced manner. Personally, I’ve found that many vegans are struggling with dietary restriction, confusion over
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health claims, and internalized weight stigma. With my knowledge, I hope to help change that. The most rewarding work I have ever done is helping people (vegans and non-vegans) improve their relationship with food, exercise, and their bodies. Helping people reject diet mentality, embrace their inner wisdom, prioritize self-care, and work on accepting their bodies is incredibly fulfilling for me. Talking with Ginny Messina, MPH, RD, (author of TheVeganRD.com and my professional idol) and reading the book she co-wrote, Even Vegans Die, helped me realize my work as a non-diet vegan dietitian truly is a form of activism as it helps current vegans stay vegan by realistically addressing nutrition concerns and it also attracts new people to the movement by increasing its accessibility and inclusivity. While I do encounter some resistance against veganism among eating disorder professionals, I experience significantly more resistance to the non-diet, weight-inclusive approach among vegans. Maybe it’s just the social media groups I’m in locally (doubt it), but vegans are harsh, man. I have the privilege of being a thin, white, cis, hetero, conventionally attractive female and when I speak up against fat-shaming and health-shaming in the community, I am met with not just defensiveness and derision, but downright hostility. I can’t image how they treat people who actually live in the very bodies they’re scorning. I understand how vegans can get very passionate and amped up to spread the message — I was there once. But our movement has no place for stigmatizing and shaming, and it should not be tolerated in any vegan spaces. Whether someone came to veganism by way of plant-based dieting for health or espousing all animal products for ethics, we must always keep compassion front and center.
References 1) National Eating Disorders. Orthorexia. Retrieved 28 May 2018 from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/by-eatingdisorder/other/orthorexia. 2) Intuitive Eating. Retrieved 28 May 2018 from http://www. intuitiveeating.org/. 3) Association for Size Diversity and Health. HAES Principles. Retrieved 28 May 2018 from https://www.sizediversityandhealth. org/content.asp?id=76. 4) Bacon, L., Aphramore, L. (2011, January 24). Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift. Retrieved 28 May 2018 from https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/ articles/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9.
Taylor is a registered dietitian nutritionist who uses a non-diet approach to health and wellness and provides virtual lifestyle coaching to help clients prioritize self-care, ditch dieting, and make peace with food and their bodies. w: wholegreenwellness.com fb: wholegreenwellness t: @taylorwolframrd | ig: @taylorwolframrd
5) Association for Size Diversity and Health. HAES Webinars. Retrieved 28 May 2018 from https://www.sizediversityandhealth. org/content.asp?id=210.
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