Virgie Tovar

Resolution season is rough for many of us.

As I’ve begun to teach other people about how to break up with diet culture, I offer everything in my personal artillery. And I’m proud of that. I love that. However, I’m always quick to remind them that fatphobia isn’t their problem to fix because they — WE — didn’t create it. Our job is to heal ourselves and to live life on our own terms.

My sad little girl brain remembers exactly what it feels like to risk everything and get rejected. It happened so many times for me during childhood and then later in my early dating years. I’ve created elaborate systems of avoidance, emotional self-control and pre-emptive rejection. And frankly, girl, I’m tired of it. It’s a lot of goddamn work.

A lot of people don’t know this, but fat activism has been around in the United States since the 1960s. Yes, it’s true!

Dieting is a socially sanctioned method of mentally high-tailing out of whatever is going on and keeping you entirely in your head, laser-focused on your next bite, your scale, your plate.

When it comes to plus-size fashion, we’re all outsiders to this world — a world that makes amazing garments in our size and welcomes us with open arms full of bubbly water and tiny cakes.

To many who have experienced the gruesome reality that is diet culture I know 'You Have The Right To Remain Fat' makes complete sense.

I don’t drink much, and embarrassingly I don’t even know how to smoke, but I do have a tendency to use experiences the way addicts use substances, because I learned addictive behavioral frameworks growing up.

I told you I never wanted to speak to him again. I offered that we work together to rid him from our lives. I thought we had both made the realization that he was garbage, but in reality, only I had.

“Chill” is, I think, a coded word that describes an environment where low expectations, low commitment, and zero accountability are considered normal.