Virgie Tovar

Hi, my name is Virgie and I’m a fat girl who loves food. During my years of restricting I thought about food more than I thought about most things.

I have met many people who can't say no. We all benefit when we speak clearly and frequently about what we need in order to thrive.

I came to realize that even though I was certainly a bona fide member, that some fat people were far more acutely marginalized than me.

The wound of codependency leaves a haunting question in its wake: Do I actually matter? Diet culture’s answer to fat people is: no.

Dieting isn’t just a practice; it’s a way of life. What do we do when we don’t have any more calories to count and we have to deal with the wide-open space left in their wake?

One of the things I have done for myself in adulthood as part of my healing process is make a strong claim to fatness femininity.

I was taught that weight loss was self-care, but then I did a bunch of research and realized dieting is actually the patriarchal destruction of my body.

I can say that dieting symbolized a lot of things for me. I work to claim a uniquely fat femininity that thrives when my belly is full.

I’m a fat brown girl from an immigrant family. I grew up learning that no one would ever love me because I’m fat. I was taught that I have to work twice as hard to get half as much. If someone looks at me weird or says something rude to me, I always see it or hear it and I have a massive (exhausting) anxiety/adrenaline rush/aggro response/comedown cycle. I feel like I have to fight to maintain dignity and humanity every, single day.