Same here. I actually had COVID early last year; the memory of struggling to maintain my breath will stay with me forever. (I’ve technically recovered, but I’m still leery of potential after-effects.)

Not being able to rely on your health consistently changes your personality. You become grateful for things other people take for granted.

This was an excellent review. Between the psychology of veterans and relating back to your own health struggles, you took a very personal and effective perspective point to view everything from and it was pretty fascinating to read, actually. I can definitely relate. I know exactly what it’s like to live around the…

I thought this episode was fantastic.

Thank you for sharing your own health-related experiences this week, Sulagna; that perspective does add a whole other dimension to talking about the serum not just as a plot device. 

One of my biggest issues with having my partner around ALL OF THE TIME has been that I can’t comfort eat in front of him, which is my main coping mechanism. I found myself waiting for him to go to bed and telling him I’m just tidying up the kitchen while I stuff my face full of cookies or ice cream or whatever I can…

I dont know how old I was when the doctor first talked to me about dieting, but I was sitting on his knee so probably not that old. Here I am at 50, finally kind-of not giving a fuck but also constantly questioning my food choices. It sucks.

I love this so much. I’ve only recently come to accept my fat body, partly due to Aubrey Gordon of the Maintenance Phase podcast and the book What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat (highly recommend both). I’ve been dieting since I was in elementary school. My mom, who is not fat, constantly talks about losing…

I gained 20 pounds during the pandemic, but the pandemic actually had nothing to do with it.

It isn’t mentioned often but I do believe the cultural identity of the decade of your formative years has a profound effect on how one perceives being “fat”. I was a teenager in the 90s when heroine chic was the ideal body type. Think about that, being so skinny you look like an opiod addict was de rigueur. 99.9% of…

I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. I’ve been as small as a size four and as big as, well, now. Last year I lost 40 lbs using a weight loss medication; it stopped working and the side effects got worse-I was able to maintain my loss until the pandemic hit and in the last year I have gained probably close to…

It makes me so angry that any journalist would amplify the garbage views of people like Jane Brody or John Mackey. Nobody needs to listen to their uninformed, horrible opinions about what we eat or what our bodies look like.

Thanks for this. I have never met a woman who didn't have some kind of body image issue. I was bulimic in my adolescence and it fucked up a lot of things for me. I just read this book called "the body is not an apology" by Sonya Renee Taylor. Highly recommend to help us, all of us try to move away from body hang ups. 

At soon 55 now, I managed to make truce with the world (somewhat) at 50, when I decided to enter the Blessed Kingdom of IDGAF. Nice place if you can get to it (Before you move in the town of Where yer hurtin’... sadly the only town around).

Thank you for writing this. It captures so much of what I was trying to describe to my therapist last week about my relationship not only with my weight and my body, but also how it’s been treated by others, including my family, since I was a child. Like you said, it isn’t malicious and comes from a place of concern,…

Hear you so much on this. My parents never said anything about my weight (both sides of both sides full of busty, stocky women) but the boys at school sure did, and I absolutely internalized it and at as young as 12 fantasized to girlfriends (who were deeply upset that I felt as bad about myself as I did) about going…

Even though I know it’s not “normal,” I still judge every bite I put in my mouth. Does this count as “healthy” or not? And if not, shouldn’t I be “good?”

It’s so interesting and telling what contributed to you feeling good about eating foods that are healthy and what made you feel like crap. The way that so many talk about weight and how to “manage” it has nothing to do with tackling the underlying issues that affect how we eat. Like, having the time and access to…

Thank you so much for this article. I also just went through a pregnancy with the words “complication: morbid obesity” written across the top of every appointment summary. It was awful, infuriating and did a lot of emotional damage that I continue to struggle with postpartum, including the notion that my pregnancy was…

Thank you for this, Kelly. It’s beautifully written and so important.