on bodies, strength + the GLP-1s of it all
inc. resources!
If you’ve been here for a bit, you know I occasionally stray from writing about cooking (multitudes….blah blah blah). Whenever I do, it’s always about something that connects us to our bodies and each other (just like with cooking).
So today I want to talk to you about some things that have been on my mind re: bodies, strength, GLP-1s and feeling (dis)connected.
Starting with…basketball.
Like a lot of other queer women (and just people in general!!!), I’ve become a little bit obsessed with the WNBA. Who else saw A’ja Wilson being a true MVP last night? Incredible!!!!
There’s so much I love about the WNBA. I love watching women being cheered on (I challenge you to name a better mascot than Big Ellie…it’s impossible!!) and watching women speak up (Napheesa Collier !!!). I love seeing the players’ camaraderie and friendship get celebrated (looking at you Stud Budz). I love knowing who is dating who (Tizzy4Ever!) I love learning more about players who laid the groundwork (I have watched this video approximately a million times).
Most of all, I love to watch them play. To see their athleticism and speed and toughness and quick thinking and precision. To see their teamwork. To see what their competitiveness pushes them to do. To see their bodies in motion.
And I don’t just love to watch them. I find it deeply healing to witness so many examples of active embodiment in every single game. I find it healing to see the players exhibit their assertion and capability.
“Healing from what?” you may ask.
For me, it’s healing from a long history with disordered eating and body image. It’s a continuation of the healing I’ve found in lifting weights and other fun activities that let me feel really present and in my body.
Regular readers already know all of this. But if you’re new here, although I’ve been a cookbook author for a very long time, I haven’t always had as positive a relationship with eating as I have with cooking. I’ve written about it in my most recent books and here, here, here, here and here. I’ve talked about it here and over here with Christy Harrison, MPH, RD and right here with Virginia Sole-Smith and way back when with Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom and even longer ago with Aubrey Gordon. I spoke to students at the Culinary Institute of America about it which you can watch here or read more about here. I’ve also shared so much with you about my love for lifting heavy things (here! recently here! and a whole podcast season here!). There’s more but I think that’s enough links for now!
ON HOW I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT STRENGTH
Watching basketball has had me thinking a lot about what strength looks like.
Just as I’ve spent a lot of my professional life trying to figure out how I define success, these days I’m spending a lot of my personal life trying to figure out how I define strength.
Like so many people, I have been conditioned to see strength in chiseled-ness, in hardness. But one of the things that drew me to powerlifting, rather than other weightlifting sports such as body building, is that it’s about pure strength, not about losing weight or aesthetics in any form. It’s about what your body can do, not about what it looks like.
One time I was with my niece right after I had been at the gym. She asked me what I did there and so I told her about bench pressing. She asked to see my muscles and pointed to my arms. So I rolled up my t-shirt sleeves and showed her my biceps. “They’re not as big as my dad’s,” she said. “Yeah, but I can lift more than him,” I told her. (…love you BT!)
I like that my strength exists in a lot of softness.
I like seeing strength in so many textures. I like seeing delicate plants weather a storm just fine and know that that is strength. I like seeing strength in my pets. In watching our dog Winky scale a rocky part of a hike at ten years old like it’s no big deal. In watching our cat Leo lay on his back with his soft belly facing the world, showing us the strength of his vulnerability. I appreciate that in the lifelong process of unlearning all of my internalized ableism, I find so many examples of strength that aren’t limited to what bodies “can do.” There’s strength in creativity, in problem solving, in resilience and in rest and in asking for help and in offering help.
These days, I lift weights not so much to see what I can do, but more to access the feelings I have when I’m doing it: presence, confidence, focus, peacefulness. Identifying that switch — the why of lifting weights — feels like it’s own kind-of strengthening.
Identifying that switch has also helped me trust myself that I haven’t merely replaced trying to lose weight with trying to lift weight. Which is something that has worried me at times. But I don’t lift weights to be strong rather than thin. I lift weights because being strong allows me to feel connected to myself in a way nothing else I’ve found (yet?!) has. I lift weights because being strong allows me to move through the world, through my life, with a different posture. Literally and figuratively.
ON HOW I THINK ABOUT GLP-1s
Of course, I find it impossible to noodle my way through these thoughts and feelings without bumping into what I think of as “the Ozempic of it all.”
Yes, I know GLP-1s are used for all sorts of things besides intentional weight loss. I know they’re beneficial for a variety of reasons for many people (including people I love very much). There’s nuance under the umbrella of GLP-1s. I love nuance!
So when I say I “bump into the Ozempic of it all,” what I explicitly mean is the discourse about about them that is so vehemently anti-fat. The discourse that has told us that the answer to weight stigma is thinness rather than changing our cultural bias around fatness (which is just like saying the answer to homophobia is to simply make everyone…straight).
My hot take about GLP-1s isn’t a hot take at all. It’s just compassion. It’s just to acknowledge that it’s hard to exist in a body, and in a mindset, that doesn’t conform to thin beauty ideals when it often feels like those are being advocated for, and celebrated, more than ever.
For me, the noise that’s troubling isn’t “food noise,” but the the loud conversations about weight loss without any regard for how it impacts those of us who have fought really hard to get out of abusive cycles of dieting, disordered eating and eating disorders. It’s the loudness of the binary thinking that “thin is better than fat” without the any of the nuances about the diversity of human bodies, the nuances about the dangers of weight cycling, or the nuances about the intersection of capitalism and healthcare.
As an aside, see this from the brilliant Kate Manne: “What if ‘Food Noise’ Is Just … Hunger?”
My criticism is reserved for institutions, including media rhetoric. It’s not for any individual. I strongly (strong! strength!) believe that everyone is entitled to do whatever works for them, whatever makes living in this corporeal world feel easier, safer and/or more joyful. Including intentionally losing weight. I get it. I did that for a long time, too.
But these days I find more ease, safety and joy in living a body that I’m not constantly fighting. I find ease, safety and joy in living within the breadth of my body and not trying to take up less space. I like finding out all of the ways I am strong, whether it’s in lifting something heavy or setting a boundary with a friend or family member. I find ease, safety and joy when I prioritize my mental as much as my physical health. And my social health, too. The more I pour into the relationships in my life (my marriage, my pets, my family, my friendships, my community), the stronger, happier and more connected I feel.
My desire to live in my body as I choose to truly has nothing to do with my weight. Or yours. It’s about wanting to live in a world where everyone has agency over his, her or their own body. Where our bodies aren’t governed or controlled by institutions or other people.
Figuring out my own priorities and pleasures is woven not so much into my desire for body positivity, but for autonomy. For bodily justice. I don’t care what you do or don’t do with your body, including what you eat or don’t eat. I care that you get to choose.
I care about there being as many examples of bodies as there are types of bodies. I care about being an example and having examples for myself, too. I care about how challenging it can feel to see many of our examples shrink before our eyes.
RESOURCES
Here are a few things I’ve found really helpful re: all of the above.
NEWSLETTERS
Chrissy King’s “Serena Williams, GLP-1s, and the Intersection of Weight Loss, Body Image, Anti-Fatness, and Racism” is one of the best pieces I’ve come across in a while.
Virgie Tovar’s “6 Mental Health Practices To Get Through The GLP-1 Fatphobia Machine.”
Virginia Sole-Smith “On Tylenol and Toughing It Out” isn’t about GLP-1s or body image (though so much of VSS’s work on all of that is incredible, including Fat Talk), but it articulates the absolute insanity and total danger of the current administration’s tactics to control and blame our bodies.
PODCASTS
The “All Billionaires Are Kinda Bad” episode of “Vibe Check” (Saeed Jones, Sam Sanders and Zach Stafford discussed “Serena Williams using and boosting GLP-1 weight loss drugs”).
I’ve also just started listening to Virgie Tovar’s new “GLP-1 Truth Serum” podcast (you can also listen to Virgie talk to Alison Stewart on this recent episode of All of It).
NOTES I’VE TAKEN IN BODY IMAGE GROUP THERAPY THAT I KEEP CLOSE
Always ask yourself: am I being seen or am I being sold something?
Strengthen media literacy. Look past headlines.
Set media boundaries. Sometimes you don’t even need to see the headlines.
Test the urgency of a situation before choosing to engage (see what temperature the water is before you jump in).
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Therapists that have helped me enormously in my relationship to my own body: Carmen Cool + Sarah Mosteller.
Join me and Tory Stroker on Sunday Nov. 16th for a sliding scale online ‘No Judgment’ cooking class (starting at $0). We’re going to make penne alla vodka and peanut butter brownies and eat together and talk about how motherhood has impacted her ED recovery and her cooking. We’ll answer whatever questions you might have. A nice chance to just be together cooking, eating + chatting without judgment!! Info/sign-up here.
This Weight Neutral Providers Lead List compiled by Mary Lambert is amazing!!!
This invaluable chart of questions to ask yourself if you’re considering taking a GLP-1 from Medical Students for Size Inclusivity: GLP-1 Agonist Informed Consent Project [Medical Students for Size Inclusivity. (2023, Nov.). GLP-1 Agonist Medications: Informed Consent Resource. https://sizeinclusivemedicine.org/glp1/]
I’ll leave you with a photo that I texted to Grace one day this summer when I was at Long Season Farm (sometimes we do that to say hi to each other when we’re both having busy days). Grace responded “you look so happy” and I said “I feel so good in my body when I’m here.”
xoxooxox, your friend Julia
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A million crying emojis. You just always get it and speak right to my soul. <3 Love you so much for all your insights on strength and body image.
The perfect take on this whole discourse. Thank you! People like you give me strength to keep on keeping on and to raise my young daughter with this perspective that we’ve all fought so hard to get to and maintain.