YOUR Body Stories. Sofie Hagen and Fat Liberation with Abi Smith

This series is about YOU.  YOUR body stories.  YOUR relationship to food and movement, YOUR dieting and un-dieting history and how you feel in the body you're in.

Ela and I wanted to understand more about the issues you are dealing with when it comes to body acceptance,  intuitive eating and listening to your body.  How can we navigate a world where thinness is valued above all else and the fitness industry has become diet culture dressed in spandex!

First up is Abi, who is a very valued member of the Body Image Fitness community (check out 'Thin Privilege, Oprah and Wearing the Damn Shorts' for my chat with Kim Stacey, founder of Body Image Fitness- the Non-diet, shame free fitness platform for ALL bodies. )

Abi is a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist for the NHS and is a very committed member of Body Image Fitness.   She likes to 'hang loose and talk bollocks' with her husband, loves comedy and loves to dance and lifting heavy stuff. 

Abi has reclaimed the term fat for herself, and despite struggling with body image and confidence in the past, she is now a strong social justice and fat liberation advocate.

Listen to HER story and as Bri Campos likes to say not her' journey' but her body image excavation.  

Such a joy to chat with Abi and we'd love to know YOUR body story.  

Are you simply fed up with hating your body? Are you stuck in the 'earn and burn' cycle when it comes to exercise?
You are not alone and your body is NOT the problem

Please reach out if you would like some support. We both have limited slots for Intuitive Eating and Strength Coaching, so get in touch with Christine or with Ela.

AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

Transcript

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Christine Chessman: So welcome to today's episode of the find your strong podcast with Abby Welcome, Abby.

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Abi Smith: Thank you. It's really nice to be here. I'm bit excited.

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Ela Law: We are super excited as well to have you on we thought we'd start by sort of easing you into it and asking you just to share a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? What do you love doing? What's your favourite food and exercise? You know the usual.

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Christine Chessman: Well.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Get us going.

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Abi Smith: I I live in the northeast of England. I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist

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Abi Smith: in the Nhs.

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Abi Smith: I love doing. I really love comedy a lot

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Abi Smith: and I just I love hanging out with my husband. We just laugh all the time.

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Christine Chessman: Oh!

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Abi Smith: Favourite thing to do really

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Abi Smith: is a week. We just call it hang loose tor bollocks, that's what we call it, and that's what we do, and

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Abi Smith: favourite food. Lebanese.

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Abi Smith: Lee

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Abi Smith: is it tabouli or tabouli? I can never remember how you say you know the parsley salad.

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Christine Chessman: I love it.

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Abi Smith: So good.

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Ela Law: Oh!

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Abi Smith: And exercise wise. I love dancing, but I don't love dancing in a class. I love dancing

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Abi Smith: just for dancing.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: Class wise. I love

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Abi Smith: lifting heavy stuff.

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Abi Smith: and I love Yoga

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Abi Smith: strong man

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Abi Smith: like lifting like ridiculously heavy things that was great.

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Abi Smith: Dropped off a little bit during the pandemic, but they used to really look, that was great. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Wow! So tell us a little bit. This is a perfect segue

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Christine Chessman: you're talking about. You love comedy. So we were talking before we hit record about Sophie Hagen, who I saw last week, and I was digging myself up. And then you mentioned you mentioned you knew her stroke day a lot better than I did.

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Abi Smith: I wouldn't say I knew them, but I've had interactions with them. So I was on a train once to a comedy festival.

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Abi Smith: They were saying a couple of seats away from me. And I was on Facebook and in their Facebook group.

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Abi Smith: And they said something about like, I really appreciate, like the people that are in this group. They're so lovely. And I thought, I'm gonna I'm gonna tie with them a little bit. So I like, commented, what about what about fans who are sitting like 3 feet away from you on the train? And I saw them look up and kind of look around. And then

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Abi Smith: they replied, and it said, You're the lady in the cat dress, and I was like, Yeah, I am the lady in the cat dress, and then they did like a couple of comedy shows off over that weekend, and they mentioned

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Abi Smith: that interaction as part of that kind of warm up. And then they mentioned it on a podcast that they did with, Jodi, Jodi, Mitchell as well. So I was briefly part of the

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Abi Smith: sort of comedy region. I was kind of disappointed that they didn't keep it actually.

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Christine Chessman: I know.

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Abi Smith: Part of their kind of warm up. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: You've officially made it. You have officially made it, Abby. I'm very.

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Abi Smith: Same, yeah, yeah.

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Ela Law: I love that so much.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, you gotta see Sophie Hagan. Ella. Okay.

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Ela Law: I have got to go see them. I I don't know if they're coming to London, but that's probably the closest that probably won't come to deepest, darkest kent where I am. But definitely gonna keep an eye out for them. Just finish reading that book. Happy Fat, which I love.

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Christine Chessman: Yes, there it is!

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Ela Law: Yeah, so well written and poignant, but funny. And yeah, brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, it it. Another segue in in that book they share their story about how they came to sort of

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Ela Law: coming to be at peace with their body and with food and everything. So we would love to hear from you, Abby. You're a little bit about your history, with food and body image and how how you maybe got to a place where things weren't working out, and how you kind of found a different way of of being eating and moving.

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Abi Smith: Yeah. So I mean.

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Abi Smith: I I'm like, I'm 49 now. So I was. I grew grown up in the eighties.

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Abi Smith: So like everybody else

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Abi Smith: absolutely swamped in diet culture, and the messaging that I received

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Abi Smith: really was that

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Abi Smith: happiness was obtained through having a certain kind of body type.

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Abi Smith: You know, and that messaging came from everywhere. And I really internalised that.

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Abi Smith: And and I did do like a couple of

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Abi Smith: dieting things.

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Abi Smith: which I hated and really hated it.

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Abi Smith: And I didn't get like the results that I wanted quickly, which I have really struggled to tolerate as a terrible perfectionist. At that point

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Abi Smith: and I really struggled with depression like throughout my teens and my 20 s. But I think, partly because I was so like soothing diet culture. I really hooked it onto my body so.

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Abi Smith: I saw that as the problem like my body was, it's like, you know, my body's the problem, and that's.

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Christine Chessman: Why I'm depressed.

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Abi Smith: And then

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Abi Smith: I had a weird experience kind of in my early thirties. I went through some therapy, and I I really improved my mental health, and I don't know why, but I suddenly dropped a load of weight.

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Abi Smith: I didn't try. It just fell off, and then everybody treated me really different. And I was like, this is weird.

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Abi Smith: Really weird. I don't know how I feel about this.

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Abi Smith: And then I gradually kind of

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Abi Smith: regained it, and again people changed. How they saw me, and I was like.

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Abi Smith: this is now this is really weird cause I'm the still the same person as I was then. And

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Abi Smith: why? Why are you sort of.

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Abi Smith: Suddenly, I'm sort of invisible again.

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Abi Smith: So that was like a really that really got me thinking about like the way that that people are seen like through the lens of their bodies.

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Abi Smith: And then, when I was

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Abi Smith: about

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Abi Smith: oh, in sort of about 2,000, 12,011,

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Abi Smith: My ex partner and I were trying to access ivf

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Abi Smith: and the clinic wouldn't treat me until I dropped a certain amount of weight.

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Abi Smith: So I started like trying to eat, really, really carefully

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Abi Smith: driving myself up the wall a little bit. I was doing absolutely tons of exercise.

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Abi Smith: and I was finding that

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Abi Smith: I wasn't.

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Abi Smith: I was changing shape. But I wasn't changing

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Abi Smith: waived.

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Abi Smith: and it's

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Abi Smith: I got eventually got diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and an underactive thyroid.

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Abi Smith: So you know I always say I've got all of the things that make you tired and fat.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: And I just wasn't losing. I wasn't losing the weight at all. And I was thinking, This is this is really really unfair.

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Abi Smith: And that again that that kind of started me thinking.

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Abi Smith: And then, as I got kind of involved around that time with like.

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Abi Smith: there was a big movement around like

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Abi Smith: fashion, like plus size fashion. People on. Do you remember, Flickr, were like sharing.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, yeah.

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Abi Smith: Photo. So that with that was like fashionista kind of thing. So I kind of got a little bit involved with that

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Abi Smith: and started to think about. Well, you know.

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Abi Smith: maybe maybe it's it's not

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Abi Smith: the end of the world to like. Have have a body like that. And that was a lot thinner at that point.

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Abi Smith: but kind of gradually, as I've sort of edged towards my my forties, and now, edging towards my fifties.

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Abi Smith: it stopped being so much about an aesthetic thing, and started being more more about a kind of a justice thing, and like a.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: Societal kind of

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Abi Smith: kind of issue for me, and and I guess now I will probably align myself a lot more, with less with like body

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Abi Smith: positivity, and more with like

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Abi Smith: body neutrality, and even more to our sort of

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Abi Smith: fat liberation. I guess.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: and I guess that's that's kind of where where? Where I find myself today.

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Abi Smith: eating wise. I don't know. I like I do my best in terms of intuitive eating. But I do have a little bit of a history of

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Abi Smith: eating distress. Not necessarily. Yeah, trigger warning. Not necessarily like not eating enough, but using food as a

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Abi Smith: as a comfort, so.

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Abi Smith: Kind of verge into that a little bit.

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Abi Smith: But I'm way way more at peace

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Abi Smith: with my my body, my

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Abi Smith: sort of place in the world my ability to

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Abi Smith: to talk about it and be open about in self-definers

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Abi Smith: self-defined as fat, which some people find very uncomfortable.

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Abi Smith: That yes, that's where where I find myself.

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Christine Chessman: And and this is I mean that that's fantas. There's so much there that I wanna draw on. But how do you see your body. Now, how do you feel about your body? So you talked about? Not. You're more kind of on the side of body, neutrality and fat liberation than body positivity. But how do you feel about your body? Is it something you think about, or do you is is, have you reached point of acceptance or neutrality, or is it still?

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Christine Chessman: Are you.

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Abi Smith: I think I waver.

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Christine Chessman: And.

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Abi Smith: I think most of the time. I'm pretty neutral about it.

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Abi Smith: And I don't let it hold me back from

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Abi Smith: doing anything.

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Abi Smith: Books

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Abi Smith: there are.

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Abi Smith: There are times when I still feel a little uncomfortable with it.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: That's especially

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Abi Smith: if I step outside of the

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Abi Smith: of the kind of very

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Abi Smith: I mean, I tend to operate in a bubble. Now, of people, you know, like yourselves. Who kind of think along the same lines as as I do, and when I step outside of that bubble

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Abi Smith: it's very jarring, and that, you know, for example, there's like a work there's like slimming will posters in up in the kitchen.

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Abi Smith: Yeah, I know. And if I see something like that. It just kind of makes me go. And it reminds me that

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Abi Smith: you know it's not normal to think the way I think it to feel the way I feel, and that a lot of people won't view me in the same way as I view myself, and that that's quite difficult, really.

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Abi Smith: especially working in my field, because a lot of people that I'm working with a lot of their

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Abi Smith: issues can be around

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Abi Smith: self-esteem.

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Abi Smith: that they're hanging on their bodies in the same way that I did for for so long, and that's very difficult to manage as a

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Abi Smith: from a neutral

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Abi Smith: space as a therapist.

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Ela Law: How do you? How do you protect yourself against that? Then? Do you?

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Ela Law: I mean I suppose it. It differs from day to day. Really what what your sort of bandwidth is. But do you do you try and sort of educate people about what you know and what you've learned? Or do you feel more like? No, I'm going to shut that off and become Teflon, and let that just sort of pearl off me if I can. What what's your what's your way of kind of protecting yourself against those messages? Because it sounds like you've you've done a huge amount of work and a huge amount of sort of

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Ela Law: being kinder and and more compassionate towards yourself and your body. But it must be really difficult if you're surrounded by it all the time. So what? What's your what's your sort of way of protecting yourself against those messages?

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Abi Smith: In like in a professional capacity.

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Ela Law: Both professional and personal, because obviously at work. You are both on you. You are like you go to the kitchen and you see those posters. You talk to your colleagues. In that sense you know what? What is the what is the way of.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Dealing with that.

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Abi Smith: Well, I mean, when I'm actually working with clients, I just try to be like you say, Teflon.

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Ela Law: And he.

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Abi Smith: Depend on on the person that I'm working with. If I think that they're potentially open to having a different

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Abi Smith: view about it, then I might

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Abi Smith: gently, gently touch on it. But I need to be really careful that I'm working like within nice guidelines, and that I'm not.

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Abi Smith: I'm not doing anything that's

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Abi Smith: gonna potentially result in a negative outcome

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Abi Smith: for the client.

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Abi Smith: I I'm quite newly qualified. So I'm still kind of finding my finding my way with how to deal with these things in a professional capacity, in a personal capacity. I'm actually really open at work with my colleagues about this kind of

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Abi Smith: this kind of thing. In fact, I actually raised it in a in a team meeting a few months ago

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Abi Smith: about. You know that that I thought it would be useful for the team to have some training around

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Abi Smith: weight neutrality. And

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Abi Smith: I framed it because I I described myself as fat in the meeting, and I felt the shift in the air.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: Made.

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Abi Smith: and

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Abi Smith: some one of my one of my colleagues who who's who's lovely, sort of

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Abi Smith: I can't remember exactly what she said now. But it was basically like, you're not.

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Abi Smith: No, I am, and she went.

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Abi Smith: Couldn't work out if you were insulting yourself. And I went. Well, that that exactly that like. It's not an insult. It's a descriptor, but when we see it as an insult.

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Abi Smith: and

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Abi Smith: we are like, you know, our clients are seeing it as an insult. It's it's a core value that we're all walking around with that

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Abi Smith: it's inaccurate. It does.

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Abi Smith: Your fail. A failure of it doesn't mean that you're unattractive. It doesn't mean that you're unhealthy, and that's what I mean. And that that was actually

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Abi Smith: that provoked a lot of really useful conversation and thought and reflection

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Abi Smith: among my colleagues, among my colleagues.

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Abi Smith: On a day-to-day.

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Abi Smith: a

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Abi Smith: perspective. I have

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Abi Smith: a really good friend who is

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Abi Smith: also fat, and who comes from? She's she's my my former work, wife.

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Abi Smith: and we support each other a lot with with this kind of thing. She's also a Cbc therapist. So

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Abi Smith: if one of us is struggling

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Abi Smith: a quick whatsapp

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Abi Smith: to each other, you know, and and and I've got, you know, a group of friends who would broadly think along the same lines as me, not all of them a plus size, but.

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Christine Chessman: I mean that I think that's an amazing thing you did at work. And I think it's sometimes because it's sometimes if you're living in that bubble.

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Christine Chessman: You do get jarred, you know. It's it's literally, I mean diet, culture and fitness, culture, which is diet, culture, and spandex which I used earlier, but same thing, and it's I keep thinking I'm in this lovely little safe bubble, and then I go outside of it for a second. It's like, hold on! The entire world thinks differently, and it is still. You forget you're still this little tiny island.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, amongst.

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Christine Chessman: you know, the sea of

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Christine Chessman: diet culture surrounding you. And it is.

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Christine Chessman: It's kind of it's you need that support, don't you? You need that community, or you need.

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Abi Smith: Tribe. Yeah.

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Abi Smith: Some ways that sometimes

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Abi Smith: that that tribe

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Abi Smith: having that tribe and having that that feedback, that positive feedback kind of what's the word like? You're living in your bubble like like you said it makes it sometimes it makes it more difficult because you kind of find it more difficult when you step outside of that, and you smashed in the face with all of these like, you know.

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Abi Smith: Bikini, body ready, you know.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, but.

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Abi Smith: You know.

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Abi Smith: I've find I'm finding as the years go by. I've got more

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Abi Smith: my, the the I'm more

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Abi Smith: linguistically

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Abi Smith: ready, you know. I've got the vocabulary.

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Abi Smith: Talk about it, and

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Abi Smith: I know when I know

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Abi Smith: when.

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Abi Smith: and I went to press. I don't know when to pull back, and I know when to drip, feed a little bit of information and just get people thinking about it.

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Abi Smith: yeah.

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Abi Smith: it's a long, you know. I've been doing this for a long time now. It's like 15 years since.

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Christine Chessman: I'm in. I'm interested. Sorry. I don't mean to. Ella, if you've got lots of questions. But you touched on the point about you and your ex partner.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Applying for Ivf. And this is we. We can talk about the the issues in the Nhs in terms of their approach and their whip bias, and oh, which you know. Oh, my goodness, yeah, and it's it's the fact that they told you to go and lose, which when they had no idea what was actually going on

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Christine Chessman: in your bot. And this is a story that I have heard countless times that people being told just sent away. Go lose weight when they've got stage 4 cancer, or they've got.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Because they just see, oh, this is the tick box. Nhs, weight loss way, the person weight loss. And it's.

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Abi Smith: Had Pco.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, they knew.

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Abi Smith: I knew I'd been diagnosed by an endocrinologist. It was the endocrinologist that sent me off to the

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Abi Smith: the Ivf clinic. They were like, oh, yeah. Oh, God, I've got to tell you about this. Actually, when T. Day this was horrible.

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Abi Smith: and I didn't have a vocabulary to deal with this at the time. So when the endocrinologist diagnosed me with Pcos.

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Abi Smith: she didn't. She didn't look at me. She was looking at a screen and she went.

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Abi Smith: oh, yeah, it looks like you've got Pcos. That's gonna make it really difficult for you to

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Abi Smith: and conceive

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Abi Smith: I'm actually doing. And you've got low vitamin D, I'm actually doing a study on people who have low vitamin d. Do you want to take part in it? We would have to get you to promise that you wouldn't try and conceive in the next 6 months.

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Ela Law: And.

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Abi Smith: And I was like what? And then and then she prescribed me met foreman, and she's like, so this might make you feel sick, but it'll be good, because it might make you not want to eat so much.

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Ela Law: Oh, my God!

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Ela Law: Good.

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Abi Smith: Know.

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Ela Law: Terrible Abby.

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Abi Smith: It was horrible.

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Abi Smith: it was so bad. I I went, and I like sat in my car afterwards, and I was like I was. I was crying, and then I was crying about so many different things. But I didn't have the. I didn't have the vocab vocabulary

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Abi Smith: to unpick all the the different layers of the.

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Christine Chessman: Solutions, just.

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Abi Smith: This and the

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Abi Smith: dismissal, and oh!

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Christine Chessman: There was some. There was a great post on Instagram today by, I think it's at the anti diet plan who said it was just a really good post by stop assuming that fat people have an eating disorder or have disordered eating, or have you know, it's just there is body diversity. It exists. It is just, but it oh, my goodness, that's horrendous! I'll be! I'm so sorry that happened to you.

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Ela Law: That is awful, and it feels it must feel so horrible when you, as you said, you haven't got that vocabul vocabulary yet, and when you when you don't. Really, you know it's wrong, but you don't know how to counter it with words and actions at that stage. So I think this. This might resonate with a lot of people who who maybe haven't been practicing intuitive eating and body neutrality for a very long time, and I I know that from some of my clients there's always this.

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Ela Law: I don't really want to talk about it. This is my thing. I need to kind of get to grips with this myself before I can share it with other people, because there is just this lack of well, how am I gonna explain this to people.

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Ela Law: And how am I going to get my point across when the messages, the diet messages are so loud and everyone just takes them for the truth.

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Ela Law: So you said, I mean, obviously, you've been doing this for a long time in comparison. So how would you? I don't know. I don't want you to sort of put a finger on it. Exact time. But how long do you think it took you in on your journey to kind of get to a place where you felt quite comfortable and confident in what you were doing, and in a way that you felt like I can actually, what you said earlier was lovely. Where you said

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Ela Law: I know how to gauge, whether to press a point, to say something that gets people to think or to step back completely. What was that sort of a gradual process? Did you notice that sort of retrospectively, that this is what happened? Or did you find, after a certain amount of time and work. It kind of suddenly felt easier.

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Abi Smith: So really good question.

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Abi Smith: I think

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Abi Smith: I think it's only really been in the last

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Abi Smith: 3 to 4 years

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Abi Smith: that I've been at that point where

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Abi Smith: I am

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Abi Smith: at ease.

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Abi Smith: but he's with my body enough and at ease with being with the vocabulary

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Abi Smith: and the concepts.

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Abi Smith: and I honestly, I think the the probably the main thing that got me to that point was

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Abi Smith: having another person who saw things similarly to bounce things off, because, like I said, My my friend Charlotte, we sat next to each other at work.

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Abi Smith: for, like 3 years.

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Abi Smith: And we whatsapp constantly when we weren't at work and just

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Abi Smith: having

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Abi Smith: somebody else who

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Abi Smith: felt and thought similar.

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Abi Smith: I think for both of us that's been like, really instrumental, because it's helped us shape

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Abi Smith: the way that we

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Abi Smith: express it.

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Abi Smith: And that's helped us

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Abi Smith: shape the way that we talk about it with other people as well.

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Abi Smith: but it's it's been a really gradual process.

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Ela Law: Hmm, I think this this is very interesting. I think people

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Ela Law: this this 2 things. 1st of all, I think picking up on the community aspect, and not doing this alone, I think that is is such an important point. Would you not agree that it's it's about, you know, finding other people in your tribe that that have a similar outlook can be so so helpful to have either one person or group of people who you can share everything with, and come come up with a sort of a

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Ela Law: a back and forth, where you know that someone's there to support you. But the other thing that I want to pick up on is that

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Ela Law: I want people to feel encouraged by this, and that it takes time rather than discouraged, because, you know, we've been swimming in diet culture sometimes for decades.

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Ela Law: not something that we can unravel in a night. It's not a quick fix. It's not something that we turn it on and off overnight. I think it's it's really encouraging that, you know, sticking with it will get you to a place

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Ela Law: where you can feel comfortable, and where you know you, you you feel happy in your skin, where you can actually articulate why and how and what you're doing, and where you are at peace with food.

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Ela Law: and I think I think that for me, hearing you say that is is so encouraging, and and helps me sort of understand that, you know. Yes, it is. It can be hard, and it can be a long journey. But don't give up on it, because you'll get to a place where we we use in a in a different podcast we use the the analogy of like being chucked into a pool and trying to swim.

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Ela Law: that's not. That's not necessarily feasible, because you can't just jump into the deep end and expect that you can swim, and you're fine. You need something to hold on to for a little while, and it's a gradual process before you are actually able to free swim without, you know, holding onto the sides.

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Ela Law: So I think that's that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

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Abi Smith: Oh, you're welcome, I I think

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Abi Smith: you know, reflecting on it, there's definitely been like periods in the past where I've had one Cupid, one cup, one foot in both camps, where

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Abi Smith: it's almost like, if I had to kind of distill it, it'd be like, well, this is okay for other people. But actually, I still want.

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Abi Smith: Still want to look like that.

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Abi Smith: and that

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Abi Smith: I think that's really common for a lot, for a lot of people be like.

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Abi Smith: it's okay for other people to be fat, but it's no okay for me. And I've definitely had. I've definitely spent a couple of years

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Abi Smith: in that in that period driving myself like up the wall.

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Abi Smith: but you just need to let go. It's it's just not possible for me to be a thin person without effectively having

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Abi Smith: an eating folder and dedicating all of my spare time to

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Abi Smith: like

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Abi Smith: keeping myself

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Abi Smith: same, just.

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Ela Law: Would

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Ela Law: hms.

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Abi Smith: So what?

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Abi Smith: That's not a value I want to live by. I want to enjoy myself.

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Christine Chessman: We were. We were talking earlier about bree campus. Do you know Bri Campos' work? She's I think she's on Instagram body image with bree, but she talks about body, grief.

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Christine Chessman: and.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Sitting in the sock. And

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Christine Chessman: you know, actually accepting that you're not. It's so. I think it's the idea is like, Oh, we're intuitive eating. We love our bodies. We're absolutely fantastic. But it's okay to say, well, actually, I wanted that body.

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Christine Chessman: And it's not.

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Abi Smith: Group.

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Christine Chessman: It's to have that body. I'm not gonna be healthy. I'm not gonna have a healthy relationship to food or movement. And I'm gonna effectively have an eating disorder, and it's it for her. She she helps people sit in the sock, as she calls it, and just

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Christine Chessman: grief. And it's okay to say, well, I wanted that, but that's not what my body wants to do, and that's not where I'm healthy, and that's not where I can enjoy my life, and just rather than

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Christine Chessman: glazing over it and trying to go. But I love myself, you know, actually gone.

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Christine Chessman: you know, sitting with it for a while, and I think it's there's something powerful about that. I don't know.

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Christine Chessman: you know.

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Abi Smith: To love your body.

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Christine Chessman: No.

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Ela Law: Some things of it.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: All of it.

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Ela Law: Yeah. And it changes on a daily basis sometimes, doesn't it? Sometimes we're fine and sometimes we're not. And I think it's about being realistic about it. It's not a quick fix, and it's not a fix. Generally it's more of a

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Ela Law: a kind way of being in your body, of

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Ela Law: accepting that this is the body that I'm in. And you know, as you said, I've either, you know I can't change it.

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Ela Law: So what are my options. Am I gonna hate it for the rest of my life, or am I, gonna you know.

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Ela Law: accept it?

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Ela Law: Yeah, I mean, it's funny.

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Christine Chessman: I'll be through intuitive eating. Have you been able to connect more

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Christine Chessman: in to your body? Like to your your signals, to your hunger, your fullness, your have you been able to, and how you fain, when you move, have you been able to more rather than look from the outside? In?

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Christine Chessman: Have you been able to kind of.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Do you? Do you know what I mean? Embody that a bit more.

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Abi Smith: I think I'm better at like, I think, with the embodiment thing.

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Abi Smith: It's more about movement for me.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, that's.

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Abi Smith: What helps me be in my body, but I still

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Abi Smith: I do still struggle with

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Abi Smith: recognizing and observing, and

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Abi Smith: like. I can't think of the word with the the hunger and and and fullness cues.

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Abi Smith: Sometimes I do find them quite

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Abi Smith: difficult to notice to pay attention to and to work with.

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Abi Smith: partly because food is great.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: Because I don't know. I seem to get hungry, really, really fast, like I'll be. I'm fine and fine. I'm oh, my God, I'm gonna die like, and I I don't know. I don't know what that is.

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Abi Smith: It might be a newer, divergent thing. I

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Abi Smith: who who can say? It might just be that

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Abi Smith: I've spent a long time totally disconnected from it, and I haven't yet.

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Abi Smith: Learnt it yet, but if I'm honest, it's probably just because foods great, and I don't want to stop eating it.

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Christine Chessman: And Fidd is great. We had Evelyn Tripoli on last week who was fantastic, but she talked about people just being completely disconnected from their bodies and from their signals, and from because we have spent so freaking long, just pushing it all down and.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: No, I'm not hungry. No, I won't ate what my body needs. No, I'm late, and it's you become completely disconnected. Then, don't you? And you. Seafood is not the enemy, but it's not something that you should enjoy or.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: You know. And it's yeah. I don't know. 3 and 2 out of eating. I've really find a joy of food which I didn't have before, and that's been something amazing for me.

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Abi Smith: Yeah. Hmm, yeah.

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Ela Law: It's it's really good to kind of change the focus a little bit as well, you know. I mean said, we find it quite hard to kind of tap into your hunger and faunus queues. But you know intuitive meeting is about way. More than that.

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Ela Law: Especially with neuro divergence. Sometimes that is really hard to tap into those queues and the interceptive awareness of those queues, I think, having take, approaching it with from a different angle, and looking at satisfaction and enjoyment of what you're eating and understanding how you might be using food for emotional reasons, and maybe finding other ways around that. If if that, if that serves you, those kind of

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Ela Law: of things are all part of intuitive eating as well is very easy to get hung up on. Oh, I can't feel when I'm hungry, or I'm getting.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Coffee when I'm full. But looking at it from a sort of broader perspective, and looking at.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Different angles is, is, can be really helpful when you struggle with one particular aspect of it.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Abi Smith: Hmm,

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Ela Law: So in terms of

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Ela Law: do doing all of this work for yourself, and and and exploring into defeating and movement and and body neutrality. Have you had any particular resources that you felt were very, very helpful for you? Is there anything in particular that you thought? Actually, this was this was a really helpful resource book, podcast group, whatever it is that you thought actually, this, this made a real difference to me that you can share with

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Ela Law: with us and the listeners.

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Abi Smith: Hmm!

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Abi Smith: So I mean.

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Abi Smith: I mean, there's obviously there's the

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Abi Smith: glorious maintenance face.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, I'm good!

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Ela Law: Love it.

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Abi Smith: Who doesn't love maintenance, face.

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Christine Chessman: I know it's it's just. I've listened to every episode like 20 times.

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Abi Smith: So good. I I mean, I guess my my myself intro to the to the whole like intuitive eating thing, was by a book copy on chocolate. I don't know if either of you remember.

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Christine Chessman: Boom, no.

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Ela Law: I'm gonna put that on the very expanding list.

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Abi Smith: Yeah, I I mean, it's pretty old book now. And actually the the it was written by 2 sisters.

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Abi Smith: and

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Abi Smith: they they kind of had a like a company around it, which I think they've now dissolved. I think they've both retired now, but that was like

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Abi Smith: basically a a book about intuitive eating, and the idea that your

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Abi Smith: your your body will quite naturally settle somewhere. But the way that they had to market it, because it was so. It must have been about 15 years ago. The way they had to market it was with the sort of imply. The implication was that your body will settle into a lower weight.

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Abi Smith: and and they've since had to come out and say like we had to put that, because otherwise.

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Christine Chessman: Well, the the.

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Abi Smith: The publishers wouldn't publish it. So we have to kind of put this undertone of.

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Abi Smith: you know, implicate, implied potential weight loss in there. So that that was probably something that

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Abi Smith: was like an introduction to it.

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Abi Smith: I'm not. I'm not. Honestly, I'm not a massive reader of

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Abi Smith: of that that kind of thing. I guess it's probably just been like more like more like online stuff.

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Abi Smith: various different, like Facebook groups. And

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Abi Smith: aye.

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Abi Smith: back when blogs were a thing like different blogs, which are probably all defunct. Now cause.

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Ela Law: There's some great stuff on sub stack from.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, really, good.

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Ela Law: Really.

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Abi Smith: Yeah, I don't really know.

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Ela Law: That

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Abi Smith: Yeah, yeah.

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Christine Chessman: I wanted to ask a weird question because my brain goes weird places.

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Ela Law: He's good.

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Christine Chessman: If are you on Instagram? I'll be.

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Abi Smith: I I have an account, but I've literally have posted 2 pictures that, and they're both in 2,013. I look on there a lot. Why, what's the.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, no, no, I'm just interested about your view

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Christine Chessman: on the posts. Where people are talking about accepting their body.

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Christine Chessman: and they're very body centric. So you know, showing

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Christine Chessman: swimsuits on the beach are just.

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Christine Chessman: and they're in smaller bodies.

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Christine Chessman: So this is, you know, hashtag normalizing normal bodies.

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Christine Chessman: cause I is a point. I I do really struggle with those posts.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And I wondered how you felt.

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Abi Smith: I

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Abi Smith: I think that that is.

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Abi Smith: people in straight-size bodies

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Abi Smith: trying to take

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Abi Smith: the space

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Abi Smith: that

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Abi Smith: doesn't deserve that doesn't belong to them. Bodies don't need normalizing.

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Abi Smith: To the same extent.

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Christine Chessman: Yes.

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Abi Smith: Larger or

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Abi Smith: different looking

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Abi Smith: non unconventionally attractive

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Abi Smith: on nonconventionally attractive bodies. I mean, I I don't know. Like I say, like I'm I'm older I didn't grow up like with.

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Abi Smith: I grew up with imagery of thin bodies around me, but not to the same extent that people do now.

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Christine Chessman: And.

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Abi Smith: You know, a everybody who everyone's photos on just norm normal people's photos are like, you know, edited these days. So it's it's very difficult to to see pictures of like ordinary.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. And you know you're you're one year older than me. So stop saying, you're older, cause you're not older. We're young. We're young. Stop.

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Abi Smith: Being older.

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Christine Chessman: Nothing wrong with being older. I'm just not older, that's all. No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being older. What? Well, I would say to that is, I used to really get quite angry about posts of people in normal and inverted commas, but I see it differently now. I see it as a weigh in

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Christine Chessman: for people who have body image issues in smaller bodies. So I see that as, okay, that could be a touch point for them.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, bots.

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Christine Chessman: I do agree that the space is becoming saturated with the thin white blonde people normalizing

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Christine Chessman: a tiny roll of skin when they.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: It forwards.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Taken up space from, as you say, people who should be in that space.

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Christine Chessman: So it was just something that I find interesting because I do. I'm not against it because it is a move, maybe in

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Christine Chessman: a bit of the right direction. This is what I talked to Kim on the podcast about, maybe there's something

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Christine Chessman: good there, there's something positive there that that people are trying to say, it's not. You know, this image is not as you see it on Instagram. But definitely, it's yeah.

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Ela Law: I think I.

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Christine Chessman: Very valid.

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Abi Smith: Point. It's it's but it's it's kind of like body acceptance. But body acceptance, light, isn't it?

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Christine Chessman: Well, well done! You.

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Abi Smith: For accepting your conventionally attractive body.

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Ela Law: I love. I love what you said about that, that those are not bodies that need to be normalized because you're so right. You're spot on with that? Because it is it, is it?

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Ela Law: There's a certain size that is accepted and normalised. And then there's a size above that isn't, and that needs more representation and that needs to be needs to be seen to normalise it absolutely. I find that a lot of clients that I work with who are in smaller bodies

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Ela Law: are still looking for that validation set. So they're still looking for someone who looks like me, someone who not like me, like them like they they're looking for. Who? Who in this space looks like me? And then I can validate and

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Ela Law: whilst that is problematic on on a few levels. It's also, as Christine said, it's a way in, isn't it?

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Christine Chessman: To weigh in.

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Ela Law: And also.

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Christine Chessman: It's as you know, Abby, that is the best thing that I've ever heard body, except in flight.

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Ela Law: And Liz.

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Christine Chessman: Is this?

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Christine Chessman: I just love that. But I I always tell clients to find follow people that look like you as well as a diverse a number of people, but also make sure you're following people that look like you cause

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Christine Chessman: you'll you'll see more accepted generally in that space.

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Abi Smith: I've done that now to such an extent that when I see straight sized models it looks weird.

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Christine Chessman: I love that, but that that's the whole reason. I think there's been so many studies done on exposure. If we were exposed to larger bodies and black hair, we would think that's we'd all wanna have a larger body and have black hair, whereas we're expose we're exposed to thin blonde. So that's what we think is the ideal. So it's whatever you have most exposure to is what you

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Christine Chessman: do, you know. Do you know what I mean, and that's that's a very good point. I love that.

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Abi Smith: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Ella, have you got any more questions? Oh, oh.

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Christine Chessman: any more questions for Ali.

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00:38:50.813 --> 00:38:55.563
Ela Law: I've got tons of questions for Abby. First.st We we probably have to wrap it up.

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Christine Chessman: Let's finish with this one up, because I'm sure you have lots of wisdom to give to your what would you say to your younger self. Now this is what emma Thompson did a whole thing about what she'd say to our 14 year old self, which I find quite swinging.

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Abi Smith: Oh!

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00:39:12.670 --> 00:39:31.870
Christine Chessman: But it's you were talking about. We are growing up in diet culture. I'm the same generation as you, and I'm not sure if it was similar in Germany. Ella, but, goodness me! We are rest in. It was pouring out of every advertising, every advert on the TV, and I bought. My daughter loves special K.

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Christine Chessman: I, I thought. Surely they have. Surely they have changed in in 4 years since I was a kid, and it says on the back, it says, Stay, good.

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Ela Law: So dude, I'll.

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Abi Smith: Sure no no no.

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00:39:46.930 --> 00:39:48.300
Christine Chessman: Full of stuff.

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Ela Law: It's good.

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Ela Law: Oh, God!

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Abi Smith: That's horrible!

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Christine Chessman: No, but what would you? So what would you say to a younger abbey?

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Abi Smith: Therapy sooner.

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Christine Chessman: That's perfect. I didn't.

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Abi Smith: To. In the words of the the

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Abi Smith: great King Stacey, your body's not the problem.

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Christine Chessman: Oh! What the.

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00:40:20.600 --> 00:40:21.650
Abi Smith: It was.

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00:40:21.940 --> 00:40:23.120
Abi Smith: It's not.

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Ela Law: And I.

466
00:40:24.230 --> 00:40:25.799
Abi Smith: Was just a hook.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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00:40:26.570 --> 00:40:27.390
Abi Smith: All, on.

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Christine Chessman: I think I think I'll be. That is the perfect way to finish this episode. Your body is not the problem. There's nothing to fix

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Christine Chessman: alright. Thank you so so much for joining us, and I think we might have to get you back for Part 2, won't we, Ella?

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Ela Law: Smoothly, because, you know, we've got.

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Abi Smith: A.

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00:40:44.140 --> 00:40:44.670
Christine Chessman: Yeah, we have.

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Ela Law: Questions to ask you. And it's been such a joy to speak to you and thank you so much for being willing to hop on the podcast and for sharing everything. Thank you.

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Christine Chessman: You what, when, whenever Aubrey Gordon agrees to come on, you can come on as well and ask.

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Abi Smith: Sometimes. Oh, my God! I will die!

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Christine Chessman: Alright, I'll be, thanks. A 1 million and.

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00:41:05.090 --> 00:41:05.940
Abi Smith: Having me.

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Christine Chessman: You're welcome.