**Trigger Warning This Episode Is About Diet Culture**

Speaker A: To our listeners, this episode contains talk of body dysmorphia and other eating disorders. And we just want to put this as a trigger warning to anyone who may feel that they can't listen to this right now.

Speaker B: And we just want you to take.

Speaker A: Care of yourself and we love you so much. And we also have resources in our blog on our website that you can find.

Speaker B: We love you. Enjoy the episode.

Speaker A: Welcome to sharing my truth with Mel and Suzie the uncensored version where we bear it all.

Speaker B: We do 12340. Welcome.

Speaker A: Welcome back. I'm going to start a little song. Welcome back to share my truth.

Speaker B: Pod Mel Hello.

Speaker A: Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. And don't forget to follow and subscribe to this podcast. Leave us a little review because we love you and we hope you love us back. And don't forget to follow our Instagram. Such sharingmytruths, Pod. And our Facebook and our YouTube and our TikTok. And I'm here with my TikTok queen. Hi, babes, how you doing?

Speaker B: Hello, darling. I am good. Good.

Speaker A: Very good. I think we're both doing pretty good. It's nice out. Having a laugh.

Speaker B: Having a laugh, that's right. It definitely helps a bit of the old vitamin D, doesn't it?

Speaker A: And do we feel like we are bikini bod ready?

Speaker B: Definitely not.

Speaker A: I hate that term so much, too. I know I just brought it up, but I'm just like, **** you. I'm always bikini bod ready because I have a body and it fits into a bikini. I like that because all it has to do is cover my little nipples.

Speaker B: Excellent. Absolutely love that. Yes, cover your nipples. Well, in Europe you don't have to cover your nipples.

Speaker A: Oh, God, I love that so much.

Speaker B: Go to Spain. Go to Italy. Go to France. Don't cover the nipples. We're going to buy some much cheaper and then they have the stringy things that go up the ***, so you need even less.

Speaker A: So you're pretty much just spring down your floss.

Speaker B: Exactly. Just cover the old vaj vajiji little pussycat, the little whatever it is in front.

Speaker A: Well, now I know you're doing some intermittent fasting and I was asking if you wanted the cup of tea. And you're like, **** yeah, I'm having a cup of tea because I'm done with that bullshit.

Speaker B: I'm just done. Dan done. It's just utterly skews my language. ******* annoying. Yeah. And I've had enough and I don't think there'd any ******* difference. It does. Some things make a difference, obviously, to try and eat less calories and all that bollocks. But Susie, I have tried every diet under the ******* sun during my life. And like, most women have tortured themselves from teenage years up until now. And on it goes. And it just seems to be this never ending torturous journey. The diet and the body and the like, I don't like that. And you look in the mirror, I used to when I was younger and I still do it when I look in a mirror. I squint.

Speaker A: What? Oh, yeah, we squint.

Speaker B: I squint so I don't see the whole shut up. Reality. Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: No, you're a little milk.

Speaker B: What are you talking very I do squint. Yeah. I don't. Or sometimes I go past mirrors and I know lots of women do this and I just kind of go and don't look at it.

Speaker A: Oh, my God, I can't stop looking at the mirror.

Speaker B: Well, I think that's brilliant and all power to you. I think it's amazing.

Speaker A: I think it's just delusion because I think that's what we have to do now to keep our panties up.

Speaker B: Panties up and your **** up.

Speaker A: Chin up. **** up, panties up. Ready to go.

Speaker B: Excellent.

Speaker A: I think that's it. I think you can't be too hard on yourself. Because when I look at Instagram, which I do every day, because I'm a insta *****, and I go on there and you can't help but come off of it and feel like **** about yourself.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: And it's impossible to not look at these beautiful women that are 100% edited in every single way possible and just give us these tormenting beauty standards, 100%, and how that affects us in our dating life and in sex. And, like, someone like me, I'm 28 and even I someone who I do love my body and I feel great in it. I do get sometimes self conscious about what I look like while I'm having sex. And that's ridiculous because I'm ******* hot. You are, but you are, too. And sex is just supposed to be two people enjoying each other's bodies. If the man is already having sex with you, he can't think he ******* cares about the jiggle wiggle.

Speaker B: The jiggle wiggle? Yeah. I think women are unbearably hard. It's horrible. And I think if I think of when I was younger and personally, my background, I think a lot of my friends, myself in particular, my mum, was always telling me I was fat. So it's kind of in your head. Like, I remember my grandmother told me, my mother's mother told me when I was about 15 and I was tiny, that I looked like a Christmas pudding. Do you know an English Christmas pudding? And they're a ball. That's a ball.

Speaker A: I don't know what it is.

Speaker B: It's absolutely horrible. But anyway, that's irrelevant. But it's a round ball. It's something we eat at Christmas. And she said, you look like a Christmas pudding. And she was just not a very nice person. But for the rest of my life, I honestly, I can tell you, she said to me when I was 15 and I'm 50, it is in my psyche, it's in my head. And I think that women can be really fierce to other women. And we've created this. It must be because a lot of men don't give a flying **** about we're all obsessed with our tummy and that we stand like this and we have the hand on the like when you're having a photograph taken, which I've always hated. Yeah. And I'm trying to get better at you are. I am. And I'm making it, I'm not joking a sort of healing thing, because I find it very, very difficult. And I just think women are so hard and then on themselves and on each other and this whole diet thing and this whole thing about should you have the lights off with sex and stuff like that. It's basically because you hate your body and you hate it so much you don't want somebody else to see it. Yeah. And that's awful, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, when you think about older couples and how a lot of them probably aren't having sex anymore, it's mostly because the woman is just feeling so bad about her body. Whether she looks good or bad, she just doesn't want to share it with her partner because she doesn't like what she looks like, which is crazy. And she wears her clothes maybe they're wearing clothes while they're having sex, like crazy **** like that.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think that is a huge part of it. I was actually reading an article about that the other day and where it said that part of why women don't want to have sex as they get older, particularly in marriages, where the sex decreases, decreases, decreases. And we keep talking about that in the media, how everyone's having less sex. Well, sometimes it's more sex, sometimes it's less sex. But as women are getting older, that one of the reasons, actually, is not that they don't want to have sex. They want to have sex, but they're so loathing of their own bodies that they don't want to see it and they don't want anybody else to see it. And it's like a cycle, and it's horrible. And I think it's just society in general. We don't promote normal. I don't know what normal. I suppose that's not a very good word, but we don't promote we seem to promote really, really skinny extremes or the other extreme. There are very few ads. There are some, but not many that use women who are in the middle, which is what? 98% of women who are a healthy weight or a little above or a little below. Like, not an extreme on either side. And I don't know what that is. I mean, clothes, any clothes you look at, they're all geared towards having this crazy, very sloth like body, like tiny tops and all the rest of it. And then you get situations like I was telling you earlier, this drives me bananas when you get, like, somebody like Adele who was a little bit bigger, right, and everyone trolled her for that, and then she goes and loses all this weight. And I think a lot of people are, like, oh, my God, you look amazing. Blah, blah, blah. And then people start trolling her, saying, that's terrible what you've done for women. You've lost all you're like, hang on a second. She does look amazing. And I think personally, she is actually a very good advertisement for somebody who's not on either end of the spectrum. She's very sort of healthy looking. She's not skinny, she's not very overweight or whatever. She's incredible. And you're like, she's got so much stick about it. And you're like, and from women.

Speaker A: It's only from women.

Speaker B: And you're like, hang on a second. That's not fair. That really isn't fair. But I think that yeah, women, we're so hard on ourselves, and we have this culture of wearing all these clothes that are so difficult to wear. And then, like you said, we look at Instagram or we look at all these movies and where people are something that is impossible to aspire to because that's what they do 24/7.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, and it's I mean, I remember when I was a kid watching TV and the commercials come on, and there's yogurt commercials about literally what like I said at the beginning of the Pod, it's like getting making sure that you're fitting into your little itty bitty bikini by eating this yogurt. And everything is about fitting into some kind of clothes and everything's about eating the right thing and eating the right diet product and taking the right diet product. Like right now, everyone I don't know if you've heard I mean, you're always on the talk and stuff, but if.

Speaker B: You'Ve heard about Ozempic yes, I have.

Speaker A: Yeah. So there's like a craze right now. I'm assuming it's mostly in La. And the US. Because I don't even know if you can get it here. I haven't checked. But it's a diabetes product and people are taking it to lose weight. And now there's a shortage of people who actually need it for diabetes.

Speaker B: And I don't even want to know what the I have heard about this. Yeah. And I don't even want to know what the effects are of you taking something like a Zenpic and then what that does to you. Certainly when I was a teenager, the culture I had many of my friends who were bulimic. Bulimic seemed to be the thing. And a couple of friends who anorexic. But yeah, I mean, it follows you forever. Instead of taking things like going to those kind of extremes, you don't know. It's like friends of mine who actually had very serious eating disorders and then had big problems conceiving children, because taking something like a Zimp, you're trying to get a fast, like result and not worrying about all the collateral consequences, all the other things that could happen. God, what's that going to do to you down the line? I mean, if that's for somebody with diabetes I don't even know. That sounds horrendous.

Speaker A: It's so sad. And it's people who have eating disorders are more likely when they're older, if it's like a prolonged eating disorder, them having so many other problems when they're old, like even being just bedridden in their earlier days. And there's so many problems connected directly to eating disorders, like anorexia and bulimia. It's so sad because the only people who are doing this to us is ourselves.

Speaker B: 100% right.

Speaker A: And it's because of society's beauty standards and obviously all the commercials we watch, and obviously social media and all these things. Celebrities, like, we were talking about heroine. Chic was in your era. And I mean, I remember that as well, like, in the 90s, paris Hilton and all these hotties and just, like, so skinny. And I have never had a serious problem about my weight, but I've never not thought about it. It's always in the back of your mind.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think there's a huge amount of judgment about weight, because I was saying to you, it was a lot of pressure, and all the clothes were kind of those kind of clothes. It kind of depended. I mean, when I was a teenager, I lived in Italy and was very, very different in Italy, the the culture there, and and people ate, you know, you you eat, but still, there's pressure to be skinny and to be well, not pressure to be skinny. There's pressure to be well presented. And I wouldn't say it was a culture where they're like, oh, yeah, it's okay to overeat, but you eat. Yeah, because when you go out, you eat. That's what you do. You don't sit around.

Speaker A: Italian food so delicious.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Obviously.

Speaker B: Later on, when I was in my 20s, when I went to university, I then went to live in Paris and in France, that was the thing that you could never get your head around, is, how do all these women look so amazing? Yeah, they eat fossils and they eat all this stuff. And it was the first time I really sort of learnt that. Yeah, they eat everything, but they don't eat huge mounds of everything. And the culture in the UK is much more like the culture in the US. And the culture here, where you have these enormous portions and these just crappy food. They eat really, really good food. Everyone eats bread, everyone eats cheese. Everyone eats the stuff, but they don't eat vast quantities of it. Yeah, and it's a very healthy way of looking at food. And when you eat a meal, you eat vegetables and you eat carbohydrates, you just don't eat that much of any one thing. And even today, when I'm in Europe and you go to European countries like Spain and whatever, they're just like, what do you mean you don't eat bread?

Speaker A: It's like what?

Speaker B: No bread? I mean, they do have gluten free products and dairy free products and stuff like that, but it's just much less obsessive because they seem to have it right in the first place. But I think we torture ourselves. We torture ourselves as women. We're never happy. I totally can honestly say that myself. Never, ever happy. Continuously critical, and it definitely impacts your relationships. Whether you are having kind of the hookup kind of thing or you're in a relationship, it affects it affects the way you feel about yourself, the image you're portraying, the kind of obsessiveness about it. Right? If you're not secure, I mean, you for example, I applaud you. I mean, you look amazing, but I applaud you for being happy and secure in who you are. I don't think it's that common amongst.

Speaker A: I think it takes a lot of work to yes.

Speaker B: Just I think it does want to.

Speaker A: Be happy with yourself and what you put out there, because it's not easy to just be yourself in this day and age, in any day and age. It's not easy at all to just put yourself out there and want to just not be like anyone else and actually believe in what you're saying and who you want to be. And it's a really not easy thing to do. And I remember yeah, when I was a kid, I was doing a lot of sports and I was doing dancing, and I know a lot of my friends who are dancers or who were dancers had a lot of hard time eating because so much about your body and ballet and things like that. And I wasn't swimming, so it was like we had to eat, but I remember eating at McDonald's every day, but I would swim it off. But in America and Canada, we have Lean Cuisines and we have all these absolute garbage products that we're eating and putting into our bodies because we think it's healthier. Even if it's just like, actually you should just be eating natural foods a smaller amount and just exercising a normal amount, and you're actually going to be happier that way.

Speaker B: 100%.

Speaker A: And you're not going to heat your body as much because those products have chemicals in them to actually imbalance our brains in a way that we're going to feel more depressed, we're going to get on more pills, we're going to eat more ****. It's all ******* bullshit.

Speaker B: 100%. I mean, that's interesting you should say that. And I was probably for another episode, like the culture of undereating and over exercising. And that is a really North American it's kind of become very kind of in the UK as well, but it's not a European thing. I mean, I remember when I lived in Europe, and I've spent a lot of time I've lived in a lot of different European countries, and this culture we have in North America, particularly, of like, you walk around your workout gear for the entire day and you're obsessed with working out, and Europeans just don't get it. Didn't you go to the gym at, like, seven or eight? Why are you still wearing that stuff. Why? And you're not training for the Olympics, so go and do 45 minutes, maybe three times a week. How about going for a walk and not getting in that car? Yeah. And that is a very European thing, like a lot of my friends here in Canada that they used to be now, but I walk everywhere. We've had this conversation before. Sometimes I walk at the wrong times of day, but I walk everywhere and people think I'm mad. But that is a European thing. Whereas North Americans get in a car to go anywhere.

Speaker A: Well, everything is so yeah, that's true. But everything is so much further here.

Speaker B: It is. But, I mean, in Toronto, you could walk. Oh, how do you know?

Speaker A: I love walking.

Speaker B: I walk to my hairdresser and it's sort of 25 minutes walk. And they're also used to me, and I don't get there like a sweating mess. I just walk there. And I remember the first time I did it, they were just like, did you walk here? Where do you live? Blah, blah, blah. You walked? Yes. I use my 2ft.

Speaker A: People think it's weird.

Speaker B: 25 minutes is not a long time to be walking.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So there is a real imbalance, and I think society is not helping women at all. Present really healthy images. We talk about body positive. And I read in an article that I'll actually talk about it's from birdie.com, and they're talking about also being body neutral. So I think there's also this obsession of being, like we said, of the end of the spectrum and not enough concentration on the middle, what most women are we're not presented with that image. I mean, we are in a few things, like in Dove Dove ads and stuff like that. I think they do a good job of showing all bodies. And then there's the other thing, like if you're short or you're tall or, like me, you have big ***** if you like to eat or you have an appetite, like some people generally, I.

Speaker A: Don'T have a big appetite. Love to eat. And I say this because I'm like I want to be skinnier. I say this. I wish I did not want to eat so much. I love food so much.

Speaker B: Yeah, I put it in my mouth, anything. And then we have this culture of, like, you eat it and then you feel bad.

Speaker A: You feel like **** about you.

Speaker B: And then women are doing things, like if they're bulimic or whatever. And like I said to you in the beginning of the pod, I had a few friends who are bulimic and their teeth would get really yellow because they were puking so much. I mean, it's horrible. Horrible. And yeah. And what does that do to you in relation to how you operate in relationships or whatever? And we did a poll on Instagram, and we were asking how people feel about how has it affected them. And a lot of people said it does affect their desire to have sex or their willingness to be in relationships. They are really conscious of it. And like you said, if somebody is with you, then presumably they're with you. They're not worried about it.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's so funny because I'm sure men worry about it too. I can't speak to that because I'm not a man. But we have normalized this thing called the dad bod. Have you heard of it? And not like dads, but like, 20 year old men having, like, a dad bot and still looking sexy. And there's all these celebrity men out there who are like, a little bigger. They're not like bigger big. They're not overweight, but they just yeah, exactly. They just they look like normal guys. And we've normalized this way of like, I ******* love a guy with a dad bod, like, so sexy. And then for women, exactly, what do we get?

Speaker B: Well, I'd love to know.

Speaker A: I love a girl with a baby bard.

Speaker B: I mean, I know there's like some men who like big bums or big whatever, but there is very little of that. Like, you say the dad bod. And it's interesting you say that because my husband's lost in the pandemic during the pandemic, which sounds like so long.

Speaker A: Ago, the only person to lose weight in the pandemic.

Speaker B: He's the only person, I think, in the entire world who lost 65 pounds.

Speaker A: That's amazing. That's crazy.

Speaker B: And then he was getting bigger because everyone was sitting around drinking wine and eating too much and bored out of their tiny minds. And then he wasn't traveling, and he used to travel a lot, so then it's very difficult to eat well, and then he lost all this weight, which is amazing. But in order to stay on top of it, he does have to really think about it a lot. But, yeah, he sort of has gone from a big guy to a much slimmer guy. But it is funny how it's very different for men and women in the way we look at it. And I think what it is, is for men, he doesn't have a six pack. He's slim. He doesn't have a six pack or whatever because he's almost 50. But it seems like for men, we have a much healthier kind of reality about it than we do for women. And I don't know. And I'd love and I do see a few things on TikTok and Instagram about men saying they don't care about stuff. So I'd love for some men to reach out and actually say we don't care. Maybe we care about certain things, but in the realm of we don't care, you think we care, but we don't. So funny that you say that to know.

Speaker A: And it's like because obviously plastic surgery is becoming a huge thing in the past, like ten years or whatever, of getting bigger, *****, getting hits like liposuction, like fat Buchle removal, whatever the **** that was for a bit. And I think it's still going like your face fat or whatever. And it's like we think that men want us to look like this. Yes, but I talked to so many of my guy friends and whoever who are just like I ******* don't like the way that looks like you look like a fake person. You don't look like a real person. Yeah, sure, it looks better in pictures. You got your lips done, you don't have to use a filter anymore.

Speaker B: Yes, that's great.

Speaker A: I'm not shaming anyone who has ever had plastic surgery. I've done some things in my life but it's like we can't do these things because we want other people to like us or other people to feel better about our bodies for them.

Speaker B: You have to. But I think it's such a complicated line for women is that that's an interesting point. You do stuff for yourself, but how much are you doing it for yourself or are you doing it for your partner? I personally think I've done the things I do. I do it because I want to feel better about me. Which in turn if I feel better about me will make me feel better in front or naked or whatever with my partner, if that makes sense. I'm not actually directly doing it for them but I think there is a connection between the two for sure. I'm doing it to look younger or look whatever and therefore I feel will remain more appealing to him. I think women are doing that. But I would absolutely say you do whatever makes you feel good and what makes you feel whole and what makes you feel happy and secure. But I think there is a line that we are doing some crazy ****. Yeah. And I'm not talking about Botox, I'm not talking about **** jobs or whatever. I'm talking about stuff like yeah, the *** implant.

Speaker A: But thing is the most killed whatever, you can die, it's the highest death.

Speaker B: Rate and people going get your like places to and it's actually when you see it, it's quite terrifying. Like often you see these tiny girls with these enormous and the couple of times I've seen it, it's almost you're transfixed *******.

Speaker A: And obviously some women want this and they want to look like this and that's why they're doing it. They want to do it for them. And that's great old powder percent. I agree with you, Mel. It's ******* crazy.

Speaker B: It looks really weird.

Speaker A: It's crazy. And there's a lot of things where obviously when you're getting your *** done, I'm pretty sure they do your body too because they have to move the fat other places and that's why you always see a little bit of cellulite too. It's never smooth because you still fat in there and they can't take that fat away or then it looks really ******* weird. So you're just kind of moving the fat around.

Speaker B: Well, I know people who've had I think you can put on weight and then had that somehow injected into other parts.

Speaker A: A lot of weight for that, though, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. One of my friends did, she put on that much, and when she was like I was like, I don't really see I didn't say that. And also she looked it was really great, and she looks great, but it was like, you don't need you didn't need to factor. But I don't know. I mean yeah. Where is the line? Well, the line really is your own line is what you want to do for yourself. And I would freely admit that about myself. How much am I doing it solely, exactly?

Speaker A: I think nine times out of a ten, it's not for you.

Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, that's the connection is like, if I need to do stuff to feel better about myself in front of particularly naked or in front of a partner, then you kind of are doing it for yourself. You're doing it for yourself.

Speaker A: You're doing it for yourself to make yourself more confident. But the behind that is society makes you think that you need to be.

Speaker B: Confident and that you have to do this. The *** thing I find kind of amusing in the sense that when I was younger, I have a booty girl, and when I was younger, it was all about having no booty, having a tiny booty, or more like a flat thing. And now it's like women are doing the reverse of what they were doing when I was young, is making them bigger, not smaller, which kills me. So my entire teenager was trying to reduce it. Now everyone's trying to increase it.

Speaker A: But that's a ****** up thing, right?

Speaker B: Totally just trends.

Speaker A: Because in 20 years, we're all going to want no butts again. It's completely happening right now. It's complete you cannot put your body our bodies are not trends.

Speaker B: No, they're not.

Speaker A: You cannot make yourself look like something for two years, even, and then go back. You're not Kylie Jenner.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: You have to just listen to your body 100%.

Speaker B: And even all these diets, which I think I've done the Atkins diet, I've obviously just done intermittent fasting. I've done the grapefruit diet. I've done the what is the grapefruit? We basically only eat grapefruit. This is years ago. And the cabbage soup, like, you eat this horrible it's just revolting. And you smell disgusting and you just eat this sort of have you pee cabbage?

Speaker A: Have you seen that Vogue diet from, like, the 1950s?

Speaker B: What's in it?

Speaker A: So the wine and eggs diet. And I've actually wanted to do it.

Speaker B: Because I do like eggs and I do like wine.

Speaker A: So it's literally like it's like 09:00, a.m. 1st glass of wine, one egg.

Speaker B: I haven't seen that.

Speaker A: And then it's like noon lunch, one glass of white wine. Preferably a dry Chabli. And then it's like an egg with a salad. And then it's like 06:00 p.m.. Do your third or fourth glass of wine, preferably a dry white. And then with another egg and some other kind of protein. And I'm like, who the **** is following this?

Speaker B: Well, I mean, women probably did.

Speaker A: And you're wasted all day and I can get behind that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's true. That's very true. But I knew when we were younger, we would, like, sort of in our 20s, we would not eat, like, massively reduce our calories in food and weekends so we could go out and get **** based, go partying. And you're like, it's not a good combo. You really need to be eating something. But a lot of girls do that, and I think they still do it. Cut down their calories and eating so they can amp them with their that's.

Speaker A: One way to get **** faced.

Speaker B: Yeah, but it's just there's so many calories and drink, right? So they just do that. So it's all crazy. And what other diets have I done? What did I say? Atkins.

Speaker A: Atkins cabbage soup before, when I ate.

Speaker B: Cheese, I did Atkins. That was awful.

Speaker A: I don't even know what the **** that is.

Speaker B: It's basically you can't have carbs and you have to have, like, lot of butter and cheese and it's fat. Something about the fat, whatever. And then I did do for a long time, like, not eating any really white carbs, like pasta, rice, potatoes. But then the pandemic hit and I fell off that in glorious fashion because you cannot be at home in a pandemic and say, I'm not having a piece of bread, or I'm not having it's just awful.

Speaker A: Do you know how much baking I did? How much ficaccia I made during the pandemic?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: God, it was all I just made margaritas and made ficaccia.

Speaker B: That sounds quite nice.

Speaker A: It was really fun.

Speaker B: That sounds pretty great. But I mean, going back to your original thing about Instagram, endlessly people going on about what you should eat or what you shouldn't eat or what you I mean, it's just obsessive. It's totally obsessive. It's completely depressing. It really is. Yes. And then, like you said, you look at all these girls and particularly on Instagram because that is the home of all this stuff. And these women like different outfit and they're like, looks so great, you should try this outfit. And you're like, Well, I can't try this outfit because I have huge *****. I'm at least at least 5ft smaller than you and about 75ft wider than you. That outfit will cover one nipple. And I also haven't had 4 hours of makeup. I don't have a personal chef. And that's the thing, is it's so unrealistic. Especially used to get sort of in the when my kids were born in the early 2000s, when you'd get these models, sort of, or TV personalities having babies and sort of coming out the hospital and you're like, Hang on. And you'd think, where's your stomach and looking amazing? And then you'd have your baby and you're like, hang on, why do I still look like ****? Why do I still look the same? And it's not helpful at all. It's completely unrealistic. And I know that has changed quite a lot. A lot of people in the public eye trying to show that, no, you have a baby. Even if you put on a little weight, you will put on weight. And when you've had a child, it should be about you healing and looking after your baby, not worrying about eating three grapes and an egg and a glass of well, yeah, I mean, the.

Speaker A: Diet culture is all about gatekeeping and just having someone who ******* looks amazing on Instagram. But all of their photos are filtered. Or they are posting their breakfast of an avocado and quinoa, and yet they're eating bacon and they're not actually vegan and they're not actually going on this hike. They're just doing it for Instagram. So it's like this isn't reality.

Speaker B: No, it isn't. It isn't reality. And the other thing I would say to that is I remember when I had my second child and I got a personal trainer. It's the first time I had a personal trainer and she didn't have children, and she's like, sir, she didn't actually sound like this, but you should get up and you should have lemon, a glass of lemon water and a rice cake with whatever it was. And I'm like, look, lady, I've been up all night with two babies, my husband's traveling for work. I'm absolutely tired. There is no ******* way I'm getting up and having a glass of ******* hot water with a lemon in it. No, I need all the caffeine that God has on this earth to give me and I need to eat something. And a piece of a rice cake with half a tomato is not going to do it for me. I need to eat some food, otherwise I'm going to pass out. And then all this thing also on Instagram of like so I got up, I get up at seven and I have my hot water and lemon, and then I match, and then I do a two hour workout, and then I have a protein shake and then blah, blah. And you're like, what about the excuse me, I'm going to cough to death. Now, the rest of the world that has to get up with without children go to work, be it a job in an office by 09:00. So many snacks also, right, works until 5678, whatever the time is, then rushes home like a mad person, makes some food. Explain to me in that day where you have time to go and do any kind of exercise at all, it's actually almost impossible unless you see all these people jogging to work, and then I always want to know about those people. Where are they showering?

Speaker A: There are showers in office building town.

Speaker B: Yes, but I've met an awful lot of people who are not that's ******* bad. So please, if you're doing that, please consider the people around you.

Speaker A: Please shower.

Speaker B: I had a boss who used to do that. He used to cycle to work.

Speaker A: Oh, my God.

Speaker B: And then he didn't shower. It was revolting. It was absolutely disgusting. But anyway, so that's another whole discussion. But it's true, isn't it? Like, this is the reality. What can you actually do? And so we need to just be a little bit kinder to ourselves and yeah, we're talking about some facts.

Speaker A: I want to hear your facts.

Speaker B: You want to hear my facts?

Speaker A: Your facts for dating and sexiness and bonding.

Speaker B: Positivity.

Speaker A: And what you're saying is neutrality, which I don't even know what that means.

Speaker B: Well, first thing this is a fact from Mel, is sexiness comes from within. You got to believe you're sexy, Delusion. You are sexy. Yes. You got to believe it and that it comes from within. I truly believe that. I'm not saying I necessarily believe that.

Speaker A: About myself, but the more you say it, the more you believe it.

Speaker B: You never know. So what was I saying here? Body neutrality is a helpful space to exist in. What is body neutrality? That's something we need to understand.

Speaker A: Well, okay, so body neutrality is the aim to exist within your body without judgment or holding strong opinions about how you look. So literally just not thinking about your body at all.

Speaker B: I guess that's impressive. I think that's hard, but that's impressive. I'm not sure that's even I feel.

Speaker A: Like that gives you kind of like a I don't know if that's a good thing, to be honest. Don't you want to feel your body.

Speaker B: And how it is? Yeah, I'm not sure. What are they saying there? Because you also want to feel about yourself, whatever your weight is, and we're in this weight obsessed world that you're healthy. You want to feel, I'm doing the right things for me to feel healthy and good for me, irrespective of whether anybody else thinks I look great. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker A: Okay, so wait, here's an example of body neutrality. So saying to yourself, I accept my body as it is. My body helps me in many ways.

Speaker B: Yeah. And to love every kind of fast.

Speaker A: It'S not about how it looks. It's just about I walk with my 2ft and my hair grows.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not sure I can get behind.

Speaker A: I know. Me too. I'd rather be like, I ******* love my hot **** and my tight little put.

Speaker B: ******* love your hot ***, you know?

Speaker A: I'd rather those affirmations instead of, yeah, my 2ft walk and my hands. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah. You know what I mean? That's a fact. But I think you also want to focus on the bits of your body that you like, rather than which we all do as humans. Focus on the bits we don't like.

Speaker A: That's true.

Speaker B: Like, think about the bits that you love about yourself. So something I was going to tell you, that here's a fact for you, Susie. Yeah. So this is from Birdie, I hope I've got that. So the research has shown that around 50% of 13 year old American girls reported being unhappy with their bodies, which grows to nearly 80% by the time Kiwi girls reach 17. I think that's more like 99%.

Speaker A: You do a little slower. It was very fast.

Speaker B: All right, so research has shown, and this is according to an article in birdie.com, that around 50% of 13 year old American girls 15 or 50? 50.

Speaker A: Oh, wow. 50.

Speaker B: I think that's actually quite low. Okay, but a report being unhappy with their bodies and by the time they're 17, that goes to 80%.

Speaker A: Well, that's more accurate. I feel like 13 year olds don't know what to do with their bodies. I don't think they're unhappy with that.

Speaker B: I think they're just like I mean, I've got two teenage girls and I'd say it starts really young.

Speaker A: Well, maybe now it starts even more young.

Speaker B: What was the thing? Does it say? This is an article from recently, from 2023. Yeah.

Speaker A: So I mean, I don't know. I remember enjoying myself, but you know what's crazy is that I did have I remember being in junior high like that's when you're 13 and we had junior high where I'm from. But a lot of girls I knew at my age would cut themselves.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's still a thing.

Speaker A: It's crazy.

Speaker B: That's still a thing.

Speaker A: And it's so sad.

Speaker B: And a lot of it is because.

Speaker A: Like, you're saying, like, body issues and they don't have how it looks and there's a lot of other things going on.

Speaker B: But yeah, I mean, cutting is a whole that's a whole podcast in itself. My experience and if we talk about young girls where diet culture starts is for example, if you are very well developed and you start your periods young, then you're kind of more mature and you look different to the other girls. And your periods tend to around that time when you first start. You gain a bit of weight, your ***** grow, blah, blah, blah. And if you're sort of 1312 and your other friends haven't started, their bodies are more, let's say less curvy they're more younger looking, so they haven't gained any weight. And they'll look at you thinking, oh, you look weird. You look at this whole comparison thing going on and it's really horrible. And it happens to a lot of girls. And certainly I was in that category. Like, I was very young, so it's not helpful. We start young. I remember when my second daughter was about four, so she was in junior kindergarten and she was a cute little she was a cute little thing, and she came home one day, and she's very, like, self assured, so she's like, whatever. But even then, this little girl said to her, do you know that you've got fat arms? And it was just like, yeah.

Speaker A: And other four year olds yeah.

Speaker B: Said to my daughter, you have fat arms, and she had a four year old's arms. I mean, not that that's relevant, but the problem is that obviously had come from somewhere else. That's not her thinking that. That comes from somebody who said that to her or the home or whatever it was. But it's insidious. It starts going into so you're already making judgments that at four, I mean, you should look like this and not like this, which is completely terrifying. And again, it happens when you're 13, rather than as a society saying everyone's different. Some people around the age some girls around the age of 13, they're having their periods, so they might be a little more curvy, and other girls might not be so curvy, but we get into this whole no, that's not right. Or you're this or you're that, or you're fat or you're this. Yeah. I mean, it's horrible. Yeah, it's absolutely horrible. But, I mean, it starts young is what I'm as a very roundabout, long winded way of me saying that it starts young, and we don't even think.

Speaker A: About when it starts. I feel like it comes in so naturally into what we're doing and who we're talking to. A lot of our family members, I think, start it for us. Oh, my because it comes from their insecurities.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I mean, I've had so many experiences of this, and it comes from their insecurities. And I think it used to be okay to say things. It depends on your culture as well. Some cultures are more brutal in that way and will say comments about the way you look. I know a lot of my friends like Brits. That's very common. And yeah, it's harsh. It's horrible. And then it sets this thing in your motion, in your head, and the way you see yourself. And if you see yourself in a certain way, then of course, then you're going to think, how do the other people see me? Including romantic or whatever kind of sexual relationships. You're going to think about, how is that person viewing me? It's in your head, and it's not healthy at all. So that you're separating how you look from the act of sex, which is what I was saying earlier about old women as they get older, that perhaps they actually want to have sex. They're just terrified about being judged. Yeah. And, like, don't look at me, I look awful. Well, why do you think you look awful? Well, because we've told them they look awful. Because society is doing that, isn't it? Yeah. This is an article on a site called Very Well Fit and it just the start. The first sentence, I think, says it all. Diet culture is the persuasive belief that appearance and body shape are more important than physical, psychological and general well being, which I can, I think, says it all 100%. So we're so wrapped up in it, it becomes this huge obsession which goes into all areas of our life. It's impossible to escape because people are continually judging you. Yeah. And I think that's it.

Speaker A: And all we can just do is just do our best and try to love what we are presenting to the world and to ourselves 100%.

Speaker B: And I would say to most women out there who are not feeling that fabulous about themselves, most women in their life, whatever their shape or size, whatever they've been predominantly in their life, their weight will go up and down more sharply in some women than others. And you know what? It isn't against the law. You're doing your best. And sometimes there are other external factors, whether you've had kids or you're stressed or the menopause or whatever it is, and you're doing your best to be healthy and happy and fit. And that is not an easy task. No.

Speaker A: And I want to end this episode with just saying that if you do feel like you know someone or you have a problem with how you're feeling and maybe you need some help, we will put some links in our blog of some support that you can get in contact with. And we just love you so much and we hope you feel good about it because you should feel good about your body.

Speaker B: Yeah, stop being so hard on you.

Speaker A: This is the one body you get.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Have a little fun.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Do a little dance. Make a little love.

Speaker B: That's very good. Very good. That's a good way to end, Susie. I love it. Well, thanks, darling. It's been lovely. It's been lovely. And thanks for everyone for listening and you look gorgeous.

Speaker A: I must say, with your ****. I love him.

Speaker B: Thank you, SIS.

Speaker A: Love you guys. Talk soon. Bye.

Speaker B: Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review this podcast and follow us on social at Sharing My Truth Pod and leave us a voicemail on our sharingmytruth.com to share your stories and experiences with us. We'll see you next time.

Speaker A: Bye bye. Two, one.