Taylor's story: What if everyone else is right and we're wrong?

Taylor was diagnosed with sleep apnea six months ago and told the only real solution was weight loss. Like so many fat people, they've tried every diet imaginable—keto, Weight Watchers, calorie counting—and watched their weight cycle up and down for years. When a friend introduced them to intuitive eating and the anti-diet movement, it felt revolutionary. But the what-ifs started creeping in. What if I just keep eating and never stop? What if this damages my health? What if everyone saying "just lose weight" is actually right, and I'm the one who's wrong? 

In this episode, I walk through Taylor's very real, very valid fears about ditching diets for good—because when you're fat, choosing to stop pursuing weight loss isn't just giving up dieting. It's accepting you may never access the privileges thin people get automatically, from medical care to airplane seats to basic dignity. I talk about why these fears are legitimate, what the evidence actually says, and why fat people need other fat people—not thin allies—to navigate this journey. 

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Chapters

• 8:33 The Truth About Weight Loss Medications
• 14:28 Fear of Endless Weight Gain
• 19:45 What If Intuitive Eating Damages My Health?
• 24:45 What If Everyone Else Is Right and We're Wrong?

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to episode 34, Season 5 of the Fat Doctor podcast. I am your host, Dr. Asher Larmie, otherwise known as the Fat Doctor. Sometimes called Britain's Most Outrageous Doctor, or so I've been told. Today we're going to be talking about Taylor.

For those of you who are new to the podcast, every three weeks, or every third episode, I create a fictional character. I give them a gender-neutral name and gender-neutral pronouns, and if you don't like that, then you are in the wrong place. And yeah, we just talk about things from a very personal and individual place, rather than a theoretical population-based place.

It's late in the day, and I record podcast episodes back-to-back, so the third one, I'm sure I don't make any sense at all. But anyway, Taylor's story.

I haven't really thought about Taylor too much. I'm going to give you too much background, because I really want you to be able to relate to Taylor. So I want you to be able to relate, and therefore I'm not going to give you too much detail. I will tell you that 6 months ago, Taylor was diagnosed with sleep apnea.

And there's a few things you need to know about sleep apnea. Number one is very, very common. Number two, it affects people of all sizes. And actually, it's one of these conditions that doesn't get diagnosed in thin people, because doctors are still under the stupid impression that it only affects fat people.

Sorry for the use of the word stupid, but really, honestly, it's so last season. But they still think, yeah, it can only happen to fat people, and so they don't actually look at thin people, which is a real shame, because sleep apnea can be treated, should be treated, and actually is a really big risk when it comes to general anaesthetic. So we should be picking up on sleep apnea a lot more than we are.

As I said, we're under the impression that it only impacts fat people, and therefore we have a tendency, and when I say we, I mean doctors and nurses and healthcare professionals, have a tendency to blame people, because, of course, if it's a condition that is more common in fat people, then we are allowed to blame you. I don't know if you know that. Blame is not really appropriate in clinical medicine, unless you're fat, in which case, free-for-all. Absolutely, we can blame you. And we can really shame you at the same time as blaming you.

Two for one. It makes us feel good, as doctors, to be like, well, this is all your fault, and really, if you had tried harder, and if you hadn't been such a lazy slob, and if you'd eaten less and exercised more, this wouldn't have happened.

We might not say it exactly like that, although sometimes we do, but we certainly mean it, and you certainly take that away from your consultations. So, yeah, we love to blame and shame you for this particular medical condition, even though, as I said, there's nothing to do with weight. And there was one study that looked at the general population, took the criteria, just like a random sample of people, of all sizes, ages, genders, you name it.

I think it was fairly good from an ethnically diverse population as well, I hope. I'd have to look. I have a feeling it was done in a Scandinavian country, so perhaps not as diverse as we'd like it to be, but anyway.

Can't quite remember the details of the study. It is included in my sleep apnea Masterclass, if you've done that. They looked at just random people in the population, and they just looked at the criteria for sleep apnea, and they measured to see whether people had sleep apnea.

And they found 50% of males and 25% of females, just in the general population, met the criteria for sleep apnea. Isn't that wild? 50% of males had it. And it had nothing to do with weight. BMI had nothing to do with it. It was just one of those things that's much more common than we think it is.

I wasn't expecting to delve into sleep apnea here. This is a sort of off-the-cuff comment, but I think it's really important that, yeah, Taylor was diagnosed 6 months ago with sleep apnea, and very much made to feel like it was all their fault, and shame on them, and the only way to treat this condition, well, not the only way, because thankfully, we do know that CPAP is a treatment, but if you really want to improve your condition, if you want to get rid of it and you don't want to be reliant on CPAP for the rest of your life, you need to lose weight. Is there any evidence that weight loss will improve sleep apnea? No, there isn't, but we'll tell you to do it anyway.

I have a friend who is learning to play the didgeridoo. And when she told me this, I thought I'd misheard her, but no, is learning to play the didgeridoo as a treatment for sleep apnea. When she said that, I went, hmm, okay then. And I googled it. And I found an article in the British Medical Journal. They supported the use of didgeridoos. It's not the didgeridoo, it's the breathing techniques used to play the didgeridoo that actually help with sleep apnea now. This was one study, it was a small population. It wasn't the most reliable study out there, but I thought this was fascinating. I was like, hang on a second, this feels like a very fun way. So if there are any Taylors out there right now thinking, oh, I've got sleep apnea, what can I do? Didgeridoos are all the rage in the sleep apnea family.

There is also more and more evidence that the devices that change your jaw, and you use them overnight, I can't remember, they're like a mouth guard, basically, that those, what are they called? Oropharyngeal devices or something? They are potentially of benefit. So CPAP's not the only option, is what I'm trying to say, but CPAP is a very good, viable option, and there are some people who will swear by CPAP and say it changed their lives, there are some people that hate CPAP and don't get on with it, but there are many, many treatments out there. Not many, many, but there are several treatments out there. None of them are weight loss. None of the effective treatments are weight loss, but, you know. Taylor's fat, so of course their doctor told them to lose weight.

Now, Taylor, like many fat people, have attempted weight loss more than once in their life. You'll be shocked to hear this. They've attempted weight loss on multiple occasions. They've done keto. Everyone's done keto. Or some version of it, Atkins, you know. They've done calorie counting, they've tried Weight Watchers, they've tried cabbage soup and Slim Fast, and you name it, they've tried it.

They, of course, like everyone else, are being inundated with information about the shots. As I record this podcast, a few days ago, Donald Trump made a comment about how the Ozempic doesn't always work, doesn't seem to be doing that great a job. And I very, you know, I can't tell you how upsetting it is for me to agree with something that Donald Trump has said. You know, like, it makes me feel actually physically sick. Nauseous, to the point of vomiting. But he is correct.

Ozempic doesn't always work. Ozempic's actually not particularly effective for weight loss. There is a much stronger version of the same drug, semaglutide, called Wegovy, that's more effective. Mounjaro, even more effective. But, yeah, there's only evidence that they work for the first couple of years. There's not actually any evidence that they work long-term.

And I'm waiting for the five-year data to come out. Because my theory, and you heard it here first, folks. My theory is that weight regain starts around the 1-2 year mark, definitely beyond the two year mark. People will start regaining weight, because we had some evidence of this in one of the original STEP trials, but they cut it off.

So there was, like, you know, they were like, no, it's fine, it's fine, it's only a little bit, you know, we can't really take it very seriously, but, like, if you just used a ruler and did a little projection. Potentially, I don't think it's fine at all. So I'm desperate for the five-year data to come out, because I have a feeling it's going to show what we all suspect, in that it doesn't actually work long-term.

That even if you're on it, forget when you stop it, for sure you gain weight back. That's there's no question about that. But, even the people who stay on it, I have a feeling, and that is based partly on my understanding of human physiology and biology, because these drugs only work through starvation. And I know that when you starve yourself, when you are no longer getting enough energy. The body does two things. One, it reduces your metabolic rate, your resting metabolism. And number two, it increases your appetite. Now, of course, the appetite increase, less obvious when you're dealing with a drug that specifically reduces your appetite.

However, the changes to your resting energy, that's for sure, like, there's no question that's gonna happen. So weight loss will plateau, and I have a feeling that eventually weight loss will stop, and you will start regaining weight. Now, maybe not all of it in such a short period of time, I don't know how that's gonna work, but it's not gonna work long term.

Neither does bariatric surgery, for the same reason. Bariatric surgery stops you from eating, right? Massively reduces the amount of food that you're able to consume. Makes you feel sick when you eat, in many cases, so people don't, and they certainly eat a lot less. That's the whole point of bariatric surgery. So appetite decreases with the weight loss drugs. I shouldn't say appetite necessarily decreases with bariatric surgery, but because you know you can't eat too much without feeling sick, then that sort of has an impact on your appetite. But your resting energy expenditure still decreases, just like it's supposed to, just like it does every time a person restricts themselves. It's just harder to combat that, because as I said, normally what happens is the body combats restriction through a mixture of both reducing your resting energy expenditure, and increasing your appetite, and that's how you regain the weight that you lost, because the body, of course, has no interest in you losing weight at all. In fact, the body considers that to be a threat to your life, and will do anything it can to restore that weight.

Sorry, went off on a tangent again. Like I said, it's the third recording of the day. So, there's the weight loss shots, there's bariatric surgery. Taylor has been tempted, but has not done either of those yet.

And yeah, recently, not long after they got diagnosed with sleep apnea, they felt really crap about themselves, they mentioned it to a friend, said, oh, I've got to lose weight again, because the doctor said so, and the friend went, oh, no, that's rubbish.

And Taylor went, how do you know that? And the friend went, of course, I've listened to the Fat Doctor podcast, and I've taken Asher's masterclass in sleep apnea, so I'm an expert.

Just kidding. The friend said, because it's rubbish, and everybody knows that. Weight loss isn't a treatment. Have you not heard of the anti-diet movement? Have you not heard of Health at Every Size? Have you not heard of intuitive eating? And of course, Taylor was like, no, because the vast majority of people haven't. I know, I live in this little space now where I'm surrounded by all these people that know what I'm talking about. I forget that the vast majority of people in the country still have never heard of intuitive eating or anti-diets. They've never heard of the fact that weight loss does not improve your health. They're still under the belief, because they've been conditioned to believe, that weight loss absolutely is the answer, and they are at fault. So, of course, Taylor's like, well, no. But Taylor gets curious.

Maybe because they've been on a number of diets, and they know it doesn't work. They can tell you diets don't work, because they've tried a number of times, and they've worked for a while, and they've regained weight, and restored the weight, and they've ended up fatter, because that's the way biology works.

So they discover the anti-diet movement, they listen to a few podcasts, I won't name them by name, but you know the ones, the really good ones that help people to understand about anti-diet, and about intuitive eating. And they're like, yo! Yeah, this makes sense! And then they read all the stuff, and they're like, oh, their eyes are opened, and all of a sudden they realize, oh, I don't need to go on a diet anymore. They're feeling really good. That's it. No diet for me.

And I think that does happen. I think it does. I think the intuitive eating movement, if it's one, or the anti-diet movement, really suits a lot of people, really, really great for people who have a history of an eating disorder. I think it's the, I mean, I haven't seen people recover from eating disorders without, you know, for the most part, without some measure of intuitive eating. That's not true, maybe, that's just my experience, but, you know, it's really important for people with eating disorders. I think it's great for some people who have been dieting, I think it's great even for mid-sized people who have been dieting, you know, slightly chubby, slightly what we call overweight, but when you're fat.

It all makes sense. And it's great. Except. And this is what Taylor's going through right now. Taylor is like, I really want to stop dieting, but. And there are a lot of what-ifs, and these are very valid what-ifs, and so I want to spend the rest of this podcast talking about the what-ifs.

The first what-if is, if I just eat whatever I want, what's to stop me from just eating and eating and eating and gaining weight, and gaining weight, and gaining weight, and gaining weight, and just never stopping, like, just blowing up, like that one from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

That's a valid concern, isn't it? Because when you do intuitive eating, when you're learning about intuitive eating, you join the course or you see the dietitian or whatever, and they'll tell you, look, when you start eating intuitively. Your weight might stabilize and stay where it is right now. You might lose weight, but in many cases, you gain weight.

Which, if you're a thin person, you can get your head around it, right? Like, it's not great if you're someone with an eating disorder, that is probably the hardest step to overcome, I imagine. But if you're a fat person, that's quite terrifying. Because we already know how crap it is to be treated the way we've been treated by society at the size we're in. And we know that if we get fatter, it's gonna get worse.

So, what if I keep eating and eating and eating? That, I can promise you, won't happen. You will not keep eating and eating and eating and eating and eating. Anyone who's tried intuitive eating will tell you that in the first few days, you will go wild. But actually, the more you embrace it, the more you'll be like, no, I just, you just won't. You just stop.

You know, I did it with Snickers bars, so I had this huge phobia of diabetes. This was before I got diabetes. And so, when I restricted, I restricted predominantly sweet things. So, you know, I was very, very careful about sweet things, and my, like, at the time, the thing that I craved most in the world was a Snickers bar.

I don't know what it was, it was a combination of nuts and all the other good stuff in it, and I was just, I have to have a Snickers bar. So, when I started doing intuitive eating, I bought some Snickers bars. And I was going through one or two a day. Oh my gosh. But it lasted for 5 days. And honestly, there are Snickers bars downstairs in my cupboard now, if I ever want one, I think. Occasionally, I want one. But one of the things I realized is I don't actually like Snickers bars that much. Sorry, Snickers. I mean, they're really sweet, and so I have to be in a particular place to crave a Snickers bar.

You will not go wild and just keep eating and eating and eating. It doesn't happen. The body has got a really fantastic biofeedback mechanism in place to help you to eat when you're hungry, and stop when you're full. It's just that you have been overriding that mechanism for so long that it doesn't work anymore. But once you let it come back online, it's like riding a bike. You'll get there. Might take a little bit of time, but you'll get there.

I can't tell you what will happen to your weight. And some people, most people, most of us who've done intuitive eating say that eventually our weight settles, and we're quite stable.

My husband told me the other day that he got weighed at his diabetic review, and they said you weigh exactly the same as you weighed last year, exactly the same. I think they meant it as an insult. He's just very slightly fat, just over the BMI limit, you know? And I was like, that's amazing, that's so good, I'm so happy, because he has a tendency to lose weight when he's unwell. So actually, that was, for me, like, a really good sign.

And a lot of people who are intuitively eating for long periods of time will tell you that their weight settles, and you just, you don't, you know, clothes settle, and things settle, and you don't pay much attention. There are periods in your life when weight gain is to be expected, middle age, if you're a male. If you're a female, if you ever get pregnant, menopause, to be expected.

And then, of course, your weight changes again as you get much older. You tend to lose weight eventually. But as you get older, people often say, oh, you never see really fat people in their 90s. No, I know, that's because people get smaller, but it doesn't mean they weren't fat in their 80s and 70s, it's just eventually we all get smaller, all of us, it's just normal. We lose a lot of lean mass, actually. It's not that we're losing much fat, we're losing lean mass, and we get smaller. But anyway, that's a bit of a tangent.

My point is, yes, it's very, very understandable that Taylor is afraid that they're going to gain weight, and gain weight, and gain weight, and there is nothing I can say to reassure Taylor, to say that definitely won't happen. So it's valid, it's a valid concern. But it does stop eventually, is what I was gonna say. It does. It doesn't go on forever. Ever. It just doesn't happen. Physiology is clever like that. Biofeedback mechanisms exist for a reason, and eventually it stops.

I can't tell you where you're going to settle, but you will settle. Some people call that set point weight, I don't believe in setpoint weight per se, but there is a point where you're just kind of like, that's me, I'm here, and then you just stay there.

But I get it? I get it, Taylor, because if that happens, even if it's a few pounds more than you already, even if it's just one dress size up, it's still scary! Valid. Totally understand.

The next thing Taylor's worried about is, what if it does damage my health. Now, the last episode that I recorded was all about how there really isn't any evidence linking our weight to our health. In fact, the whole premise that being fat is bad for your health is based, the logical argument is, it's not a logical argument, it's a circular argument. The argument is, being fat is bad for your health because being fat is unhealthy.

No, sorry. The argument is lose weight for your health, because being fat is unhealthy. But how do you know that being fat is unhealthy? We don't actually know that being fat is unhealthy. There is no real evidence. It's correlation at best, and as I said in the last episode, correlation in the context of over two centuries of treating fat people like garbage. So, you know, we should use our clever brains and consider that that might actually have had an impact on our health collectively, over the last 200 years. So, yeah.

I understand that you are worried that eating what you want and or gaining weight will damage your health. Except for it won't. Well, there's no evidence to suggest that it will. And if it does, and this is the thing, if you start intuitive eating, and then a year later, you get diagnosed with diabetes, do not assume that you got diabetes from intuitive eating. That's what happened to me. And, you know, I was like, aw, crap. Now, I'd had gestational diabetes. And I had so many indicators, plus it runs in my family, that I was gonna get diabetes. It was a, there was a reason I was afraid of it.

But, of course, my type 2 diabetes diagnosis came after I had given up diets, and so I assumed that, oh well, there you go, that's my fault. But that is, again, a logical fallacy. That is a post-hoc fallacy. That is, just because one thing followed on from another does not mean that one thing caused another, right? Doesn't. Doesn't have anything to do with it.

In fact, if I could go back and spot the things that potentially caused my diabetes diagnosis, it would be the MASSIVE amount of weight loss that I experienced when I went on, like, the biggest restriction of my life actually happened about a year, year and a half before my diabetes diagnosis. Starving myself, and I really did starve myself, and I lost a ton of weight.

Actually, what was interesting is my diabetes diagnosis came at a time when I was probably most active in my life. I'd never been that active before. It was around the time of COVID, we were stuck indoors all day long, I was working my ass off, it was really, really stressful, and so actually, I was doing a lot of, I was very active, is what I wanted to say. So, it wasn't that, but, yeah, I massively starved myself. I was very, very stressed. Very, very stressed. And I just had COVID a couple of months before, and we know that COVID has definitely had some impact on type 2 diabetes diagnoses.

So that was what probably caused it, or if there was a cause. I was gonna get it, inevitably, I'm sure, but, you know, those are certainly contributing factors. But it'd be very easy to blame my weight, wouldn't it? And so I want to say to Taylor in this moment, if for example, something happens in the future, do not assume, oh, that's because I let myself. Don't assume I was wrong, everyone else was right. That's not true. That's a post-hoc fallacy. You don't have to go there.

You can reassure yourself, nope, there's no evidence to support this. There's no evidence to support that intuitive eating causes any type of medical condition.

So, the next fear that Taylor has, the next what if that Taylor's, I think is going through Taylor's mind, is one I think, that plagues all of us, which is, what if everyone else is right, and we're wrong? We're a very small group of people, right, saying this stuff. Sometimes I think about, I don't know how many GPs there are out in the world, in this country, 70-something thousand, I can't remember exactly, but I don't know of many that are saying what I'm saying. And it's really hard when you're, like, the one person that's like, no, I think it's this, and everyone's like, no, it's not, you're ridiculous, blah blah blah, and you know, call you all sorts of names. It's really hard to just stand firm in that moment. It's really hard to have faith in yourself, and your beliefs, and the thing that you, you know, you're passionate about, when everybody is telling you that you're wrong.

And oftentimes, the call comes from inside the house, it's family members, it's colleagues, it's people that you work with, it's the people who are supposed to be taking care of you, your healthcare professionals. It's the very people you're supposed to trust who are trying to sabotage you the hardest.

And sometimes it comes out of nowhere. You'll be doing okay, everything's fine, then BAM! All of a sudden, you get a message from your mother, or, you know, a text message from your doctor's office, or just, you're just, you're doing fine, and then something comes along to really throw you off kilter.

In moments like that, I have to remind myself. But there was once a time where a chap named Semmelweis was laughed, was the laughing stock of the medical profession, because he argued that doctors should wash their hands between patients. Laughing stock.

I have to remind myself that in 1949, a Nobel Prize was given to the man that invented the lobotomy to treat mental health conditions. I have to remind myself, that the WHO, the World Health Organization, did not remove homosexuality from its international classification of diseases until 1990. It was implemented by 93, but it started in 1990. So in 1989, being homosexual was considered a disease.

I have to remind myself of that. I have to remind myself that we used to use mercury, which is poisonous, to treat sexually transmitted infections. I have to remind myself that there are so many things that were just normal. That everybody agreed was the right thing to do. And then we went, oh!

We used to think, this is a recent one, we used to, we were absolutely adamant that stomach ulcers were caused by stress. And then one day, somebody discovered a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, and now, once upon a time, if we had a stomach ulcer. We had to operate on you. Now we give you two weeks of antibiotics. It's incredible, isn't it? Two weeks of antibiotics, that'll cure it.

Once upon a time, when I was in school, we were taught that the atom was the smallest particle on Earth, right? And my son's talking to me about quarks, and all these words that he uses, and he's telling me all these things. I'm like, well, I don't, I mean, we didn't, we didn't know that these things existed.

So I have to remind myself that no matter how many experts out there, no matter how many people are laughing at me and telling me that I'm ridiculous, that doesn't make them right.

For me, my beliefs are based on evidence. And I have a ton of evidence, a ton, a metric ton of evidence, to support the fact that weight loss, intentional weight loss is unsustainable. Physiologically unsustainable. That intentional weight loss does not improve your health. That intentional weight loss is actually extremely harmful. Causes all sorts of long-term problems, including weight cycling, including eating disorders. And therefore, Doctors should not be prescribing intentional weight loss. The end.

There are people out there who have done, I can't remember how many hundreds of studies there are now on intuitive eating and Health at Every Size, but there are, there are hundreds, like, I'm talking hundreds now. So the evidence exists to support these beliefs. So every time you find yourself doubting, Taylor, what if everyone else is right? I get it, I understand, you just have to think of Semmelweis. Literally laughed out of the medical profession. Humiliated. For saying, wash your hands in between patients. Because germs.

I think there's also another what-if, when we as fat people, choose to engage in intuitive eating or to ditch the diet, or all these things that are trending on Instagram. It's not the same when you're fat and when you're thin, because when you're thin and you give up on dieting, you might perhaps get a little bit chubbier, but you'll still be thin. You'll still have the privilege of being thin, but when you're fat, what you're saying is you'll never get to be thin.

And you spent your whole life believing that if you could just be thin, if you could just lose enough weight, if you can just get your BMI under that particular mark, whatever it is, if you could just shed those pounds, then everything would be better. People would treat you better. You'd finally get that promotion. You'd be able to get on a plane and visit your family, all the things, and these are, these are valid, these are true, you would be, like, it's impossible to fly in a plane over a certain size. It's really difficult to sit in a seat, to go out to a restaurant, to buy clothes. Studies show, far less likely to get a job, keep the job, get a promotion, get paid as much as your thinner colleagues, like, these are completely valid beliefs. These are founded in reality, right?

So when you agree to, when you say to yourself, I am releasing you from diet culture, you no longer have to diet ever again, what you're saying is, I'm giving up on the thin ideal. Even though the thin ideal doesn't exist, because weight loss is not sustainable, the end. You're still giving up. And that is hard. That is grief, actually. That is terrifying.

There were, like, you know, questions like, will I be able to access medical treatment? And the reality in some cases is no, you will not. There will be BMI cut-offs. These are not fair, these are not right, they are not correct, but they exist. Will I be able to get on a plane? Will I be able to do this? Will I be able to find clothes in my size? You will have all of these legitimate questions.

And they are really, really, really hard to grapple with. Because this is a catch-22. This is the very definition of catch-22, right? Weight loss is unsustainable. But at the same time, unless we lose weight, we don't get to enjoy some of the privileges that thin people have automatically, without doing anything. Just, they get them. We're having to fight for them. And if we stop fighting for them, that's it, over. We'll never get them. Unless society changes and this is 2025, what are the chances that will happen?

So, yeah, Taylor, I hear you. I really do, and one of the things I will say to you, and I will say to anyone that follows me, is that if you are thinking about giving up diets. If you are interested in learning about intuitive eating and health at every size, I don't tend to use these words very often, because I have there are some problems, I think, issues with some of these things, and so, you know, I don't necessarily identify as, you know, an intuitive eating expert or a health at every size aligned doctor.

But I am somebody who absolutely has ditched diets and believes that everybody, I don't believe in prescribing diets, so that's really important. I'm a weight-inclusive doctor. But if that is something that you are thinking about, or are currently involved in, my advice to you is to not necessarily rely on thin people to help you through this.

Again, sorry, thin people. Thin allies, I love you very much, I'm very grateful for you, but you are not, you are not up to the job. You're not, you don't have what it takes to support fat people through these very difficult what ifs. Because it's not affecting you. It's not impacting you, you don't have to deal with this crap. You can say, intuitive eating, yes, and okay, I'm never gonna be thin, because everybody wants to be thinner than they are, like, that's the thing. Almost everybody wants to be thinner than they actually are. And so you're gonna have to deal with that, I'm not saying you don't, but you don't have to deal with weight stigma the way that fat people do, and so, I'm not sure that you are the right person for the job.

There are some great content creators out there, dietitians, nutritionists, physical therapists, body image kind of experts. Just in general, sometimes just, sometimes you don't need the quote-unquote experts, you just need the people who are going through it with you, who are going through the same thing as you. They are great, but pick the fat ones. Ideally, not just the fat ones, but, like, the fat Black content creators, the fat Black women and the fat trans people, and the reason is because they're already experiencing oppression on multiple levels. The fat disabled content creators, business owners, supporters, advocates, etc. They're experiencing oppression on multiple levels, and therefore, I think, are probably the most experienced. Pick the really fat ones, because they really get it, right?

And that's not how the world works. Unfortunately, thin people, you know, thanks to the way that society works, then privilege equals more exposure, more, you know, people see you more, they see you in their algorithm, in their For You page, etc, etc. But I would recommend that you hunt them down.

And I'm gonna put my, I'm gonna toss my hat in the ring. Like, if you're somebody who is like Taylor, thinking about ditching diets, then I'm someone that can help you with that. I know about this stuff. I even know about the health stuff. I'm quite lucky, I have a wealth of knowledge about health conditions, so if you're kind of like, what about my health? I'm totally here for that. I think I'm, yeah, I'm really, and I'm just kind of thinking about it at the moment. I'm conscious of the fact that we're now, what, we're in mid-October, and so in about 6 weeks or whatever, it'll be, holiday season will be upon us. So it'll be a time of indulging, and also a time of family time, office parties, you know, the time, the pressure is on. A lot of comments heading our way, and then after that, it's New Year's, New You.

New year, new you, bullshit, start diet, everyone starts diets, and so, I'm, like, thinking about that, and I'm thinking, what can I do? Who wants to go on that journey with me? Who is, who would like to work with me on ditching diets for good, and being supported through that process.

So that's what I'm thinking about right now, in the context of holiday season. So you'll probably see more and more about that. But if that's you, if you're like, oh, Asher, I'd really like to work with you in some capacity, send me a message! I would love to hear from you. I love talking to people. So yeah.

I'm taking 2 weeks off now, not because I need to take 2 weeks off, but because I said that I would do 3 podcasts a month. And that normally means I have one week off, but it's October, and there are five Wednesdays in October. So, I'm taking two weeks off, I'll be back in the first week of November, and in the meantime, you can find me at fatdoctor.co.uk, you can find me at noweigh.org. Way is spelled W-E-I-G-H. You can find me on Instagram.

I'm still plugging away, even though it makes me miserable. And you can email me anytime, and I'd love to hear from you. So, take care of yourselves, look after yourselves, hopefully the world will still exist at the beginning of November, and I'll catch up with you then. Bye-bye.