Episode 8: Why Does Body Image Feel Worse Than Ever? Social Media, Comparison & Self-Worth

In this episode of Too Sober For This, recovery advocate Shell Righini and comedian Iain Anderson discuss…

What does it actually mean to feel “good” in your body… and why is it still so hard?

From 90s diet culture to Instagram “looksmaxxing,” body image has evolved… but the pressure hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, it’s louder, more constant, and now coming from every direction.

Shell and Iain explore what it’s like navigating body image in sobriety; when you can’t numb out, distract, or escape the way you used to. They talk about growing up around dieting, disordered eating, and unrealistic standards, and how those patterns don’t just disappear when you get sober.

They also get into the newer wave of body pressure online, from men literally trying to “fix” their faces with hammers to the rise of optimisation culture, and ask whether any of it is actually about confidence… or just another form of self-rejection.  Because the truth is you can change your habits, your lifestyle, even your entire life... and still wake up feeling uncomfortable in your own skin.

In this episode:

• Body image in recovery: what changes… and what doesn’t
• Growing up in 90s/2000s diet culture and its long-term impact
• Disordered eating, control, and addiction crossover
• Looksmaxxing, social media, and modern beauty standards
• Masculinity, appearance, and pressure on men
• Fitness, health, and finding a middle ground
• Chronic illness, identity, and feeling disconnected from your body
• The “inner critic” and why it’s so hard to switch off
• Self-worth, comparison, and learning to exist without constant judgement

If you’ve ever felt like your relationship with your body is complicated, exhausting, or constantly shifting then this episode will probably hit.

Expect honesty, uncomfortable self-awareness, dark humour, and a conversation that doesn’t pretend to have a neat answer.

Connect With Us

@toosoberforthispodcast

Shell Righini - @shell_righini  Iain Anderson - @iainanderson.comedy

Traumedy Show - https://iainandersoncomedy.com/

Listen to Shell’s podcast We Recover Loudly here on Spotify  

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to this week's new episode of Too Sober for This with your favourite host, Charles Raghini, and my assistant minion.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Ian Anderson.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Ian Anderson. He's like, Well, that can't be me, because I ain't no one's minion. My side piece.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Ian Anderson.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Honestly, by the time we get to season three, we will have nailed the timing on that. But uh nice to see you. Um it feels like it's been forever because we didn't record last week.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

We just had a we chat.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

We had uh I love this phrase, a wee blaather.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

A wee blather, yeah. I love a wee blather.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

It was a wee blither. Um yeah, but it was um I think it was it's nice sometimes to just have a little pause, and I very much enjoyed not having to spend an entire Sunday editing for once, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Does that mean you could go to church on Sunday?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Um, a church of sorts. What did I do on Sunday? Well, I had friends around on Saturday. It was amazing. Um and Sunday, what did I do? I cleaned the house because I'm a sober wanker and that's what I do on Sunday morning. And what else did I do Sunday? I remember just having a really nice day. I think, oh, I took Milo out for a coffee, my dog. Um, and we sat in the sunshine for a little bit. I think it was quite sunny. I think the fact that I can barely remember what I did on Sunday is normally quite a good sign because it means it was just a really lovely, relaxing, chill out day. Where but we we haven't done our um what has now become weekly moment of uh I we feel I feel we need a theme tune for this section of the podcast. Where in the world? Where in the world? Where in the world is Ian Anderson?

SPEAKER_03 1:45

I'm home in Barcelona.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Oh well that's boring.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Yeah, it's pretty boring, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty boring. I'm here until the 7th of the month. So we're now recording the 1st of May. And so I'm off to Madrid, then Dublin, then I'm home, and then I go to Brighton, and then I'm home, and then I go to Malaga, and then I go to Derby, and then Droit, which spa It's a ridiculous amount of places that you're cramming into such a small tie in the US.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

That's so stupid.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Um, just to confirm who created this schedule for you?

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Me. But I if you if somebody said come over here and earn money, you'd get on the plane. I don't think I I don't think I'm doing anything good for the environment. I just want to get ahead of that. Like every time I step on a Ryanair fight, uh shameless plug. Uh every time I step on a Ryanair fight, I feel like I want to tag Greta Thunberg or whatever her name is, just to let her know. Just to let her know she lost.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

I love that you've just tagged Ryanair for the 58th time. Yeah. There is no first class Ryanair.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

There's just extra leg room, and someone who said, I said, extra leg room, um, emergency exit, IO seat. So I'm the last person that needs to operate the door as well. So I've really gone. If Ryanair had a business class, I've discovered it.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Oh my god. Don't tell them that because that seat will suddenly become £300 to get to the dog.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

I know.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Oh, well, that's not it. But it's nice to spend some time at home. That's another reason that we had a little break last week. Um, so that you could reconnect with your pups and of course your wonderful fiancee. He's amazing. He is amazing. He is in the doghouse literally at the moment, but that's what we call that's what we call the gym.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

But we went to see The Devil Wears Prada last night as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

He is a little obsessed at the minute.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Opening night, we went a big crew of my friends uh that I'd not I said, Well, I haven't seen my friends in ages. Let's go and sit in the dark and not talk to each other. It was nice.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Oh heaven.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

It was lovely.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Um So hang on, he he's seen now the live action, otherwise known as the musical.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

The musical.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

He's seen the original, now he's seen the sequel.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

What what how what did he think?

SPEAKER_03 4:08

He loved it. I I had some notes.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Uh which you will be sending to who?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Uh Anne Hathaway. Uh there's a so I don't want to ruin it, but she ends up working for the magazine again and writes this amazing article, right? And the article, she's not doing well, as always, and then she suddenly does well. One article gets really big, and suddenly she buys a luxury apartment in New York. And I'm like, bitch, you haven't even passed probation. Like, your job's at risk, you're on a temporary contract, it's probably zero hours, and now you're buying a luxury apartment and come on, Anne!

SPEAKER_00 4:48

But it's it's things like that, Rich. I blame for my own mentality in that I decided three days ago that I'm writing a TV script um for a comedy series, and um I asked if he wanted to contribute, and you said no. Um so that's on record. Um, so just um when it yeah, washing my hair. Um that when it does go absolutely just phenomenally successful, the one person that shan't be getting thanked is Aian. But yeah, but the thing that I immediately did, right, is lie in bed, not being able to get to sleep because I was writing my acceptance speech for the BAFTAs. Yeah. And and I think films like that do just make you kind of forget that there is that middle bit where you have to do the thing.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Do the hard work. The reason just to say, the reason why I checked out of this BAFTA nominated uh Imaginary series is is because I know how hard it is to get a show to work, yeah, and I don't put my name to things I can't commit to, and I genuinely do not have time to write my own new show at the moment. Like my my for my stand for stand-up, like I can't find time to write like because I'm so busy performing what I'm doing. So, like I I would say to anyone about that middle bit, because I have been a master manifestor, I've invented colleagues in my life, because we all know Carol. Um so I'm a great character writer, but the the thing you obsess over will become successful and it should be one thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Um hard when you've got ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah, if you obsess over 90, if you obsess over 19 things, you'll have 19 kind of simmering projects. But if you can focus yourself like me, like what I've done with Tromedy, it will be successful.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Um look, Ian, this is not like the cross stitch. I will focus.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Um and it's not Are you the woman that redid the Bayou tapestry? Is that you?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah, exactly. See, so I can commit. Um and look, this might sound a little bit um out of nowhere for someone who has only known me for 12 months, i.e. you, but I did used to write. And do you know what? It's um mental health awareness month starts this month. Just like the gays we now get a month, which is great. Yeah, do you know what? Finally, you know, a little bit of visibility.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

I think the gays, I think the gays should have less.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I'm waiting to see whether Absolute Vodka is going to be doing anything when changing their label for mental health awareness. Like if the gays have got a rainbow, whatever what's absolute vodka doing for the mental health? Just like black clouds all over it.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

No, it's just a completely empty bottle.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

But I mean, literally the thing um that was the best part thing for my mental health, hands down, no no take back fees has been stopping drinking and taking drugs. And to complete my comment is I used to write and I used to be a creative. And that whole experience and period of my life, which not just the drinking, but also the working, when I was working, you know, work with my first addiction, the hospitality industry, I had nothing left in the tank to even complete a sentence or to make a sandwich, never mind write something. So for me, coming into recovery, one of the greatest things is getting my is getting my brain back. But like you say, it is a muscle that needs to be flexed and it's taking time. And I don't know whether you have this, and I don't know whether, and we're probably gonna talk about this a little bit actually in the topic, but I almost have a weird aversion or barrier to doing things that I know that I love and enjoy, and it's almost like a self-sabotage thing, wherein when I don't feel good enough about myself, I'm like, well, I'm not gonna sit and write because I don't deserve it. Does that make sense? Yeah, and so I think it's taken me quite a long time to even be able to sit and allow that part of my brain to be active.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Well, being successful is a self-worth thing as well. You have to believe, like, it's very hard. Yeah, I come from the west of Scotland, like to say that you're good at something is kind of frowned upon. And I'm like, well, why would I say I was bad at it? Who's gonna come and see a shit show? Like, why would I say that about myself? I think my show is amazing, which is why I perform it. Do you know what I mean? I don't roll my eyes and go, oh my god, this show again. Like, I love doing it, and um and people love coming to see it. The Scottish in me is like, well, I find marketing really hard, like saying I'm brilliant and stuff, but like, why am I doing this if I think I'm not good at it? Right? So there is something, it's like you were your podcast, we recover loudly with your brand. There is something in you that knows it's capable, and there's just this it's so hard to turn around and be like, actually, I'm really good at this. But the way I think about being a creative now that I am one, because you know, I was when I was younger, lost that, played piano and everything, I was very musical. I imagine every time I open my mouth to a customer or a client or whatever, like I'm at a job interview, and I wouldn't go to a job interview and say, don't hire me.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, and and it's interesting actually because that whole mentality, and again, we are going to talk about this. This episode, we're talking about body image in 2026 and uh how we all feel about our bodies now. And the the thing for me is a judgment tone and a judgment, there's a there's a nasty judge in my head, which is about everything about my body but everything else. But when you were very positive about your show and you always say, No, but I'm great, the the the little head, I don't know if it's the judge, I don't know if it's the Britishness, is waiting for me, or it's waiting, sorry, for you to almost be like, Oh, I'm joking, I think I'm shit really. And I and it's been commented um pre frequently by family members. I think you've probably mentioned it, definitely my friends have, uh, how that I will always be very negative when I talk about myself, or always add a joke, I'll always add an aside, I'll always be, or there's always a reason, you know, even now. You know, I can write a series, Ian. I used to write, I have a pen and a piece of paper, you know, like I can't just own it and be like, fuck you, Ian. I will write this, not like because you you genuinely are one of the most supported people in my entire life, by the way, listeners.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

I I want to be I want to be in the series, I just don't want to do any of the more.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Well, there is look, I I can't give away too much, but as you can imagine, this series, I've been wanting to write something forever and just trying to figure out what it actually is and looks like has not quite made sense. But this is the first time I feel like things are making more sense. And there are two characters, one which is based on myself and one which is loosely based on every gay man I've ever encountered within the rooms and and out. So yeah, there will definitely be elements of you. And all of yesterday, I don't know any of my ADHD listeners, holla, who have this, but when I get an accent in my head, I spend the entire day with my internal monologue in that accent. So all yesterday I was Scottish. My whole day, gosh, we have a cup of tea. Listen how bad my Scottish is.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

You must have drank so much tea.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

And it's just like so, and then this morning, so I've started to re-watch Fleabag for inspiration. So this morning I've just been terribly posh. Oh, well, I'm probably I'm probably gonna have a have a bit of toast, a bit of saucy toast. And I've just been like really saucy toast.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Saucy toast What are your posh references?

SPEAKER_01 12:11

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

You know, the aristocracy, Queen Elizabeth used to love a piece of saucy toast in the morning. Oh, Lizzie.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Do you know what? Well, anyone who is listening versus watching this right now, who no one's watching it because I still haven't put it on YouTube, will know what I mean. Because look at the posh toast I've got for you.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that's and she's wearing quite the jacket.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

I know, it's got stars on it. I'm going to a sober disco at seven o'clock, so obviously I'm already ready because I've got ADHD. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. I'm gonna be sat by the fucking front door now until 7 p.m. going, can we leave here?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Waiting on your Uber.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah, I'm literally, I'm good to go. Um, but yeah, no, I've got this is one of my this is my sober wanker win of the week, in fact. I made a green goddess dip. Yeah, it's on my fucking toast. You can spread it even.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Amazing. Amazing. I want saucy toast, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, so this is saucy toast. Now my brain's telling me that actually I should forget all of this and start a side business called Saucy Toast.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Yeah, I'd buy it, sign me up as a customer. Look, don't underestimate. This is a woman that uh very early in sobriety decided to start a podcast and um our own merch line. If anybody can do it, you're all going to be wearing saucy toast t-shirts. Cheesy beans for cheesy bean life, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Cheesy bean life. Yeah, but no, and and one of the reasons I am outing myself on this podcast is for that really important thing, is that accountability and uh being able to be obsessed and uh it's anybody who uh who follows me has would have learned the tragic news that I am being evicted from my beautiful home. And it's really difficult because it's the only thing I've been able to think about for two weeks. And I know I'm literally talking to an actual person who's been homeless, but I feel very homeless right now, even though I'm sat in my flat.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

I totally get it. Like, so I when I got my first flat, like on my own in recovery, I was like two years sober, coming up for two years sober. I moved in and didn't unpack my bags for three months. Yeah, and really like well, like lack of security and like around anything, money, relationships, shelter really imprints on you, you know. It was a really massive deal for me to willingly give up my independence in my flat to chase comedy. Like it was huge, you know? And that was my choice. So to have that taken away from you, and also just it feels very like just really out of the blue when you're feeling really settled. But that's the thing. In recovery, we learn to navigate life, you know, well, like it is sad, but we get through it.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

It is, and by the way, anyone listening who's also going through this, it's the first of May today. So the renters bill um is now in action, and the the ramification of that has been that there's been a huge increase of evictions, like I'm not the only one. But when the email dropped, I actually was completely naive even to what this bill was. You know, I um don't um don't counsel me, but I don't really watch the news and stuff like that because it's just yeah, it's just depressing. I don't I know everything I need to know. And so not only was it out of the blue, like it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And it's probably the and again, I don't I think I'm very, very, very I know I'm very lucky in sobriety. I haven't had to deal with a lot of big bad things, and I share about this a lot when people go, Oh Shell, your sobriety is so strong, you're so solid. And I'm like, Yeah, but do you know what? I've not got a partner, so I've never had to deal with like a breakup or anything like that. Yeah, I did choose to change jobs, so that was more of a choice than a loss. I chose to become freelance. Um, I have a very small world compared to what I had sometimes too tiny, um, but I have a very small world because of having fibromyalgia. So I've not really had, I've not had any loss, you know, I've not had these big things. So that happening, that email, like my whole body went cold. I I started to, I thought I was gonna be sick, like I was retching, like it was such a physical reaction, and I was just absolutely devastated. And there was about three minutes where I thought a drink would be good.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Because I just didn't want to feel like that. But the most incredible, as always, one of the things recovery teaches us is gratitude and is reflective moments, time to process and go, okay, what out of that am I proud of? And you know, all that. And I'm so proud of like within about three minutes, I picked up my phone, it was quarter to eight in the morning, and I called my sister. And she obviously answered because I don't call her like at that time, and anyway, we're texted. And the fact that our relationship is so not only mended but flourished in such a way in recovery that she could be, right? What do you need from me? How can I help you? You know, she called the estate agent and was like, you need to tell me what the hell's going on because I was too upset to speak. And so that for me was just what a win to know that when something like that happens four years ago, five years ago, I wouldn't have any anyone to call.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Not a single person. I literally wouldn't have. Even my family would have probably been like, oh god, great, what's she done now?

SPEAKER_03 17:16

And also you would have probably deserved to be evicted.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Well, that's the other thing that I'm finding so difficult. And again, I'm sure people can relate to this and you as well, is when bad things happen in recovery that you feel at fault for.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Feels unjust.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

It does, because I'm like, I fucking grow tomatoes, bitch.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah, I felt like that the first time I got the flu. I was like, what's the point of being sober?

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, I'm sober, I don't get coke.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

What's the point of getting the yeah? And do you know? I think it's important to say that you thought about a drink, and that's the the grace of recovery, which is no one ever said you would never think about it again. Is it an obsession? No, but I thought it's not the same as doing it, and that's what I've always been so grateful for. I mean, I when I was five years sober, I had suicidal thoughts sober. Like, yeah, obviously I didn't quite kill myself, but I got through it. That's the point. Like, I haven't, you know, like for me, I was always in trouble when I was drinking, and it was just another day at the office. People would have been sick of listening, they wouldn't even believe half the shit that was coming out of my mouth anyway.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

So was I being evicted or not, you know, like I think that's as well, that's that whole thing as well, about because I know that deep down, like I have been a good ten I not even deep down, I have I am a good tenant, and I've learned that if it was that I'd been a bad tenant, it would have been this section eight, but it's a section 21, it's a no-contest, which means I've not been a bad tenant that like she's she's probably gonna sell the place. Who knows? Literally, legally, I literally will not be allowed, we'll not find out. Um, and it doesn't matter, but again, it's that whole kind of it's so destabilizing when you feel like you'd be doing everything right, and that throat. And it's interesting, the thought wasn't really an action thought, it was almost like like a slutty pole dancer in the back of my brain going like hey, hey, do you remember the old um ping?

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Do you remember the slutty chocolate bar? The fruit and nut.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Oh, I love a fruit and nut.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Everyone's a fruit and nutcase. That's why I like what a sexy chocolate bar. Oh everyone's a fruit and nut case.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

I mean, this is the this is cue to start talking about this week's um this week's topic, which is body lineage and looks matching. Um, but I will actually say in the last bit about this eviction that night, the one thing that I was planning on doing was eating a giant bar of chocolate. And actually, I didn't even do that because I am such a sober wanker that I reflected on the fact that even that would not make me feel great. And I think I had a fucking salad.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

What a pleck.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

What a prick!

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Call yourself an addict.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

If only I'd had that saucy toast. Um, but yeah, wanted to talk about body image before. Um, and then in the last couple of weeks, there's been this whole looks maxing narrative that's all over Instagram. And uh so yeah, when I say I don't watch the news, I watch Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

I watch Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Um, but before we talk about that, I mean what was it like being a we Ian? I really need to stop trying to be Scottish.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

We are we Ian. Are we Ian? Do you know what? Like, we I mean I live in Spain now where everybody's just gorgeous and goes to the gym and has amazing bodies, and it's quite off-putting because I grew up in, you know, when I grew up in Scotland, when we used to gays did not go to the gym when we were younger, but also like we we like our generation, me and my friend, best friend Fabio were talking about it. You go out dancing all night and you go to a place called the Gay Chippy, and we get chips, cheese, tuna, coleslaw. Tuna! Yeah, uh, tuna mayonnaise on chips, and I'd absolutely inhale it. I was so slinky when I was younger, I was so skinny. But we didn't snap, we didn't like people were kind of obsessed with like food and muffins and cakes and donor. We never did all that back then. It was like we also we never had the money we drank. So we weren't a generation of gym gays. That was probably a London thing, but you maybe saw one or two people with like an amazing body, and you kind of found a bit a bit kind of like, oh god, they're so into themselves. Like we were all just a bit kid, we were all having a good time, but also this was before social media. Like, we didn't compare ourselves to each other, and we also didn't think that was something normal people did. Now, with social media, I have to be honest with you, I never had social media until I started doing comedy. And so I've only had Instagram less than three years. And if I spend long enough on there, I'm pretty good actually, I'm pretty measured. But if I spend long enough on there, I don't feel bad about myself, but I could understand how I can feel bad. Because what it does is it feeds this idea that there's shortcuts, but also I'm in recovery, I'm nearly 42, so you know I gained a bit of weight during. COVID and I decided I wanted to do something about it because I wasn't happy about how I felt. I actually think I looked amazing, and I kept having really hot young Colombian boyfriends, so confirmed. Uh and so I was like, I wanted to lose weight for my health, and so I started I started to see him personal trainer, and I work out regularly now because I love to eat. Leo's going through a bit of a kind of cut at the gym at the moment because he we put on some weight on holidays, and that's his thing. But we're a we are the gays that like to go to restaurants, which is why we work out. We're not kind of posing for anyone. And when I've been like looking into like the looks maxim thing, and you hear a lot of guys saying that they're really confident in themselves. I just don't know if that's true because I remember having to be the smartest or having to be have the nice things or the money or the anything external from yourself. Like, surely you want to be something more than hot. And I think hot's a good start, but I've I've known some people in Barcelona who spent all their time at the gym to look a certain way for a particular time of year in the summer at this festival here, and they don't like themselves very much. Like they're like they no one expects them to have a conversation either. And I think that's very sad. So I feel like I'm somewhere in that kind of we're in that kind of weird middle-age gap where people older than us literally don't give a fuck, and people younger than us have never known anything else. Our generation were magazines.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Magazines were a big thing. I mean, when you when you were a child, did you have a struggle with weight?

SPEAKER_03 23:39

I mean, I was a I was a skinny kid, but we didn't talk about weight when I was younger. But also, people didn't have weight problems the way they do now. You never saw overweight children in the 80s and 90s. You didn't you just didn't see it because we didn't get fed chocolate biscuits all day and we would go out at eight in the morning and come back at the when the streetlights came on. We didn't have computer games like I'm sounding really old.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

We did have computer games, we're not that fucking old.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Yeah, but we wouldn't sit, you wouldn't spend 12 hours in front of us. You didn't want to sit and play the Sega Mega Drive for 12 hours.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Also, because it'd only be like two Two games?

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Two games. I had one friend, his name was Thomas Turner, and he used to we go to his house and he'd make us all sit on his bed and watch him play computer games. Last time I checked, he had no friends.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

So like we didn't want to sit in. The weather was nice, it was like the three days of summer in Scotland, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, that's so true. I mean, I think for for girls, it's obviously always different, and it's ironic that now they're trying to say that it's oh poor guys, it's like it is for women. It's like it really isn't. No, it's not. Um, but you know, when I was 10, 11, so the last year of high school, of primary school, myself and quite a few of my other girl mates, we all had gross spurts at the same time, and it was quite strange because we all suddenly became tall and developing boobs and things. But because it was all of us, it didn't ever kind of feel like, oh, hang on, that feels a bit weird. Strangely enough, none of us have grown since, so we're all still like five foot three, five foot four. But we were like towered at that year.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Massive knockers, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Literally, it was so bizarre. There's something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Like, like um, like the what do you think of the bounty hunter?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Oh rest in peace, Beth.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

She was a she was a legend.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Oh, she really was, and um, but I could we I I danced and I wanted to be a dancer, and it was awful, an awful time. Me and my very good friend, who's still a friend, but at the time we were like huskies. Um, everyone used to call us twins, which to this day I thought I definitely could I did better out of it than she's like, really? Just because we were both blonde. Um and we danced to this dance company, Harlequin, I will name them because they are one of they're renowned for their toxicity. I don't know if they still are. And uh, Miss Paula, she wouldn't ever let us dance at the front. We had to dance at the back because we were too big. She wouldn't let us do our exams because we were fat. Like, you know, there was so much open fat shaming. And by fat I mean we were developed. It wasn't even sugarcoated, you know, there was none of the way that now I I love watching, um, I still love dancing. I love when on my Instagram pops up, you know, kids and younger people who are all shapes and sizes just like doing their thing. And I'm like, I would have been imagine being embraced at that age for who I was and my spirit and what I wanted. But in fairness to Miss Paula, it's that was coming from all sides. That was everywhere. You know, my mum is a person who is a uh lean cuisine. Can you remember lean cuisine?

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

She was a lean cuisine eater in the 80s, you know. Like, and I can remember thinking that was like special grown-up food. Um, you know, I remember from such a young age, like six, seven, watching my mother and others, women, queue up in a village hall to be weighed. And if you think about how macabre that actually is, you know, to be weighed and then judged publicly and then demeaned for oh Susan, she's put on a pound. Yeah. Well, what have you done, Susan? And and just that whole interaction between what you look like and its value.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

And rather than how you feel.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

100%. And even when you just said the words weight problem, you know, it's like even that that joining of words, weight problem, you know, weight being a problem, it's such a it's a very normal, it's a very um used phrase, weight problem. You know, my mum would say, as a family, we have a weight problem. And again, you know, we we didn't at the time have a weight problem. We've developed real issues with weight because of the way we grew up and because of how it was in society. And having a mother that was on a diet 24-7 has a hundred percent affected my my ability to enjoy myself, my body, my food. And I'm trying I'm not trying to isolate our one listener by calling her out because it's not her fault. That was the way that she was brought up, yeah. That is the way that society piled on her. And trust, she was not the only one of her friends that was exactly the same, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

That was You're all having a right vita.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

A hundred percent, you know, and weighing at that. And you know, I I I went to Weight Watchers from the age of 15 and I didn't you lose any weight at all. And the reason I didn't lose any weight is because I didn't have any weight to lose. And I can remember the instructor being like, Oh, maybe you should eat more this week. Okay, try eating less this week. And it's like, bitch, it's because I was the right weight for my height. I was exactly where I needed to be. If you're not losing weight, people, it's probably because you're about right and you're within the right parameters. And you know, I would do stuff like with Weight Watchers. Mum and I would do the same, you get the points. So I don't think they do the points anymore. And we would starve ourselves all day, wouldn't eat for an entire day, get weighed, and then we get a fish and chips on the way home, which was like 21 points, so it's a day's points, you know. And it's like that's an eating disorder that we were fucking paying for.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Yeah, that's like my friend. He stops drinking and goes vegan before he has blood tests at the doctor, and then when they moved to blood test, he was annoyed. And I was like, they can't diagnose you if you're faking your results, you know what I mean? And that's the thing. It's like an attitude, like my attitude to weight loss was like just take speed for three days, you know. But and I like I never would I never start to put weight on until I stopped doing drugs, obviously, and run around like a maniac. But I think one of the well, I I don't want to talk about people's bodies, I don't want to shame other people's bodies. What I think is we are seeing people changing their bodies for the for better or worse, right? And moving the goalposts of health standards to feel included. So I do think the body positivity is a good thing, though I did see on TikTok people making themselves fatter on purpose to be part of something. That for me is like a food addiction, which is no different from a drug addiction to be part of something or body modification to be part of something. Like I was a goth before I was a drug addict, right? So it's like I've done things to myself, I've changed my hair colour to be part of something. And if drugs can be an addiction, food can be an addiction. And I do think we have lots of people not drinking as much as they used to and eating more than they ever have. And my thing is, I knew I started to have a food problem in recovery because I was sitting in front of the TV. You know those fresh pastas that you get, and it says it feeds two people? Fuck off. So I made one of those and I had chicken and everything on top of it, and I was so full. And I remember thinking, How am I gonna get the ice cream in? Yeah, and I and I heard it, it was like a loud voice. It was Joan Rivers, and I went, Oh my god, Ian, you're not even hungry. You're using, and I think that's the thing, it's like I think anybody can do what they want with themselves, and it's the same with me with my career or anything I'm doing. I asked myself, Ian, are you doing this from a place of self-love or self-loathing? Because I have at times wanted to do stuff just for the optics of it on my poster, or the way it would look good, or I'm trying to get this one showrunner to love me uh and he won't book me. Meanwhile, I'm selling out on my tour, like, focus on what's going well. Like, I still do it, and like that's the that's the barometer for me is like, where is it coming from? And when I've watched a lot of the stuff going on with this, these documentaries with these looks maxers people, they don't seem to have a very good opinion of themselves. No. At all.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

No, they don't. And it's it's interesting because I also started taking drugs specifically for weight loss. Like that was my goal. And you know, like I can remember when I was working in my one of my first jobs at uni. There were these um chefs taking something called stack, and it's caffeine, effrogen, and aspirin. And it's so it speeds, yeah, so it speeds up your um heart, then it also raises your body temperature. And they were taking it to help them work the long shifts as well as lose weights, and you would buy it off Amazon. And so it's basically a diet pill. And starting with that, and you know, loving the fact that when we did cocaine, like you we can't eat, you know, and and it was really difficult because if I look at my 20s, and and I was as I've shared, you know, obsessed with Courtney Love. That was my for me the look that I was going for. And in my 20s, mid-20s, when I was in London, and I was the smallest I'd ever been, and yet I never felt more loved, you know? And I think that was really difficult. Now I look back on it, it makes it really hard because I would have people congratulating me. Oh, you've lost the weight. Oh, look, and by the way, the weight was like, you know, a couple of stone. I've never until now being with fibromyalgia, which is a whole nother episode, um, my body's changed a lot. But you know, I've never been a big, big person. I've always been a kind of size 12 to size 16 to 18. So, you know, kind of that mid-range average. So, like I say, when I'd lost the weight, it wasn't like I'd gone from like a very large person to a smaller person, but I was small for me. And it's hard because there was a lot of positive affirm, you know, positivity for that from my family, from, you know, from these external things. And I have a very dear friend who's been friends with, we've been friends since we were 16, and she said, shared with me, um, she used to hate it when I was really thin because and she used to hate it when people would tell me that I looked good, because she knew that when I was very thin, I was at my most unhappy. And I thought that was really powerful that she recognised that and knew how how hard everything was for me. It's so difficult to, and and I know so many people relate to that because I've shared about it, especially in the rooms. You know, we grew up with Kate Moss and I think men as well, you know, that whole kind of indie boy period where men were wearing skinny jeans and also had to have that waif-like texture to them. Um the only way to achieve that was through being incredibly awful to your bodies, and then you get praised. Now I eat and I supplement, I take supplements and I eat like I eat like the most healthy I've ever eaten in my life. I'm I'm getting better at eating three meals. It's I've really struggled to do three meals because when I worked in hospitality, I used to eat once a day. It's that. And so this whole like meal thing's been a bit weird. And yet, visually, I don't think I'd ever look worse. It's hard to put those two things together. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Yeah, but I think like I'm a big believer in you have to love your body where it's at. Like, I've I put on a bit of weight and recovery, and I was getting really annoyed at myself, and then I was like, Ian, you've abused your body so much in your life. You've been starving in the streets, then you've been eating too much, you've drank, you've drugged, you've not eaten for days, like you've done all kinds of shit. Like, until you are grateful for the fact that your body's alive and running, right? In spite of all your best attempts to kibosh it, like that was when it really started to change for me, which was like instead of this changing for others, like wanting to change for me, especially as I got closer to my 40s. There was something in me that was like, I'd want to have a really nice life in my 80s. Like there's a lady I I know here in Barcelona, she's gonna be 90 in July, and she and I were going to the same personal trainer. She recommended a pressure. Yeah, I was working out like a few years ago, this guy, Alberto, and she's like, Yeah, she says she got sober, then in her 40s, she took herself seriously because she says it wasn't about looking good in my 40s, it was about being able to carry my own shopping bags in my 70s. Yeah, and I think that's been the switch for me. It's like I I don't need to look gorgeous for anyone or anything. That's an empty, variable that will always let you down, right? But your relationship with your body, the most incredible. Marissa Pierre always calls it the most incredible piece of equipment you'll ever possess. You have to respect it, right? And I think that's what it is. Like, I'm so grateful that even when I've been a bit fatter, I'm so grateful that it I get two legs at work, I can take the stairs when I need to. Like, there's so what a fucking miracle. Do you know what I mean? That it that it works. And until I got to that place with myself and really like my off-centre nose, you know, I talk about it in the show. My off-center nose.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Never noticed it until now, and now it's all I can see.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

I see. It's all people talk about in the show. But like, you know, and like I've got this vein that pops out here. There's all these things about me that like, like, I know if I'd had enough money to start changing that stuff when I was younger, because plastic surgery wasn't as accessible as it is now, right? You couldn't get it on group on. Um but like I if I had the money to do it back then, I would have been this mess of a creature who Bill Burr, the comedian, whether you love him or hate him, says you fix one thing and it's like putting a shiny new bumper on a clapped-out car, and you'd never know when it I would have gone full Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, my mum is now on a fitness program and all sorts, and she's, I think, probably for the last year or so, um, has been working out with a couple of different trainers. She's lost loads of weight, and and her specific goal, she says, is exactly like your friend you've just shared. She wants to be able to look after herself and hold herself in her 80s and her 90s. You know, she sees her own mother can't do that, and you know, so and I think that is a really important goal, that independence, you know. I I I hate that my fibromyalgia has meant that sometimes I have to ask people for help, you know. I hate that I want to rely on myself. And my reason I have fibromyalgia is because I never used to ask for help and my body just went eventually. Um scientific way that fibromyalgia attacks. And, you know, I think that there's a I saw this clip with Drew Barrymore. She had some guy on her show, and I can't remember who he is or what he does, but he talks about um a little alien and how you know, when we're born, we're giving this little alien to look after, and our little alien is ourself, and we have to nurture that little alien and look after that little alien and you know allow it to flourish. And and you're right, the the the way that I've abused my body um, apart from in the last four and a half years, so the fact that I'm expecting miracles in such a short period of time. Um, but yeah, the that it is true, like you say. I mean, the we we have pushed our bodies to a brink of an Olympic athlete, but using, you know, the exhaustion that I put my body through. Like I used to work 20 hours on my feet, sleep for three or four with alcohol and drugs in my system, and go back and do it again and again and again. Like cortisol, never like I might like was just my whole body is was full of it, you know, like and adrenaline. Like, and that was for like 18, 19, 20 years of this of that industry. Like it's for the moment I entered hospitality, it was at a hundred miles an hour and it didn't stop, which is why I ended up with fibromyalgia. And it's such a tricky thing to come into recovery and then get a chronic condition. And there's a lot of people in recovery that have fibromyalgia because of the connection between um that and um trauma, as well as people with ME and a chronic fatigue syndrome, there's a big correlation. Weirdly enough, late-diagnosed neurodivergence, addicts, chronic conditions. There's this like boom, boom, boom, because it's all of this trauma, you know, abuse, da da da. And so I have a really tricky relationship with my body because I feel very let down by it, which is ironic as I say it, because I've done nothing in that previous period to nurture it, to celebrate it. I've all I've ever done to my body is fucking hate it. And imagining that little alien every morning and looking at it, which is what I do to my body every morning, I wake up and the first thing I do is grab my stomach. I don't know why, I always think that overnight maybe it'll have gone, like shallow how. And it's still there. And I wake up and the first thought of my morning is disappointment and disgust in my body, and I carry that with me for the entire day. And like you say, if it was that external thing that I spend a whole day just going, fuck off, you're disgusting, you're vile, you're dissed. No wonder it's got fibromyalgia. Do you know what I mean? Like, no wonder. And and again, I share these really hard things because I know I'm not the only one.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

I know that. This was the first topic we've done that I've really struggled to get people to give feedback and views on because the women in my life, even though we're older and are on a journey to maybe a better relationship, it's really hard to talk about.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

I mean, I have a friend in recovery and she is in incredibly great shape and she still has the same problem. Like for years, she kind of abused her body through exercise. Like it was never there yet. It was like, and I think that's the thing. I think like the need for perfection exists on both sides of the spectrum. You know what I mean? Like, there's people who feel really bad about their bodies, and so they get caught in a cycle where they um they eat really badly and then they say, Oh, I'm gonna treat myself to two bars of chocolate. I know when I eat two bars of chocolate, I'm not treating my body well. I'm very aware of it, right? Like you, you know, like you're saying you wanted to stuff your face and you had the salad instead. I always know that fruit and stuff is the better option. I have a sugar problem when I'm on the road and it annoys me because I'm on my way home and I just buy biscuits before I've known what to do. And I eat ice cream and I forgot I've eaten it. Like that's coming from a place of me being tired, lonely, just being really on edge. But then, like, um, I have another friend who's who was extremely orthorexic, and so like it to healthy to the point of like, and this kind of happened to me when I decided to have an overhaul a few years ago of my diet, and I decided, right, I'm gonna lose weight. My friends would invite me around for dinner, and I'll say, I'll get there after the food is served.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

I wouldn't even eat with my friends because I was terrified of what they might serve me, and I wouldn't be able to stop eating it. So that's like that was the other thing, and then I found something in the middle, right? But like I went extremely healthy to the point where it was harmful and ruined your social life. You know, like it's like when you start drinking at home alone and doing drugs alone at home, it's no longer a party. Well, it's the same for food and exercise or whatever you're doing, right? And so, like it, but I think the important thing for anybody listening is wherever you are in that journey, don't judge yourself. But the one thing that we should be striving for is you cannot move forward unless you really love where you're at. Shame and hatred for what you currently have or inherit inherited is not going to move you forward.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

But that judgment, and that's the challenge, is so loud because of of the time period I've grown up in, and a lot of us and all of us have grown up in. And it's that self-judgment voice, you know. And I was talking to my friend this morning on the beach because, oh yeah, I forgot to drop that in. Had a cold dip in the sea, obviously, because I'm a wanker. Yeah, I was wearing a dry robe. And I was wearing a dry robe and crocs. Uh not in the sea. This is after. And um, and I said so, I told her that we were recording, and and she shared that her relationship with her body has improved in age, and she's a she's an athlete, she does marathons and stuff like that. And you know, for her, she's started to do um yoga and Pilates recently, and it's really helped her kind of change her relationship with her body because she's now having to slow down and using different muscles, and she's got this very kind of positive or or accepting. And we were sh joke talking about how the pair of us, I mean, I live in an area called Boscombe, which has got a lot of um street people, and and uh we look like street people this morning, you know. And I'm I'm not 10-15 years ago, I would never have gone out like that. But it was like, you know, pair of us, no makeup, hair all over the place, wearing crocs, you know, like fucking feral as fuck.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

And you law.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

I know, right? Literally, and um shout out to my friend Marielle. I pretended I didn't have any crocs and took the piss out of her, and I know she's listening to this, she's uh she's our sixth listener. Um and when I got home I know when I got home from South Africa earlier this year, I realised I did still have a pair of crocs, and yes, I have been wearing them ever since. Um but yeah, like you know, so we're both out there, no makeup things like that, and and living life, and weirdly nobody seems to be affected, but the judgment voice, it is loud. And when I see a woman wearing shorts who is larger these days, what is my first thought? My first thought is what is she doing in those shorts? It's quickly followed by yes, you go, girl, you wear those shorts. But fuck me, it's still there. And I only started wearing shorts since the first time since I was 11 two years ago. Until then, my whole summers I wore tights and leggings. And in fairness, I was working. But yeah, it's and and when I put my cycle these cycling shorts on with you know oversized t-shirt, because I'm a hipster, and I walked out of the house two maybe three years ago. I think this was my third summer with shorts, first third short summer. I walked out the house and no one said anything.

SPEAKER_03 46:21

Yeah. No, nobody hollered. And you know the thing is, like, you st it's a very interesting point to be like talk about the period we were raised and the culture and the judgment. But the really sad thing is that we're all aware of it. Um and self-awareness without action is self-harm. Like, that's the thing. Like a m a lot of people know where their attitudes come from, they know where their beliefs come from. A belief is just a thought that you think all the time. Like you can change the your belief around like the way we did with drugs and alcohol. And it is it is the work because the thing is, and I and I think that's the thing. I think that we're in a period of not just around body image, around a lot of things where people are like, well, just accept me or you aren't, but like even that, like, I don't really believe a lot of those people really like themselves. Like, it really is an internal job. Like, see when you're getting on with it, it doesn't really matter what people think about you. Yeah, I don't think about it.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

And you're right as well, it's a patience thing and it's a time thing, and it's nothing happens as quick as my brain wants it to. And again, I know that a lot of people relate to this, you know. Um, by the way, BAFTA, I'm literally ready, I have the speech.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Um, but like um I've ordered the Uber. I know Uber exec?

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Uber exec.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

I'm already dressed, wearing this shirt. Um, and there's like, you know, like there I do think about this sometimes. There's like a part of me, so if I had two options to be the thin girl I've always dreamt of being, um, i.e. a size 12, size 10, you know, confident to walk out in my short shorts and all that, or a magic wand to stay the same as I am, but love myself and forgive myself and enjoy food without I I everything I eat, I eat with guilt. And do you know what? I would fucking take that second pill any day. Any day. I would take that freedom. That's what I want. I don't want to be thin. I do. I don't want to be thin. I want to be free. And you're right, it's that freedom that we did eventually get from drugs and alcohol, that mental obsession. Um, and this for me was my very first ever terrible relationship with food. And again, a lot of people in the rooms relate to that. It, you know, we start with food, it then goes to drugs and alcohol, and we come back and we go, oh wow, it turns out food was a big thing all the time. And it is like you say, I think it's it's gonna take, but I also don't want this to be my life's work. I don't want this to be my life's work. I don't want to get to 75 and go, I finally love myself. Like I I'm so exhausted with the hatred and the self-hatred, and yet I don't know how to turn it off. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 48:56

You just have to love yourself today. It's not a constant, like it's it's like any relationship. I you don't love your family the same every day. Sometimes they piss you off, sometimes they disappoint you. You know what I mean? Like I've been finding it very hard to be in love this morning, you know. Um and it's the same with the relationship with me. I think as well, like it's very important for people to watch the shit that comes out of their mouth. And you've predicted that you this isn't gonna be me to 75. Nobody said that was the goal, right? You're like, it doesn't have to be, right? Like it, like it can be you can just like yourself today and then pick up tomorrow and see where you're at. And I think that I see a lot of people not trying things because they're scared of how hard it's gonna be. Like, so I'd love to try comedy like you, I'd love to do something like you, I don't love. And in my last corporate job, they're like, I'd be too scared, I want it out of here, I hate it. We'll leave. Well then how am I gonna pay my bills? Well then shut up. Like there is a like do you get what I mean? Like, there is this thing where I saw this Tina Turner quote. I'll send it to you. I saw it yesterday. I love her. There's this interview where she goes, I find myself attractive. You can't threaten me because I know I'm talented. And I was like, that was me and every one of my one-to-ones with my boss in my last job. I was like, he gave me it like he gave he gave me 5% of my end-of-year review, and I says, I'm the best thing to happen to this place, I'm out of here. And I like, but she says this Tina Turner quote, she says, You always have a choice, even when you think that you don't, and sometimes that choice is to find the joy in the situation. And I and I do think that is the one thing I have control over, is the way I see myself.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Yeah, and I do, and again, I know a lot of females at my age are going to relate to this. The going into perimenopause, menopause, and all of that has it, it's it's not for this episode because it'll take another gazillion hours to talk, but the loss of that identity has been very destabilizing. And I'm not, but I can't just put it all down to that because I know that I've never had that good relationship, but it's definitely put a bit of a fire under it. Um, but no, I shall take that note and I shall think on it. Got a couple of comments. Like I say, even though it was harder, I've got one comment from a person, and then I want to talk a little bit about this look maxing before we finish, because we have to, and I've got a very, very good comment about look maxing from one of our favourite previous contributors. Um, so um, a dear friend has said, um, I could talk about my relationship with my body for days. It's been so up and down, so much loathing of it when I was younger, so paranoid about having a short neck. Your nose. Who cares? And I was constantly hair removing. It depresses me to think of all the energy I wasted worrying about it for years. This friend, by the way, used to have weigh out a portion of peas before we went out clubbing at 16, and that would be her dinner. Uh, when I had children, I really loved my body for making them, fake for making them, feeding them and dealing with the physical demands of parenting, young kids meant that I didn't give a shit about how my body looks. Side notes, I had boobs for then for the first time, which was awesome. Now I'm aging and my boobs are flat and saggy. I try to be happy with my body and what it's done and how it's still healthy. She's investing time and exercising to keep going as long as possible. Mortality is a thing, but I'm optimistic about the relationship and trying to love my body now is easier. She did then say, however, if you were to give me 5k, I would go get my boobs done. But I think that that's a really beautiful. I've known this person since, like I say, 15, 16, and I've watched them on a real journey. And I think for them, a lot of my friends that I've also spoken to who um who have found exercise a little bit later. So I have a friend who started running. Um, she's a dancer, she's danced her entire life. She's a choreographer, she's a lecturer. Uh, she's actually got a PhD, she's a doctor. Don't ask her for penicillin, she will not give it to you, and she'll tell you to stop asking her. Um, but she's recently found running, she's found it, it was just outside on the floor. Um and so she's um she's been doing half marathons, and she's now saying how she's got this totally new relationship with her body because she's learning how it can do different things, and it's exciting. Now, this girl has once modelled for her maze, right? Her maze, and yet she would never wear shorts. I'm like, for me, that blows my mind. And it shows you, you know.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

Well, she was probably abuse she was probably abused by her maids. And not in the industry, yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

I don't I don't know a model that's yeah, no, a hundred percent who doesn't who doesn't have a I mean this girl's legs are ridonculous. She does, um, I don't know if she does it anymore, she used to do aerial hoop, but yeah, but very interesting. And I have another friend who started to row, um, who lives in Portobello, actually. Uh you are net. Ah, nice. And again, but later, you know, a little bit later in life, and she's a medal winner and all of that. And her relationship with her body has very much changed because she uses it for a different thing. She has a chronic condition that she only got a few years ago, and again, you know, having to treat your body in a way differently, I suppose that's where I don't have any compassion for an ill body. That I think is gonna be a whole nother piece. But I do love the fact that I've got all of these friends who have come from that same period of time as me who are changing their way and changing their opinions, it does give hope, I think.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

And also I think it's important, like I've so I've got a friend who's young with MS. And um when she got the diagnosis, she suddenly started to feel worse and realised or she's leaned into it to the point, and uh, she ran the Linda Marathon.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

She just says she was like, actually, yeah, she's like, I'm gonna see what my body's capable of and just fucking got on with it. And and I and that's the thing, like something about being told something, like I'm not saying you don't have symptoms, right? What I'm saying is, like, it's like oh, they tell a child they have ADHD, so in instead of it becoming a way to explain something, it becomes a reason to stop trying. And I think that's where it's dangerous as well. Like, I think it's really important to be able to have a diagnosis. I think then it becomes useful if it if you're like, okay, well, with this diagnosis in mind, how can I still thrive? But I I used to work in the job centre a number of years ago, and people came in and it was like, I'm signed off sick, and I'm like, You're you're 23 years old, like you don't know. Like, I I mean I mean we're talking about 20 odd years ago I worked there. Like, I that's the thing that gets me that like a diagnosis can become really life-limiting, or it could be okay, understand this about my condition, these are the things I definitely can do, these are the things I can do. Like, um my friend with MS who I used to work with, she loved her job, she had a team manager's job, she needed more days working from home because she got tired easily, easy. The answer was not to never work, right? And so I think that's the thing when you talk about your friends who have had like conditions as well and still found a way to still follow their dreams, which I think is important. You know, this the story we tell ourselves about things is really important. And the story I told myself after I'd been homeless and got my first job was keep your life small and don't cause any trouble. Now there's posters of me with three of me on it causing so much trouble. I'm on the television trying to get, I mean, I I didn't one of the main reasons for not having social media is I was scared someone from my past was going to find me and want to kick the shit out of me. Now I'm actively trying to get on television. So, like, like like you know, I think it's really interesting that the voices in our head are so powerful. And if you can find a way to get that voice to be 10% nicer to you on the daily basis, you will have a better life.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

No, absolutely, and I think it's really I'm so grateful that we didn't grow up when social media came in. You know, you see these girls and guys, and you know, any kind of young person, I think, you know, we had the yeah, the the I mean hammering their face. The hammering of the face. So, yeah, this is what looks maxing it. So, what is it? What are the boys doing?

SPEAKER_03 57:21

Well, apparently they're hammered in their face to give themselves um stronger bones. Now, I don't know why they're saying it's giving them cheap bones. Can I just say that there's no scientific evidence to prove this works? Who came up with this? Well, I don't know why we're surprised. I don't know if you remember a number of years ago um there were ads for this extra hard chewing gum, and if you chewed it, it gave you a bigger jawline. Um and the thing is there was no evidence to bag that up either.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

I mean, I've got a very strong jaw because I clenched my teeth, and the dentist has in fact commented it's one of the strongest jaws he's ever, ever felt. It's probably the strongest muscle in my body, and that's because of stress.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

But your your face, your face changes over time until about 25, I think, and your ears don't stop growing near your nose, so I'm screwed. But these boys, they say they started and then they're showing their before and after. They've probably just been through puberty. I mean, like, um, and it's pseudoscience that they're making money off of people's insecurities, as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

It's Manosphere 101.

SPEAKER_03 58:29

And but can I just say a number of years ago, everybody did that Kylie Jenner bottle thing where they made their lips bigger by putting them in a bottle and pulled them out to give themselves swollen lips.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Oh my god, is it again something I missed?

SPEAKER_03 58:43

Yeah, and that was like a number of years ago. Yeah, Kylie Jenn the Kylie Jenner before she suddenly had new lips, and she's like, No, I just drew them over. I was like, oh my god, stop it now. Yeah, and that's the thing, you've got people like the Kardashians lying, saying that they're natural. I was like, your face is a science experiment, and you've told people they can do that just by eating right and using your creams. Like, there is people are very angry at these men doing it because there's a lot of sexism in the way that they're moving through it, because it's not just about looking a certain way, there seems to be an extreme hatred towards women while they're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Yeah, which is so ironic.

SPEAKER_03 59:19

Which is hilarious, but women have been preying on other women for years.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

The Kardashians, in my opinion, who have somehow managed to make themselves into Hollywood royalty, are everything that's wrong with us. They are the they are they are the original looks maxers and they feed into insecurities. They've taken spanks and turned them into face spanks, skims. I mean, yeah, she has made so much money off of selling you pieces of elastic so that you don't look like a person when you go out. At the end of the day, um you're meant to look more people look like us than look like them.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's like and it's just a it's a a lifetime spent trying to create to be something that you were never meant to be. And that's why when I say I don't want to get to 75 and still be hating myself because it's just not a way to live your life. Um we'll end we'll end on this amazing, um, amazing comment from a previous uh contributor, Meggie, remember Illustrator Meggie. Meggie, the reason that there is no longer any AI in any of our artwork. And um and I'm really proud of it, actually, and I really love our new cover, and um, and it took me a little bit of time to not create it by the way, but to let go of the imperfection of it. Um, but I actually really like it now. So thanks, Meggie. So I asked her about what she thinks about look maxing. She said, and I was promised I would try the accent, but she I just can't. She's got kind of like a soft American-y, I don't I can't know. Men have always been starved to feel the way women do. Some weird inherent jealousy fueling a dumbass, depraved culture. She's a feminist, by the way. Women can give to birth to life. Well, God was a man. Women rule the home and the hearth. Well, men are the rulers of the country. Women have been sexually assaulted by men for centuries. Well, men are the victims of false allegations all the time. Women have been starved and objectified. Well, young men are being forced to bash their faces with hammers, hammers. It's a crazy thing to have created an entire worldwide system of domination. I'm gonna say that again. It's a crazy thing to have created an entire worldwide system of domination and yet still be the world's biggest victim. Education, even. Women weren't allowed to learn how to read, they weren't allowed to go to school and get a degree, and now that we are, suddenly boys aren't getting left, boys are getting left behind in school. And then about looks mapping, she says, looks mapping for who? Women? Have they seen the men with the biggest field female fandoms? Soft ass Korean cuties, Harry Styles, Sean Mendez. It's very true. These are the types of men that we are, you know, the women are loving at these soft feminine star, you know, men. It's almost like the angle of your jaw doesn't matter when you're a shallow, immature, idiotic prick. They haven't invented a hammer for that yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

Do you know what I was thinking like, so I uh when I travel, I use the lounge because I'm a Revolute customer.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

Sorry, does Revolute pay you yet? Because you do drop that, no?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

And I drop a lot. Uh and I went to go and use the bathroom, and there was a guy watching something on his phone pissing all over the toilet seat.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

And I gasped and then went to he went to walk out of the toilet. The cleaning lady was back there, and I turned around and I said, Clean that up.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

He could have stopped you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

And he was like, I was in the lounge. Uh, and he was like, What? I says, You were watching a video pissing all over the floor, and you expect her to get it. Clean that up. And then he was like, Oh, I was like, maybe choose one, take a piss, or watch what's on your phone. Sit down and piss and watch what's on your phone. And I was thinking at the time, the people that rule the world can't even piss in the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

They're p they are dot, you know, like uh Ghlaine Maxwell's father used to take a shit in front of people while he was like talking to them when he ran the newspaper. Some of the best, the biggest, brightest, the people that run the planet, they piss all over the toilet seat. They're fucking useless.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Do you know who doesn't piss all over the toilet seat? A woman.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:36

Just I know. Well, I did in one job I had there was a woman where we know she pissed on the toilet seat because she hovered badly. Yeah, I think she didn't have any strength in her calves.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Sometimes sprinkle because I'm always in a hurry and I don't know how to slow down. So sometimes I have to like, oh, wait.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

There you go. It's how slow down. Sprinkle the Guini.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Oh, you do know my drag name.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

Um, yeah, I think that as always, I think body image in 2026 sounds like it's exactly the same as it's always been. And I think that that is very sad. And like you say though, it is it's an inside job. And you know, it's an inside job, and I'm filled with hope because I see wonderful women and men in my life that are embracing who they are and where they are at now. And I've recently just followed a shitload of women over 50 who are doing these really fun things on Instagram, like wearing what they want and doing this whole like girls, you know, I wish I knew when I was 35. Then it doesn't even fucking matter. Wear the shirts, and you know, and I and yeah, I love that energy. It's just for me, it's now about I'm hoping that it's it's more than osmosis. You can't just follow it, you know, it has to be an action. It's just like writing my script, it's an action, and you're not gonna be able to do it's an action, and you're your face and your body are not a trend, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:50

When it was like the year of the big boobs, the year of the big ass, the year of the like, oh everybody's all about buckle fat removal. It's like your face is not a trend.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

Yeah, because look at the people who did follow that trend, they look the donculus now.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:06

Madonna, I hate to say it, right? But as someone who's constantly talking about sexism and the ageism, she's I think one of the most age people of them all because she's obsessed with look, she tries to look 20 in all her pictures. And I'm like, if you really loved and embraced getting older, I'm not saying she needs to be standing with grey hair and a cane, but she is someone, she's someone that clearly is obsessed with looking like she did 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Oh, we have to finish the episode, but I want to say, but what about Dolly Parton then?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:37

She is a caricature.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

Because she's always been so open about her. In in that in that respect, is is she better than Madonna because she talks about it? Whereas Madonna kind of doesn't. I mean, but they're the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

Well Madonna says Madonna talks out about ageism. She says, Oh, there's an age of society, that's fine, but like Madonna also. Won't embrace her age. Dolly, but like I hate it. Dolly doesn't. Oh my god. Dolly had the same husband all her life. He died recently, and Madonna's cutting about with 20-year-olds. Like, I just like what has she got to talk to a 20-year-old about?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

I could find some things if false.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

But I'm I I am I they live, I know there's celebrities and they live in a different world, like Cher as well. Cher's just like aging sucks, and I'm cute, right? I love Cher. But they live, they live in a different planet, right? Yeah. And what we're telling people is everyone's like, she's such an inspiration. She looks like that at 67. She's worth a billion dollars. That's why she looks like that at 67. You are not gonna look like that at 67. You don't have personal chefs, private masseuse, personal trainer, money, money, money. Like we're given the same with the Kardashians, we cannot look like them unless we're willing to spend 10 million a year.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:55

It is, and it's like it's it's a beast that feeds itself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

And it and it's like um And they look like that because of our engagement. We pay their wages.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

No, absolutely. But at the same time, Pamela Anderson walking around with that makeup. I mean, I never got an award for that. Where was my award this morning? You know, I I thought that that she's brave. She's brave, brave with that face to look at it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:18

Very brave. It's like me with my hairy arse. I'm just walking my hairy arse. Yeah, because my boyfriend is a sexy dolphin, so he's Asian, no hair.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

Oh my god, every episode we end it on such a gay note. I'm hoping, literally. Um, as always, I could talk about this forever. I think it's so interesting, and I think that recovery has made these problems, to be honest, harder, but also given me the tools to at least express and talk about them. And hopefully it's, you know, becomes like a lot of us in recovery, yet another thing that we can kind of like go through rather than num out to. Yeah, you know, who knows? Um, Ian, thank you so much. Next week we're gonna be talking about something a tiny bit different. Um, it's still a hot topic, but not necessarily a hot topic um in the papers and that. We're gonna talk about what is better, dogs or humans. Oh and um the reason we're talking about this is because um in a fire, if it turns out, uh, between a dog and a human, Ian wouldn't save the dog. And I'm quite shocked. So we're gonna talk about I love the I love how that was framed.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

Yeah, right at the end of the episode where you could As not not Ian would save the human.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

What did I say? You would save the dog.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:37

You I wouldn't save a dog. You went straight from the negative language.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

He wouldn't save a dog, he'd literally Or the human. He would literally, he'd be on the side, would catch up on a bun. Um and uh but yeah, we're gonna talk about Ian and I both have got dogs, and we're gonna talk about our relationship with our animals and then coming into our lives and just about how you know people and their animals and all of that, but particularly why Ian doesn't like dogs. Um as always, if you've enjoyed this episode, please like it, share it, please rate it. It takes two seconds. It helps the algorithm lord give us more visibility. Um, and um, if you want to buy us a coffee, there is a link in the show notes. There's also a link to Ian's upcoming shows. Um, thank you so much, everyone who's listened. Thank you, Ian.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

Bye bye.