Virgie Tovar

In this fun, fresh, fat-positive anthology, fat activist and sex educator Virgie Tovar brings together voices from an often-marginalized community to talk about and celebrate their lives. Hot & Heavy rejects the idea that being thin is best, instead embracing the many fabulous aspects of being fat—building fat-positive spaces, putting together fat-friendly wardrobes, turning society’s rules into personal politics, and creating supportive, inclusive communities. Writers, activists, performers, and poets—including April Flores, Alysia Angel, Charlotte Cooper, Jessica Judd, Emily Anderson, Genne Murphy, and Tigress Osborn—cover everything from fat go-go dancing to queer dating to urban gardening in their essays, exploring their experiences with the word "fat," pinpointing particular moments that have impacted the way they think and feel about their bodies, and telling the story of how they each became fat revolutionaries.Ground-breaking and long overdue, Hot & Heavy is a fierce, sassy, thoughtful, authentic, and joyous collection of stories about unapologetically—and unconditionally—loving the body you’re in.

Se sustituyó mi relación con mi cuerpo con una idea tóxica: tu cuerpo está mal. Esta idea amenazaría mi felicidad y mi salud durante casi dos décadas. Me encantaría que no fuera así, pero mi historia no es única. Te prometo que todo lo que te voy a contar acá es la verdad, tan bien como yo pueda contarla, de mis siete años investigando la cultura de la dieta y la gordofobia. Te prometo que no tengo un propósito oculto, más allá de mi profundo deseo de que leer este libro te proporcione algunas herramientas para combatir este horrible feminicidio asistido y enmascarado como cultura de la dieta. Admito que quiero que te enojes muchísimo porque te han mentido, y porque hay fuerzas culturales que intentan de forma activa desmantelar las partes más valiosas de tu ser, en este mismo instante y, además, quieren que seas vos la que pague ese proceso violento. Solo cuando dejemos de mentirnos a nosotras mismas conseguiremos que dejen de mentirnos los demás. Solo cuando confiamos en nuestra propia experiencia de la verdad podemos ser libres.

This joyful and empowering guided journal encourages readers to love and value their body as it is. Let go of judgement and shame and replace with love and appreciation for your body. Body image advocate Virgie Tovar, founder of Babecamp, shares the role of journaling in her own relationship to her body and offers writing prompts, visual prompts, and inspiring short essays to allow readers to alternatively unload emotional baggage and enjoy a therapeutic, carefree journaling moment to themselves. With vibrant, inclusive artwork and a playful sticker sheet at the back, this guided journal is the perfect gift for anyone looking to embrace body positivity and celebrate bodies of every shape and size. ENGAGING AUTHOR: Virgie Tovar is an authority in this space: She is an author, an activist, and one of the nation's leading experts and lecturers on weight-based discrimination and body image. She is the founder of Babecamp, a self-guided online course designed to help people break up with diet culture and the originator of the campaign #LoseHateNotWeight, which led to a TedX talk. LIGHTHEARTED APPROACH: The Body Positive Journal is playful and empowering as it offers guidance for being comfortable and happy in your body regardless of size, and for letting go of societal rules and judgments around weight in a fun and engaging way. Perfect for: • Fans of Virgie Tovar and other body image advocates like Katie Sturino, Jessamyn Stanley, Lizzo, Aidy Bryant, and Lindy West • People who want to stop dieting and find peace with their bodies • Newcomers to body positivity looking for a way to dive into the movement

It’s time to ditch harmful, outdated beauty standards and build real, lasting body positivity. It's time for a self-love revolution! Every day we see movies, magazines, and social media that make us feel like we need to change how we look. This takes a toll on how we think about ourselves—and how we allow others to treat us. And while many teens feel shame about their body, being a teen girl of color can be hard in unique ways. Maybe you feel alienated by the mainstream image of beauty, which is still thin, white and able-bodied. In addition to that, you may also feel pressure from within your community to measure up to a different—but equally unfair—beauty standard. So, how can you start feeling good about yourself when you’re surrounded by these unrealistic—and problematic—ideas about your body? In The Self-Love Revolution, leading body image expert and creator of #LoseHateNotWeight Virgie Tovar offers an unapologetic guide to help you question popular culture and cultivate radical body positivity. With this groundbreaking book, you’ll identify and challenge mainstream beliefs about beauty; understand the unique tools girls of color have to counter negative body image; and build real, lasting body empowerment. You’ll also learn how to call out diet culture, and discover ways to move beyond your own inner critic and start building the unconditional love for yourself that you deserve. It’s time to explode society’s beauty standards, stop messing with diets, wear what you want, and recognize that your body is your business. This book will help you find your way to radical body positivity, one step at a time.

«¿Qué pasaría si te dijera que tu cuerpo está bien? ¿Qué pasaría si te dijera que tienes permiso para comer lo que sea que quieras y ponerte lo que desees porque eres oficialmente perfecta? ¿Qué pasaría si viviéramos en un mundo imaginario donde nunca se te hubiera enseñado que tu cuerpo estaba mal, donde nunca hubieras aprendido que ciertas comidas son buenas o malas o malvadas o sanas? ¿Y si te dijera que tienes derecho a ese mundo? ¿Y si te dijera que no tienes que perder medio kilo para empezar a vivir esa vida, porque ya fue tuya una vez, hace mucho tiempo, antes de que te la robaran?» Traducción de Begoña Martínez Pagán Prólogo de Lucrecia Masson

Growing up as a fat girl, Virgie Tovar believed that her body was something to be fixed. But after two decades of dieting and constant guilt, she was over it―and gave herself the freedom to trust her own body again. Ever since, she’s been helping others to do the same. Tovar is hungry for a world where bodies are valued equally, food is free from moral judgment, and you can jiggle through life with respect. In concise and candid language, she delves into unlearning fatphobia, dismantling sexist notions of fashion, and how to reject diet culture’s greatest lie: that fat people need to wait before beginning their best lives.