Fat Joy with Sophia Apostol

This is episode 1 of 11. To get the rest, go to: https://fatjoy.life/dcwy

The diet industry used your own personality to sell you body shame. This series shows you exactly how they did it… and how to get free.

Poem: "Remember" by Joy Harjo, https://poets.org/poem/remember-0

>>> Get all 11 episodes: https://fatjoy.life/dc...

Six conversations. So much creativity. And one last invitation.

In this final episode of the Creation Lab Capsule Collection, Sophia wraps the series with gratitude, reflection, and a return to ritual. After realizing she forgot to include poetry at the end of these episodes, she closes things properly with a poem.

She reflects on what the guests stirred in her, the creative risks she’s taking in her own life, and the deeper theme running through it all: fat joy as resistance.

This is also the final in...

In this episode of the Fat Joy Creation Lab capsule collection, Sophia talks with longtime fat liberation educator, podcaster, and consultant Vinny Welsby (they/them) about building meaningful work over time without burning out or shrinking yourself to fit.

They explore creativity as a source of joy, a tool for connection, and a quiet force for cultural change. From podcasting before feeling “ready,” to building a consulting practice that brings fat liberation into corporate spaces, Vinny shares what it looks like to make things imperfectly and keep going anyway.

In this epis...

In this episode of the Fat Joy Creation Lab capsule collection, Sophia sits down with community organizer, baker, and spiritual practitioner Erica Joy (they/she) for a wide-ranging conversation about co-creation, identity, and what it means to build liberatory offerings without rushing the process.

Erica shares the story of co-creating Cosmic Healing with her sister (the multiple-person readings kay does are called "synastry") and also dives into Erica’s newest offering, Cooking Fulla Joy, a liberatory approach to food, cooking, and pleasure that actively divests from diet culture. Erica speaks beautifully about food as connection, no...

In this episode of the Fat Joy Creation Lab capsule collection, Sophia sits down with fashion, beauty, and lifestyle creator Angel Edme (she/her) for a spacious, honest conversation about visibility, boundaries, creativity, and the audacity it takes to take up space in a bigger body.

This episode weaves through themes of self-trust, immigrant family identity, body liberation, and the real tension of making a living through creative work without suffocating the creative spark itself. Angel speaks beautifully about taking baby steps toward self-love, choosing discomfort as a path to growth, and why audacity is...

What if creativity doesn’t require you to be healed, fearless, or finished?

In this intimate and soul-rich conversation, Sophia is joined by Asifa Sheikh (she/her), a writer, poet, and Firefly Creative Writing facilitator, to explore what it means to create from the whole self, including grief, rage, body, memory, and hope.

In this episode, they explore:

Amanda Sabater (she/her) joins Sophia on the Fat Joy Podcast’s Creation Lab Capsule Collection. In this conversation, they explore the spiritual side of creativity — the inner nudges, intuitions, and moments of mystery that shape how ideas arrive. What begins as a chat about making art becomes a deeper reflection on what happens when creativity feels less like a task and more like a relationship.

They discuss the tension many of us feel:

In this first episode of the Fat Joy Podcast’s Creation Lab Capsule Collection, Sophia sits down with singer-songwriter Mary Lambert (she/her) for an honest, energizing conversation about how creativity weaves through her life, often in ways she didn’t expect. Mary opens up about the moments when her creative instincts went quiet, the surprising places they re-emerged, and the turning points that helped her reconnect with her own voice.

Together, they explore questions many of us wrestle with:

Sophia shares why she's pausing the podcast, her biggest a-ha moments from 100 episodes, and how to stay connected to Fat Joy.

This episode's poem is Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese."

Mentioned in this episode:

Fat Joy Newsletter- subscribe for free to receive the newsletter to your inbox.

Fat Joy Writing Workshop- it's currently full, but if you're interested, let Firefly know and we'll offer it again soon.

Keep connected with Fat Joy:

Fat Joy Instagram

Fat Joy website

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Aubrey Gordon (she/her) is back! We’re talking about the amazing success of the film Your Fat Friend, how it changed her family relationships, and what it’s like being filmed over six years. Aubrey and Sophia share their experiences having conversations with non-fat folks about how to be good allies. Spoiler: not all of these conversations go well.

Aubrey Gordon stars in the documentary film Your Fat Friend, is the author of You Just Need to Lose Weight and What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, and co-host of the Maintenance Phase...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Sophia has created a workshop called Fat Joy- specifically for listeners of this podcast who are interested in exploring the fat experience through writing. Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to learn more about the Fat Joy workshop. For $50 off the workshop, use code: FATJOY

Kate Manne (she/her), philosopher and author of Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, shares her thoughts on why we struggle to see through diet culture, how the ‘thought-terminating cliche’ ends liberatory conversations, and if it’s possible to be anti-diet and also pursue intentional weight loss.

Kate Manne is an associ...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Tiana Dodson (she/her) explores how liberation consciousness requires hope and imagination, even when they feel impossible. Part of that exploration is rooted in exploring the ‘science of less’ and how being subtractive rather than additive can unlock new levels of awareness and help dismantle oppression.

With a decade as a body liberation facilitator and a lifetime of lived experience as a fat, biracial, queer, neurodivergent person, Tiana Dodson is well-versed in what it is to exist in a multiply-marginalized body. As an active co-creator of the syllabus for liberation, her work addresses how personal, community, and glob...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Sophia has created a workshop specifically for listeners of this podcast who are interested in exploring the fat experience through writing. Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to learn more. For $50 off any Firefly workshop, use code: FATJOY

Elle Baez (she/her) is the brilliant singer-songwriter of the runaway hit “I Love My Body.” Elle shares her own journey to body positivity, including being bullied, being sent to fat camps, and struggling with eating disorders. Music became a way to heal from fatphobia, and Elle reflects on how making the music videos with fat actors was...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to see if any of our cozy writing workshops are for you. For $50 off, use code: FATJOY

Charis Stiles (she/her) wants us all to feel like we belong, are accepted, and are worthy of love. Often, the barriers to feeling this way stem from wounding that was out of our control, however there’s a lot we can do to repair, heal, and rebuild a sense of self. Charis describes how we can examine self-limiting beliefs, separate out what are real external barriers and what are internalized barriers, and let go...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to see if any of our cozy writing workshops are for you. The Fall schedule will be on the website for July 11th. For $50 off, use code: FATJOY

Crystal Maldonado (she/her) is a young adult author with a lot of feelings that she’s channeled into romcoms for fat, brown girls. She shares what it was like to write the stories she wished she’d had when she was growing up, the gatekeeping she had to overcome to get published, and her ‘glimmers’ writing practice that connects her to joy e...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

In this riotous episode, Parker McMullen Bushman (they/she) takes us on their journey to become an activist and educator in the environmental education and outdoor spaces when no one looked like them. Fat, Black, queer, and non-binary, Parker shares how disparities in access to nature are outcomes from the Jim Crow laws, how race is different from ethnicity, and that disrupting white supremacy is about questioning default assumptions.

Parker, aka KWEEN WERK, is bringing people together in the fight for Environmental Justice and Social Equity. Using Social Media as a tool, this Social Justice...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

(Content Note: mention of sexual assault)

Melanie Tufts (she/her) and Emma Deakin (she/her) collaboratively create boudoir photography experiences grounded in fat-positivity, equity, and consent. Sophia, host of the Fat Joy podcast, did a boudoir photo shoot with them and shares her experience being photographed nude, and how everything they did throughout the experience felt like a reclamation of her body.

Melanie Tufts is a fat-positive boudoir photographer. Her focus on the boudoir genre, specifically for women, allows her to focus on her values and ideologies. She views her work...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Jessie Diaz-Hererra (she/her) is here to help us “Free the Jiggle,” which is one of the signature dance offerings from her company, Power Plus Wellness located in New York City. Jessie shares the moment she learned to feel shame about her body, and how that moment actually led to the co-founding of her movement business that now offers classes like aerial yoga, ballet, and aqua stretch & sound baths- all specifically for plus-size bodies.

Jessie Diaz-Herrera is a dancer, certified group fitness instructor, and body positivity advocate who has dedicated her career to exploring and cele...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Dr. Theresa Melito-Conners (she/her) brings her Ph.D-level expertise to a conversation about the ten domains of self care. No, not bubble baths and spa days (although we can love those too), but rather deeper levels of how we show up fully and authentically as humans and what might get in our way.

Theresa Melito-Conners, Ph.D. (Dr. MC) is the founder of Dr. MC’s Self-Care Cabaret, a suite of theatre-inspired, self-care and professional development services for helping professionals. The Self-Care Cabaret encompasses workshops, a podcast, and educational curricula all focused on accessible an...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Artist Lindsey Guile (she/her) draws charcoal images of nude, fat people…on canvases that are eight-feet tall. Her fat bodies literally take up space and tower over viewers. Lindsey shares what motivated her to embrace fat liberation (spoiler: gallbladder disease and an eating disorder) and use her artistic talents to challenge the hierarchy of art.

Lindsey Guile is a body and fat-liberation artist exploring concepts of self-image through the lens of contemporary feminist theory. Lindsey’s practice embraces an intermedia approach that utilizes drawing, printmaking, and ceramics in her explorations into how body image affe...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Andrea Westbrook (she/her) is a Size-Inclusion Specialist who works with organizations to become less stigmatizing for plus-size and fat folks. She shares why this is essential for all workplaces, what it’s costing businesses who don’t do it, and 5 steps that both individuals and organizations can take to do better by their employees.

Andrea Westbrook’s mission is to bring body size into the Diversity and Inclusion conversation. Andrea works with individuals and guides them to stop letting their beliefs about their size hold them back so that they can connect with themselves and fu...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Lama Rod Owens’ (he/him) earliest memories of suffering were related to his body. He shares how through compassion and joy, we can find the space and sacredness to come into balance with our bodies and the natural world. Lama Rod’s experience with queer male spaces, and his need to separate from them, led to seeking community and, ultimately, his own freedom.

Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to c...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

Diet culture and anti-fatness are very present in our schools, from being designed into the curriculum to showing up in the teacher’s lunchroom. Cait O-Connor (she/her) began her own fat liberation journey in her early 20s and quickly brought anti-diet principles into her classrooms. Cait shares how students have responded to her anti-fat lessons and how parents and teachers can support kids further.

Cait O’Connor is a national award-winning middle school English teacher from New York, and the creator of #DitchingDietCultureAtSchool. She is passionate about mental health advocacy, peer work, and eating diso...

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.

If you’d like to learn more about mental health care by and for fat folks, please check out Tend and Cultivate Counseling.

(Content Note: mention of sexual violence.)

Plus-size pageant Queens Choniece Stevenson (she/her), Ellen Miller (she/her), and Rebecca Breedlove-Berry (she/her) share what got them into pageant world, how being part of this experience changed how they feel about their bodies, and how they use their platforms to create positive change and social justice. Plus, their biggest moments of awe and oh-no! during the competition.

A bonus minisode where each guest answers 10 surprising questions with unexpected results. Hilarity ensues.