Virgie Tovar

The other night, I was eating capellini with asparagus and shrimp with a new friend/Babecamp Jamaica alum.

Jacob (boyfriend) lives walking distance to a See’s Candies. This means that half the week I live walking distance to a See’s Candies — which, if you're me, is a little like living next to Disneyland.

Fat girl trauma, brown girl trauma, sexist trauma, class trauma. It’s time to start seeing our gifts, or handout an invoice for fat girl emotional labor

I wanted the photos to record exactly how I looked and felt in those moments – double chin and all. I’d like to encourage you to take the leap!

The wound of codependency leaves a haunting question in its wake: Do I actually matter? Diet culture’s answer to fat people is: no.

I’m a fat brown girl from an immigrant family. I grew up learning that no one would ever love me because I’m fat. I was taught that I have to work twice as hard to get half as much. If someone looks at me weird or says something rude to me, I always see it or hear it and I have a massive (exhausting) anxiety/adrenaline rush/aggro response/comedown cycle. I feel like I have to fight to maintain dignity and humanity every, single day.

Dieting is a socially sanctioned method of mentally high-tailing out of whatever is going on and keeping you entirely in your head, laser-focused on your next bite, your scale, your plate.

By the time you read this, Babecamp Jamaica will be over. My 57 mosquito bites will have just stopped itching.

This is a love song for those who showed me there was a thing called freedom, and it wasn’t closed-legged, and it wasn’t passable, that it was expensive and gaudy, and I wanted it, and I didn’t want it.

You deserve someone who loves your body, who makes you feel safe, who makes you feel sexy. Never date someone who doesn’t love your belly!