Swipe Fat podcast co-host Alex Stewart on how longing shapes dating experiences for plus size women

Episode 26 Alex Stewart, the influencer behind the hit podcast Swipe Fat, discusses how body shaming shapes romantic longing, the polarizing use of words like “fat,” the impact of weight loss drugs on the body positivity movement, and why you should never wait til you're X size to do something.

Alex Stewart is an influencer and the voice behind the Instagram and TikTok account, Sassy Confetti. She is a proud Chicagoan who tries to inspire her audience to get out there and try new experiences, eat new foods and be bold in their lives and style! She has been featured as a style expert in InStyle and done speaking engagements for The BodCon, Fox News 12, NBC's Chicago Today and more. She is also the co-host of the podcast Swipe Fat about dating while plus size. Her podcast has been featured in Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and the New York Times as a podcast that is breaking barriers for size inclusivity. Learn more at sassyconfetti.com

 In this episode, (in order) we talked about: 

* Generational patterns of perfecting one another

*Reclaiming the word “fat” 

*How body shame shapes romantic longing 

*How women self-sabotage dating situations

*The importance of in-person connections

*Her experience losing her virginity

*Why not to say, "I'll do it when I'm thinner."

*Decisions around diet drugs like Ozempic and the fear of being seen a hypocrite

*How she uses her platforms to support plus-size women and what she's learned from followers

*Advice she has for men dating plus-size women

Quotes

“I think for plus sized women too, we don't want to look lazy…there's this other perfectionism. My makeup needs to look perfect. My hair needs to look perfect. I need to look cute. There's this hyper femininity aspect of it, where you want to present yourself as perfectly as possible, so that people can't pick you apart because you have this one thing that's not socially acceptable. So how do I make sure that the rest of me is like, perfect?” 

“How do you how do you let someone in enough to trust them to see my body and not judge me?”

“I've definitely gotten myself in situationships since, and a lot of those are long distance…it's just easier to let someone in if they aren't near you, which is so weird, because it's a slow burn. They edge their way in, and all of a sudden, you're like, wait, no, I like you and I'm sad you’re not here.”

"It's either like picking people that aren't available or picking people that they don't really like but they think ‘This is what I'm capable of,’ or ‘I only think I can deserve this.’”

“Why are we waiting for when? When you are yourself right now, it really doesn't matter what size you are. You can have all those things at any size or any part of your journey…Just because places aren't built for us, doesn't mean that we can't take up space in them.”

“When I was growing up, if you had given me a magic pill that had made me the size that I wanted to be, I would have taken it. And so now, to be presented with that option, and have done all this work to mentally feel like I'm worthy and like I am fine in this…To now have this onslaught of people just talking about it incessantly is very difficult. I have to have this mental journey with myself every day to be like, ‘You are fine the way you are. You do not need these drugs. It's not going to fix you.’”

“I think, unfortunately, most women feel like they're not going to meet someone because they're not good enough or pretty enough, or whatever. I think we see that even more so with fat people because we're consistently told through the media and through society that we aren't good enough and that we would be enough if we were smaller.”