Shira Rosenbluth

It feels weird to be posting when I have been spending almost every second completely consumed by what’s happening in the world right now. But I’ve also been trying find pockets of joy amidst the pain. Here’s a photo of Bamba and I getting our very first pumpkin to carve! 🎃 For those of you struggling to maintain recovery right now, please keep fighting because the world needs you and your voice. Not to mention, the eating disorder truly doesn’t make things better. 🧡💗 *I’m going to try and keep the comments open but please don’t use this as a space to yell at me about how my perspectives on Israel are wrong.

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Recent weekend trip to Monterey and it was really fun! 🥰🦦🌊🦭 I got to see some new spots in California that I’ve never been to with great company and a break from the heatwave. ☀️

At a recent talk, someone asked me how I was able to learn to love my body and recover. My answer is that I don’t love my body in a world that tells me it’s wrong at every turn. And I still choose recovery because the alternative is losing my life to the eating disorder. Like I wrote on the second slide, I want to be free of weight stigma, not fatness.

Summer vibes from this past weekend. ☀️ 🍉 🌊 And a reminder that you can be body positive whether or not you choose to wear a bikini because body positivity means making this world safe for people in ALL bodies — not about how much or little clothes you decide to wear! 📷 @rdab124

Swipe all the way to the right for the screenshots. Don’t worry, there’s now a new CEO who has zero eating disorder experience. And in case it isn’t clear, if NEDA was doing good work, I’d be celebrating and cheering them on. I’m not a “hater” for no reason. I’m just tired of watching empty promises and harm being done.

This is my first #pridemonth where I’m out and while it feels liberating in some ways, it’s been heartbreaking in others. I talked recently on my stories about feeling hurt encountering homophobia from the community I grew up in. It’s also been painful to experience it from some family members as well. I am still incredibly grateful for every person that has been accepting and welcoming. It means the world to me — especially coming from the orthodox community. The only thing that’s changed about me is that I’m living more authentically. I am no longer suppressing parts of myself. I am learning to take up more and more space. I hope that one day we can let people love who they love safely and be who they are safely. 🙏🏼 🏳️‍🌈 #pride #queer #queerpride #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbtqjews #lgbtcommunity #wlw

Yes, I am confronted by weight stigma on a regular basis. Yes, it is excruciatingly painful to live in a world that encourages me to go back to my eating disorder. And yes, I still would choose my recovery a million times over. Recovery has given me the ability to have real connections with people I love, both romantically and platonically. It’s given me the ability to have the stamina and capacity to do the job I feel so passionate about every day. Recovery allows me to be present instead of being completely consumed by eating disorder thoughts all day. I still have hard days but they no longer outweigh the good ones. If you’re struggling with your eating disorder, I hope you keep fighting because you deserve healing, freedom, and a full, expansive life. 💗

Thought I’d pull out this throwback gem of a photo in light of all that’s happening in the eating disorder world. Diet culture permeates every part of our culture and when it happens in our major eating disorder organizations, treatment centers, and institutions, it’s particularly egregious. We know that restriction drives anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder and OSFED so you’d think that by now the eating disorder field would realize we must make this world safe for people in all bodies to truly eradicate eating disorders. But here we are with NEDA deploying Tessa, an AI chatbot that gives weight loss tips. Here we still are with biased eating disorder researchers trying to prove that you can lose weight and recover from an eating disorder simultaneously (spoiler alert: you fucking can’t). And here we are with larger bodied clients with eating disorders being unable to access safe treatment. But I will be here, along with my incredible fat-positive colleagues and friends, fighting for a world where people in all bodies are safe and treated with dignity, love, and respect. 📷: @diary_ofkelly

Here’s to hoping for a world where there’s no need for #nodietday because we are too busy living full lives instead of dedicating our lives to the pursuit of thinness. 🙏🏼

Warmer weather has been particularly hard since recovering into my larger body. I can’t seem to find warm weather clothes I like and lack of access to clothes continues to be one of my biggest triggers. While I’m grateful for my recovery every single day because it allows me to live a full life that I couldn’t have even dreamed of, I am also feeling so much grief about recovering into a body that society constantly tells me is wrong. I confront the ways I don’t fit into the world on a regular basis and access to clothes is just one of those tangible things. I know a lot of you expect me to be a role model for body confidence but the truth is I spent tonight crying after trying on a swimsuit and feeling like I won’t be able to let myself swim this summer — and it’s something I really love to do. I struggle with pretty intense body image distress on a regular basis. I wish with all my heart it wasn’t the case… AND I still work really hard to choose recovery every single day. Because as my friend recently reminded me, this fat body has given me a life filled with love and connection and I never could’ve had the things I have now when I was thin and in my eating disorder. It can be complicated sorting out what I’m comfortable sharing online and that has changed over the years and I’m sure will continue to change. But I do think it’s important to share the realities of the ups and downs of recovery, particularly when recovering into a larger body. As I’ve said before, when thin clinicians share their privileged definitions of what they think recovery is supposed to look like, it’s of absolute zero relevance to me. So I will continue to use my voice whenever it feels right to talk about the realities of recovering and facing weight stigma on a regular basis. Anyway, here’s a fun picture of Bamba and I on a little drive to see the poppies in one of the few spring shirts I own. Missed the cherry blossoms in NY so this is my consolation prize. 😜 📷: @rdab124, I finally have my very own instagram husband 🥰

*edited to add: I trust the multiple sources who heard directly from the leadership of NEDA that NEDA knew about the AAP guidelines prior to them being released. I cannot confirm if they gave the approval; however, #NEDAknew and chose to stay silent so they could stay in good graces with the AAP.* It’s heartbreaking that our “leading eating disorder organization” has been complicit in the contribution of eating disorders when they are supposed to be helping decrease them. NEDA knew about the AAP guidelines before they were published and genuinely thought it was a good idea to….put children on weight loss medications and give them bariatric surgery? If this weren’t so infuriating, I’d laugh at the absurdity of it all. NEDA is all #weightstigmaawareness and #eatingdisorderprevention but contributing further to weight stigma and eating disorders. Okay NEDA, we get the message. Recovery is only allowed for those that are thin. Message received. 💔

Shoutout to all of you who will be eating your meals today and tomorrow leading up to Pesach, even if no one around you is. You don’t need to change the amount of food you eat just because a holiday is coming up. You deserve nourishment and freedom. Swipe right for a Pesach message! 💗

When you pick clothes, I hope you choose the things that make you smile instead of the things that you think make you look thinnest. Because we all deserve so much more than a lifetime dedicated to the pursuit of thinness.💗 Every day, I work towards living a life where I get to be my fullest self and it’s kind of amazing. Someone recently DM’d me and asked me if recovery is worth it and the answer is yes, a million times yes. Even on my hardest days, where the eating disorder voice creeps back in and is a conniving little bitch, I am still living a life I couldn’t have ever dreamed of when I was in the depths of my eating disorder. Whether you’re working on recovering from an eating disorder or working on unlearning diet culture, I hope you keep pursuing freedom. 💗

Today is #worldobesityday and if you’re a clinician working in the eating disorder field while also in the business of treating “ob*sity,” congratulations, you are part of the damn problem. So today I thought I’d be extra visible because I am the fattest I’ve ever been and also the most free from my eating disorder I’ve ever been. For the first time in my life, I can partake in events, holidays, traditions, etc without staying home alone because I am afraid of being around food. I can go on a date without total panic that she’d get suspicious that I wasn’t eating. I can eat a meal without my treatment team begging me to eat. My friends are no longer sending me voicemails where they are sobbing and terrified I’m going to die. My relationships are getting better and better because I am a full human now without my eating disorder taking over my entire personality. Today I’m choosing to celebrate and partake in @sparklejams, #fatvanity. I don’t want to spend another day of my life hiding in shame and self hatred, consumed by trying to fix a body that was never broken in the first place. Honestly, f*ck World Ob*sity Day and a world that isn’t safe for all of us to exist safely in our bodies. 📷: @mallorykesselphoto