92. Body Confidence Has Nothing To Do With Your Body
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body Grievers® Club, Bri challenges the idea that confidence comes simply from “doing the thing,” arguing that without thought awareness and body connection, change won’t stick. She reframes confidence as self-assurance: not the absence of discomfort. Brie shares her history with dieting, bariatric surgery at 19, and the ongoing body image pain that persisted even at a smaller size, leading to a 2015 breaking point to start living her life. She discusses dating fears, fetishization, and values alignment. 03:59 Health And Weight Loss Trap 05:18 Bariatric...
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91. Body Trust, Weight-Inclusive Fitness, and Intersectionality with Ashantis Jones
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body GrieversⓇ Club, Bri interviews Ashantis Jones, a counselor and ASM-certified personal trainer, about healing body image and movement through an intersectional, weight-inclusive lens. Ashantis shares how her eating disorder recovery, later neurodivergence diagnoses (ADHD/autism traits and ARFID), and experience with fibromyalgia shaped her approach to care, emphasizing that diagnoses can be useful but aren’t always required to provide support. They discuss body positivity as a social justice movement, how privilege and systemic oppression—including racism,...
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90. Is it an Eating Disorder or Disordered Eating? With Monica Freudenreich
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body Grievers® Club, Bri joins therapist/social worker Monica Freudenreich to discuss eating disorders versus disordered eating, emphasizing that most people with eating disorders often go unrecognized or dismissed by providers who lack specialized training and may be influenced by diet culture trends. They describe how diagnostic labels can shift, how insurance and treatment systems affect care, and why focusing on functioning and quality of life matters more than whether someone meets a specific DSM threshold. They critique applying abstinence-based addiction models...
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89. Parenting Intuitive Eaters and Healing Generational Body Image Wounds with Keri Baker
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body GrieversⓇ Club, Bri interviews licensed clinical social worker and parent Keri Baker about body image, food, and raising kids—especially when both parent and child live in larger bodies. Keri shares her history of early dieting, years of chronic dieting, likely undiagnosed eating disorder symptoms, and finding intuitive eating and anti-diet care through supportive providers. They discuss parenting a child with ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder), how it’s often mistaken for picky eating, and the added difficulty of seeking medical care when...
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88. How I Healed My Relationship to Movement
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body GrieversⓇ Club, Bri shares her five-year movement journey from having no exercise practice to building an intuitive, consistent, feel-good relationship with movement. She traces how the pandemic disrupted her gym routine, triggered body image distress when back pain arose on a short walk, and revealed deeper body grief tied to internalized ableism rather than weight loss. Bri outlines five needs for healing and answers questions about “enough” movement, limited mobility with others, pushing vs listening to the body, and much more. TIMESTAMPS: 03:12 Pandemic...
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87. Understanding Type II Diabetes and Body Image
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body GrieversⓇ Club, Bri interviews dietitian and certified diabetes educator Kristie Messerli (The Type 2 Diabetes Nutritionist) about type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, medication, and the shame and fear that often follow diagnosis. Kristie explains diabetes in lay terms, emphasizing insulin resistance as the underlying issue, genetics as a major driver, and the nuance beyond “cut carbs, lose weight, exercise more,” especially for women already dieting and exercising. They discuss complications as largely tied to unmanaged diabetes, the reality that medication...
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86. Why I Almost Skipped Prom: Clothing Grief + Privilege of Choice
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body GrieversⓇ Club, Bri shares how receiving five perfectly fitting gowns from Sydney’s Closet sparked a corrective experience that contrasted with her 2007 prom season, when a dream dress wouldn’t zip and intensified shame, restriction, and a fixation on weight loss that later contributed to pursuing bariatric surgery. She reflects on being pre-diabetic at 16, the discouragement of dieting and being blamed for “not doing it right,” and how clothes not fitting became a lasting scar tied to dating, food anxiety, and self-worth. As an...
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85. Unflattering: Clothing Grief with Dacy Gillespie
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body GrieversⓇ Club, Bri interviews anti-diet, weight-inclusive personal stylist Dacy Gillespie about clothing grief, style, and size accessibility. Dacy shares how styling clients revealed the need to address body feelings and how “flattering” advice often aims to make bodies appear smaller, rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism, referencing work by Sabrina Strings and Sonya Renee Taylor. They discuss real scarcity in plus-size clothing, including brands dropping extended sizes, and the grief and privilege tied to beauty standards. Dacy shares some...
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84. Seasons of Bravery in Dating as a Plus Size Late Bloomer with Allora Dannon
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body Grievers® Club, Brianna interviews TikTok creator and author Allora Dannon, who describes herself as a plus-size “accidental late bloomer spokesperson.” Allora explains how she reframed “late bloomer” to mean not dating or experiencing physical intimacy until her thirties, and she shares how growing up as the oldest of ten in a supportive religious family still left her feeling embarrassed, isolated, and “left behind” as her sisters married while she received little romantic attention. Together, Bri and Allora discuss the cultural whiplash around...
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83. Core Beliefs: I Can Advocate for Everyone But Myself
The Body Grievers® Club
In this episode of The Body Grievers® Club, Bri discusses the challenges of self-advocacy within the context of body image and core beliefs. She recounts a personal experience at the Sacramento Airport where she found herself struggling to ask for a wheelchair accommodation due to an injury. Bri explores the layers of body image distress, internalized ableism, and the difficulty of allowing oneself to ask for help. Through examining core beliefs and emotional triggers, she identifies a deep-seated fear of being perceived as a fraud by her clients and herself. The episode highlights the...
info_outlineCONTENT NOTE: In this episode I discuss weight loss surgery.
As long as I can remember, I hated my body. I was encouraged from a young age to diet, for “health.” The result was that I was striving for ultimate health and despite following all the diets and exercise plans to a T, I was never satisfied with the amount of weight I had lost.
I still had a strong sense of self-worth for 2 reasons:
- I had some strong emotional and parental attachments with people who made me feel valuable.
- I had strong faith that God loved me.
Even still, my self-esteem was low. I would worry about whether the world would love me, or a partner would love me. I hit my breaking point at 19 years old. I decided I was done dieting, it wasn’t working, and with the influence of my family I had weight loss surgery.
The surgery promised better health, a smaller body, and exponential weight loss and like dieting, it didn’t deliver on what it promised. Instead, I couldn’t eat and my hair was falling out.
Part of the thing with body dysmorphia is looking at a part of our body convinced that it’s wrong, working to fix it, then moving on to another part, and another. Unfortunately, in the clinical definition of eating disorders, a disordered eating pattern isn’t necessarily diagnosed unless certain physical characteristics are present, such as low body weight in the case of anorexia.
Working in an eating disorder center and going to therapy highlighted the cognitive dissonance that I didn’t believe that I could be healthy in a larger body. That depression in the area of body image brought me to the concept of body grief.
Body grief is the loss or losses accompanied by the conscious choice to stop attempting to change one’s body size. Grieving sucks, but you don’t have to grieve alone.
Check out my resources, course, and membership community “The Body Grievers Club” at https://bodyimagewithbri.com/
A Podcast Launch Bestie production