Fat Joy with Sophia Apostol

Creating a truly liberatory space for fat/plus-size bodies is revolutionary. Creating that for hiking trails? That’s next level! Avery Swartz (she/her) is here to share how the Greater Toronto Area chapter of the Body Liberation Hiking Club launched on April 2023 and is a space free of diet culture talk, open and accepting of all bodies, and provides community and connection to nature (i.e. no jerks allowed!). See you on the trail.

Avery Swartz is the founder and CEO of Camp Tech, the tech workshop company for non-technical people. She is the author of the best-selling book See You on the Internet: Building Your Small Business with Digital Marketing. Avery is the resident tech contributor on CTV Your Morning and has contributed to The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Today's Parent. She was ranked number 5 on Search Engine Journal's Top 50 Women in Marketing list and has been a Professor at both Toronto Metropolitan University and Humber College. She lives in Toronto.

Please check out Greater Toronto Area Hiking Club on IG and the original Body Liberation Hiking Club.

Also, Avery mentioned the Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.

There’s more bonus content with Avery through Apple Subscriptions and on Patreon.

This episode’s poem is called “Just Beyond Yourself” by David Whyte.

Please connect with Fat Joy on our website, Instagram, and YouTube (full video episodes here!).

Want to share the love? Please rate this podcast and give it a review.

Our thanks to AR Media and Emily MacInnis for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

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

Jenna Doak (she/her) co-founded Body Positive Fitness after working in toxic fitness culture since age 14. She intentionally created a body liberation space that returns the power back to her class participants and changes the way we think about and move our bodies. Sophia went to several virtual classes and felt more at home in her body than she has in years...except she kept her video off. Jenna helps Sophia figure out why.

Jenna Doak (she/her) is the co-owner & head trainer at Body Positive Fitness. She has been a fitness trainer for over 15 years, and after healing her own disordered relationship with fitness, food & her body, she now teaches others how to do the same while providing a safe fitness environment for all. Body Positive Fitness has a robust team of instructors and trainers and offers both in-person and virtual classes and personal sessions.

Jenna is offering listeners of the Fat Joy podcast 50% off the drop-in rate with a $45 Flexible 5 Class Pass. Promo code: JOY45. (Price is in Canadian dollars, which is approximately $35 USD) Thank you, Jenna!!!

Check out the Body Positive Fitness website.

This episode’s poem is by Kealoha and is called “students of movement.”

Sophia Apostol, the host of Fat Joy, has started the Fat Joy newsletter where you’ll get behind-the-scenes info on guests, hot takes, and top recommendations for all things fat joy. As a thank you for subscribing to the Fat Joy newsletter, you’ll get immediate access, for free, to 55 videos that only paid supporters have been able to see until now. These minisodes were recorded after Sophia & her guest finished the main interview and Sophia asked them 10 unexpected questions for “Some Extra Fat Joy.”

Should you want to support the Fat Joy podcast financially, you can become a paid subscriber of the Fat Joy newsletter and receive subscriber-only content from Sophia.

You can connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, and YouTube (full video episodes here!).

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

With the creation of Fat Torah, Rabbi Dr. Minna Bromberg (she/her) shows people how their religious & spiritual lives can be a liberatory space. Minna broke up with diet culture at 16, but it was when she became a rabbi that she began to write and speak about fat liberation within the Jewish community. She shares how the stories from the Torah and Bible can be read as liberationist, how belonging can be derailed by unconscious bias, and how joy is a spiritual obligation in the Jewish faith.

Rabbi Dr. Minna Bromberg is passionate about bringing her three decades of experience in fat activism to writing and teaching and change-making at the nexus of Judaism and body liberation. Since becoming a rabbi, Minna has led a 250-family Conservative congregation in Reading, PA, released her fifth album of original music, made aliyah, and run the Year-in-Israel program for Hebrew College rabbinical students. When she’s not working on Fat Torah, she’s a voice teacher who specializes in helping people use their voices in leading prayer. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband, Rabbi Alan Abrams, and their two children. Her forthcoming book is “Every Body Beloved: a call for fat liberation in Jewish life.”

Please connect with Minna on Fat Torah.

This episode’s poem is by Ha Jin and is called “A Center.”

Bonus content with Minna through Apple Podcast Subscriptions and on Patreon.

Please connect with Fat Joy on our website, Instagram, and YouTube (full video episodes here!). Want to share the love? Please rate this podcast and give it a review.

Our thanks to AR Media and Emily MacInnis for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful

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