Queers Against Diet Culture

Riah Spivey

Queers Against Diet Culture is a radically queer, anti-diet podcast hosted by health coach and nutritionist Riah Spivey. This is a safe space for queers of all sizes to unlearn toxic food rules while reclaiming body autonomy. If you're done with the shame, and ready for healthier relationships with food and your body, you're in the right place.

  1. Jun 2

    The Femininity Tax: What Fat Queer Women Are Expected to Prove

    In this episode, we're talking about something that doesn't get named nearly enough: the unspoken expectation that fat queer women perform conventional femininity as compensation for their bodies. Not femininity as self-expression, not femme as a queer identity and aesthetic, but femininity as apology, as proof, as a tax paid to a culture that has already decided your body requires justification. We're tracing where this expectation comes from historically, how capitalism and the plus-size fashion industry cash in on it, why androgyny is a thin person's aesthetic in a way that rarely gets talked about, and what it actually costs (financially, physically, psychologically) to perform a presentation that was never really yours. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: High Priestess Reversed ✨ Journal prompt: Is there a version of yourself, a way of presenting, a style, or an aesthetic, that you've never let yourself try because you didn't think you had the right body type for it? What would it mean to try it anyway? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll

    22 min

  2. May 12

    What is America’s Protein Obsession Really About?

    In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on one of wellness culture's most beloved obsessions. We're tracing the protein craze from its roots in 19th century racist nutrition science, through the bodybuilding boom of the 70s and 80s, to the multi-billion dollar supplement industry that depends on your anxiety to function. We're also talking about the flip side: the demonization of carbs, and why the foods being villainized just happen to be the staple foods of most of the world's cultures. We dig into what your body actually needs (probably way less than you've been told), who bears the heaviest burden of protein culture (including queers, fats, and communities of color whose food traditions have been dismissed as inferior by the same system now repackaging and reselling them at a markup) and why protein obsession is one of the most common unrecognized entry points into disordered eating. We close with practical tools to help you start untangling your relationship with protein and the fear of carbs that so often comes with it. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: Three of Pentacles Reversed ✨ Journal prompt: What kind of body have I been told protein will help me achieve? Is that actually what I want, or have I been taught to want it? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll Chapters (00:00:00) - Queers Against Diet Culture(00:00:28) - What's America's Protein Obsession Really About?(00:01:38) - Tarot Card, Three of Pentacles R reversed(00:02:46) - How The Protein Obsession Started(00:06:31) - Protein and Fatphobia(00:10:06) - What Your Body Actually Needs(00:11:25) - Is it Even Possible to Become Protein Deficient?(00:13:03) - What Happens When You Eat Too Much Protein?(00:15:56) - Queer People & Protein Culture(00:21:29) - Six Ways to Stop Feeling Like You're Not Getting Enough Protein

    25 min

  3. Apr 21

    The Politics of Body Hair

    Body hair has been framed as a personal choice for so long that most of us never stop to question it. But the way we groom ourselves isn’t as neutral as it feels. In this episode, we’re unpacking the history, politics, and power structures behind body hair, from early 1900s razor ads to the way hairlessness became tied to cleanliness and morality. We also explore how these expectations show up differently across identities, especially within queer and trans experiences, and how body hair can become a site of both pressure and reclamation. This isn’t about telling you whether to shave or not, it’s about helping you understand where your choices come from so you can decide what actually feels like you. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: Three of Swords Reversed ✨ Journal prompt: Do my grooming choices come from a desire to feel comfortable in my body or from a desire to be accepted by others? What would it look like to prioritize my own comfort? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll

    24 min

  4. Feb 10

    Learning to Trust Your Body When You've Been Taught Not To

    If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your body, second-guessed your hunger, ignored your intuition, or felt afraid to listen to yourself, this episode is for you. In this episode, we unpack how diet culture trains us to distrust our bodies, why that distrust can feel even deeper for queer folks, and what “trusting your body” actually looks like in real life (spoiler: it’s not perfect intuition or constant confidence). We talk about why trust feels so scary, how rebuilding it is a practice, and gentle tools you can start using without forcing yourself into “body trust” before you’re ready. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: The Moon ✨ Journal prompts: In what small ways does my body already try to communicate with me? What happens inside me when I ignore a bodily signal versus when I listen to one? Where am I confusing control with safety? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll

    29 min

  5. Jan 27

    Unlearning the Beauty Standards That Were Never Made for Us

    Mainstream beauty standards weren’t created with queer bodies, identities, or lives in mind, yet many of us spend years trying to mold ourselves to fit them anyway. In this episode, we unpack where cis-hetero beauty ideals come from, how they harm queer and trans folks specifically, and why so much of what we’ve been taught to call “beauty” is actually about control, conformity, and survival. This isn’t about creating a new standard to live up to, but about loosening the grip beauty rules have on us. If you’ve ever felt like your body, your gender, or your self-expression was “wrong” simply because it didn’t align with what you were shown growing up, this episode is an invitation to see things more clearly and to start defining beauty in ways that actually support your life. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: Ace of Swords ✨ Journal prompts: When did I first learn what was considered “beautiful” and who did I learn it from? Which beauty standards have I been trying to meet that were never designed for my body or my identity? When do I feel the most like myself? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll Chapters (00:00:07) - Queers Against Diet Culture(00:02:30) - A Tarot Card for This Episode(00:05:43) - The CIS hetero Beauty Standard(00:11:09) - What does heteronormativity look like in queer communities?(00:13:43) - Why Unlearning Beauty Standards Feels So Hard(00:16:04) - How to Reclaim Your Beauty

    25 min

  6. Jan 13

    Why Emotional Eating Isn't a Problem to Fix

    Emotional eating has been framed as a failure of willpower for far too long, but what if it’s actually your body trying to communicate, not a behavior that needs to be controlled? In this episode, we unpack why emotional eating isn’t the villain diet culture makes it out to be, how restriction and shame often make it worse, and why food has become one of the only “allowed” coping tools for so many people. We explore emotional eating as a signal, and talk about what healing can look like when the goal isn’t to stop eating emotionally, but to listen more closely to what your body and emotions are asking for. We also look at emotional eating through a queer lens, discuss how diet culture intensifies emotional coping cycles, and offer practical tools to expand your emotional toolbox. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt broken for eating emotionally, and is ready to replace shame with understanding and curiosity. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: The Sun ✨ Journal prompts: What messages did I learn about emotional eating growing up? What does my body need in moments of overwhelm besides food? What do I want to remember the next time emotional eating shows up? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll Chapters (00:00:07) - Queers Against Diet Culture(00:03:20) - Tarot(00:05:55) - What is Emotional Eating?(00:08:42) - Why Emotional Eating Is So Distressing(00:13:19) - How diet culture makes emotional eating harder for queer people(00:20:43) - What Real Healing Looks Like(00:21:42) - 5 Tools to Cope With Emotional Eating

    30 min

  7. 12/30/2025

    Queer Hunger: What We Learn to Silence and How We Take It Back

    In this episode, we explore queer hunger, not just the hunger for food, but the hunger for safety, belonging, desire, pleasure, and the freedom to take up space. We look at how queer folks learn to shrink themselves to survive and how that survival mode impacts our relationship with food, our bodies, our nervous systems, and our sense of worth. Together, we unpack the many forms of silenced hunger, the way queerness is already rooted in abundance, and the lifelong work of reclaiming our fullness. We talk about masking, perfectionism, sensory needs, people-pleasing, internalized shame, and the ways the world teaches queer people to make themselves smaller to stay safe. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: Eight of Pentacles  ✨ Journal prompts: Where in your life were you first told you were “too much”? Who benefits from you staying small? What does my body do when my needs feel “dangerous”? (Shut down? Get smaller? Get louder? Mask?) What are the earliest cues my body gives me when I’m hungry that I tend to miss or overlook? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll Chapters (00:00:07) - Queer Hunger(00:02:01) - Reversed 8 of Pentacles(00:21:33) - How to Reclaim Your Hunger(00:27:55) - How to Reclaim Hunger

    29 min

  8. 12/16/2025

    Surviving the Holidays: Navigating Food, Family, and Boundaries

    The holidays can be beautiful… and brutal. Especially if you’re navigating diet culture, complicated family dynamics, identity stress, sensory overwhelm, or a history of being dismissed, criticized, or misunderstood. In this episode, we dive deep into why holiday gatherings feel so hard, and how to protect your peace, your body, and your energy during a season that can bring up a lot. ✨ Tarot pull of the week: Queen of Wands Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersagainstdietculture/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581527639476 Interested in being a guest on this podcast? Fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/MMZ4vZSfmm8j4bV5A Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll Chapters (00:00:07) - Queers Against Diet Culture(00:00:29) - How to Navigate the Holidays(00:02:40) - The Queen of Wands(00:05:10) - Why Holidays Are So Hard(00:14:18) - What Are Boundaries?(00:15:16) - How to Build Boundaries During the Holidays(00:21:31) - How to Cope During the Holidays (with Boundaries!)(00:30:48) - What Happens When Your Family Doesn't Feel Safe(00:32:31) - What It Means to Not Feel Safe

    43 min
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About

Queers Against Diet Culture is a radically queer, anti-diet podcast hosted by health coach and nutritionist Riah Spivey. This is a safe space for queers of all sizes to unlearn toxic food rules while reclaiming body autonomy. If you're done with the shame, and ready for healthier relationships with food and your body, you're in the right place.

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