Greenfield Recorder – The first rule of this hiking club? No diet talk: The Body Liberation Outdoor Club comes to the valley

The founder of the Body Liberation Outdoor Club saw “The Fat Babe Pool Party” on “Shrill,” the Hulu series about a fat woman’s journey to accepting her body, and felt like she was in a dream. In the fourth episode of the first season, the main character is bombarded with messages that the way she looks is just… wrong. There’s “Toned Tanya,” who meets her at a cafe, grabs her by the wrist and declares, “There’s a little human inside you that’s dying to get out.” There’s her obesity-obsessed editor, who criticizes her “sloppiness” for being late for a company outing where she has to exercise. And then suddenly she’s at an “inclusive” pool party where women who look like her are dancing to Ariana Grande in bright bikinis. She arrives in a dark button-up shirt and black jeans, and in the middle of the party she dances alone, as if no one is watching—or as if everyone is so busy being in their own bodies and finding pleasure in their own bodies that she is in a whole new world.

Fat babe bliss finally gives her permission to get in the pool. After a beautiful scene where she swims like a mermaid, she meets her horrible boss, who inspires her to go on this rant about the fear of obesity: “It’s a (expletive) mind prison… that every (expletive) woman everywhere has been programmed to believe… And I’ve wasted so much time and energy and money on what? On… pain.”

Three years ago, Alexa Rosales saw this with fascination. Rosales, a nature lover who had been criticized for her weight since she was eight years old, had to do something at the age of 30.

“I felt like I really wanted to be invited to this pool party,” she says. “I felt like I really needed a place where I could feel completely and utterly myself.” That feeling dovetailed with the work she was already doing in therapy to unlearn decades of negative self-talk and heal her body after two bariatric surgeries, weight-loss camps, boot camps, and “the literal physical abuse I’d endured to lose weight.” In 2021, she founded the first Body Liberation Outdoor Club (BLOC) chapter in Hudson Valley, New York. Today, there are 30 international chapters, including three in Massachusetts—and a new club in Pioneer Valley, whose hiking program begins this month.

How it works

“It’s hard to have a body in this world,” says Annie Schwartz, Berkshires office manager and size-inclusive care coordinator at Community Health Programs (CHP) in Great Barrington. “The anti-fat bias hurts everyone. It keeps the smallest among us in fear and terror. There is no end point. There is no safe place for anyone.”

Schwartz, who works as a clinical nutritionist at CHP and owns Annie Schwartz Nutrition, joined BLOC because she believed in its mission – to give everyone the permission Rosales felt while watching that groundbreaking episode of “Shrill.” Hikes and other outdoor activities like swimming and yoga are open to everyone. Each event begins with a quick summary of the rules: no diet talk, the group moves at the pace of the slowest participant, and there will be plenty of breaks.

“There is no shortage of people who want this space,” says Schwartz, whose trips average six to eight participants. “But many are afraid the space won’t welcome them. People have mixed feelings about existing in their bodies, even in explicitly inclusive spaces.”

Regular participant Simone Backstedt drove from Westfield to her first hike in the Berkshire chapter with some trepidation: “Even though the club advertises group-paced walking, I didn’t know what to expect.” But the warmth of everyone quickly put her at ease. “The whole mood in the group is: ‘We’re in this together,'” she says. And together in nature. She mentions that during one break she was happy to learn about edible wild plants from a fellow hiker. “You definitely stop and enjoy your surroundings. You’re really in nature.”

Nature nourishes

Rosales points out that nature is a “no-judgment zone,” although she sees significant overlap between the diet and exercise industries. That’s why the BLOC doesn’t track anything – calories burned, elevation gained – except distance, “so we know where we started and where we end.”

“Most people who join our club have experienced trauma through sport, so we take away the shame associated with it,” she explains. Rosales experiences nature as a representative and compassionate mirror. “I see a lot of myself in nature. I see a lot of curves in nature, a lot of diversity, and that reminds me that if nature is so diverse, why can’t body sizes be so different too?”

Like the protagonist of “Shrill,” Rosales has experienced a radical shift in her relationship with herself that has motivated her to lead others into a shameless space. “There are so many situations where I’ve literally risked my life to be smaller,” she says. “The world tells people with larger bodies that we’re just wrong, that you can’t be an athlete at this size, that you can’t climb a mountain at this size. But I’m capable in the body that I have now. I can hike with the body that I have now. I can swim with the body that I have now. I’m going to keep doing this because I keep hearing stories about others who need a space to heal.”

The Pioneer Valley chapter of BLOC, led by BZ and Mike Catalano, will release their summer schedule soon. Visit Instagram: @bodyliberationhikingpioneervly or email [email protected].

Melissa Karen Sances lives in Western Massachusetts, where she writes memoirs and interesting stories about extraordinary people. You can reach her at [email protected].