It’s been 4 years since the keto diet cured my back pain. Then it went ahead and cured my sleep habits, my migraines, my reflux, my plantar fasciitis, my menstrual cycle, and my depression. Suffice it to say, keto changed my life.

I’ve written a keto quick start guide that is the least you need to know to get started eating keto. If you just want to jump right in and get started without a lot of extra details this keto quick start guide is for you. Additionally, at the end I’ve included a troubleshooting checklist for if you have any problems along the way.

I’m gonna tell you everything you need to know about the Diva Cup. Because it’s an unfortunate fact that many women are bothered and inconvenienced by their monthly menstruation. It’s no surprise, though. Periods are expensive, require a lot of contraptions, are wasteful, smell bad, and are just generally annoying.

Or are they? 

I used to get annoyed at all the aspects of menstruation. There’s a high cost associated with buying the needed products, and then you have to make sure to have those products on hand when you need them and in great quantity. I despaired at creating so much trash to throw out every month. The smell of menstruation on a tampon or pad was yucky to me. The sticky material of pads and the scraping material of tampons was more annoyance piled on.

Then I found the Diva Cup. Well, technically, I found the Keeper first, but it smelled even worse, and then my dog ate it. When I went to replace it, I found the Diva Cup, and I’m in menstruation heaven with it.

I’ve been using the Diva Cup for over 15 years. I’ve never looked back!

What Is The Diva Cup?

The Diva Cup is a small container made of non-absorbent health grade silicone that you insert into you vagina to sits near the bottom and collect menstrual blood. When it’s full you dump it out, rinse it off, and stick it back in. It’s so simple.

The benefits of the Diva Cup are almost too many to list, but here are a few of my favorites. I feel like an infomercial, but the truth is that I honestly love this product to death.

Comfort: Since the Diva Cup is made of a soft, smooth material, it’s not uncomfortable to insert or wear. Tampons used to scrape up my insides, and the plastic material on the top of pads made my outer labia raw. The Diva Cup is completely unnoticeable when I’m wearing it, and goes in and out easily.

TSS Risk: The Diva Cup doesn’t absorb or block your flow. Rather, it simply collects it in the cup. This means you can wear it for extended periods of time with no risk of TSS.

Environmental Impact: The Diva Cup is reusable and lasts nearly forever. This means that there’s nothing else to buy and no landfill waste is generated month after month.

Financial Cost: You can get a Diva Cup for less than $30. And then that’s it. No more trips to the store at the last minute to stock up. I’ve purchased three cups for around $65 total over 15 years. That means I’ve spent about 42 cents a period, and that cost is always going down.

Smell: Blood begins to smell bad when it hits the air. The blood on pads? Ick. Even the blood on tampons can begin to smell. With the cup, though, the blood is not exposed to the air until you take the cup out, meaning it smells like menstrual blood, of course, but not menstrual blood that’s “going bad”.

The Hippie Aspects of the Diva Cup

Some women worry about the mess with using a cup. The Diva Cup website claims you can insert it and remove it with no mess, and I mostly agree. However, it may happen now and then that you get blood on your fingers This happens for me most when I’m having a heavy flow, usually in the first 2 days of my cycle. I’m a big hippie, and touching my own menstrual flow is hardly a concern, but other women might be more bothered.

The other awesome hippie thing about the Diva Cup is how much you learn about your menstrual flow when using it. You can see how much fluid you’re producing. You can see the changes in the color of the flow over the course of your period. I’ve noticed that sometimes my flow is very thick and dark red and other times it’s almost watery. I find this knowledge fascinating.

Overall Convenience

For overall menstruation convenience, the Diva Cup can’t be beat. It’s soooo much cheaper and soooo much easier on your body. I’ve found it easy to always keep my cup in my purse, so it’s always there when I need it. If you know when you’re about to start, you can even go ahead and put it in, so there’s never a risk of leaking.

The Paradox

The Diva Cup has changed my experience of menstruating in an almost paradoxical way. On one hand, my period is almost an afterthought now. It doesn’t concern me or bother me much. On the other hand, I’m almost more focused on it when it’s happening, because I’m paying more attention to the details of my flow, rather than trying to wish them away. It’s a good paradox, in stark contrast to the experience of so many other women: hating and loathing their periods while spending so much money and effort on them.

Buy a Diva Cup!

Go get your own Diva Cup! You won’t regret it. Here are a couple of links (disclosure: these are affiliate links) for you:

• Diva Cup, #1 Pre-Childbirth Cup – for women under 30 or women who have NOT given birth vaginally
• Diva Cup, #2 Post Childbirth Cup – for women over 30 or women who have given birth vaginally.

Enjoy!

Have you tried the Diva Cup yourself or some other reusable menstrual product?

That’s an ironic title, of course. I think. I went over several possibilities for titling this post. Another one I considered was:

GLUTEN-FREE, WHEAT-FREE, SUGAR-HATERS ARE A BUNCH OF QUACKS, AMIRITE???

Because I kind of feel that way. I have celiac friends, and I don’t think they’re full of shit, but I’m talking about this seemingly sudden, ubiquitous avoidance of various food parts for vague and yet miraculous-sounding health reasons. Call me a skeptic, I guess.

(Note: this post discusses diet modification to address health concerns.)

I have had increasingly debilitating back pain for the last two years. Lower back, left side. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t really stand for more than 5 minutes. Cooking a meal, grocery shopping, or other mundane life tasks were getting more and more difficult to manage. I could barely walk sometimes.

My doctor was a little mystified about my pain because it doesn’t shoot down the back of my legs, and it also stopped when I sat down. An xray showed nothing. She gave me a month-long anti-inflammatory prescription hoping it was just some kind of inflammation. After a month, no improvement. At my last appointment with her, we scheduled an MRI.

On another note, we also discussed my PCOS. In part to address my PCOS symptoms, I decided to try eating low-carb. Like, really, really low carb. I’m keeping it under 20g a day.

I’m not sure what I expected to happen or when, but I did not expect that three days later my back pain would be gone. 100% gone. Not lessened, not “better”. Cured.

I no longer have back pain.

It’s sort of a big WTF for me. Is is the gluten? The wheat? Sugar in general? The mother of all coincidences? But excruciating back pain doesn’t just vanish in a single day! It’s the fucking gluten. My little skeptical self is sure it’s the fucking gluten, just to spite me.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m never eating carbs again. I love carbs, don’t get me wrong. All of them. But I also love being able to stand up. It’s pretty nifty. It’s been 14 days, and not a single twinge of back pain. In fact, the soles of my feet kind of hurt because I’ve been having a really, really good time standing up as long as I fucking want to.

I have absolutely no advice for you, because this is all kind of weird to me. Maybe it’s some kind of conspiracy? To get me to blog about going low-carb? Because trust me, I had no intentions of mentioning it when it was just about treating PCOS.

But now I feel like I have to say this at least once as some sort of PSA. So there ya go. Quit carbs; cured my back pain.

Cosmo has done a couple of fat-positive articles lately. Don’t be misled – Cosmo still sucks. They want fat women listening to their shitty message. That doesn’t earn them a cookie.

BUT. One recent feature, “What Being a Fat Woman is Really Like”, was an interview with two anonymous self-identified fat women. Fat bloggers all across the web have taken up the questions and answered them themselves.

There’s a list of participating bloggers here, and I’m going to add my voice to the stream as well.

Feel free to ask more questions in the comments. Here’s your chance to ask a fat woman about what it’s really like!

How do you feel when other women around you complain about feeling/being fat?

Is someone doing that diet-type small talk, like, “Ooh, I shouldn’t have had that second helping, my belly is huge!” while patting their tiny belly and giggling? Then I think, “Have some fucking tact,” and I want to punch them in the fucking face.

On the other hand, I was once present when a skinny woman had a bit of a freakout over how “fat” she had gotten recently. All I felt was great compassion for her. Being skinny doesn’t insulate you from the force of body hatred in our culture. Being skinny doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to express the effect that culture is having on yourself and your view of your body. When a skinny person talks about how they feel about their body, I do wish they would NOT use the words that describe MY body and not theirs. But, I get it. I do. I am a much better ally for that freaking out skinny person that the people who stood around her going, “Oh no! You’re not fat! You’re hot!” which just reinforces the message that fat is bad and that if she gets fat she won’t be hot anymore.

How has your body image changed since high school? College?

I had a terrible body image in high school. I was a cheerleader, and at a size 9 I was one of the fat ones.

I got a lot more comfortable with my body in college. I was starting to get bigger, and I was exploring my sexuality and fashion style. I was still somewhat self-conscious about my size, but I could usually set that aside.

Have you tried dieting? What happened?

As my weight gradually climbed through my 20s, I definitely dieted. I started to feel upset about my weight. I didn’t do fad diets, but I frequently did calorie counting, calorie restriction, and exercise.

I’m fortunate that my bouts of calorie restriction usually never lasted long, so I didn’t do a lot of yo-yoing. I had only one diet that was “successful” (haha!). I lost 30 pounds and then, of course, gained 50. Right after that I decided to stop hating my body, and I haven’t dieted since then.

Do you think in your case your weight is partly or entirely genetic?

This is a bullshit question. When someone tells you why they think people are fat, all you can tell is what their own pet projects are. People who hate GMOs blame “obesity” on GMOs. People who hate processed food blame “obesity” on processed food. I’m not a geneticist, and I’m not going to make guesses about that. Besides, it doesn’t matter. For whatever reasons, I’m fat. It’s okay for that to stand on its own without digging into why.

Do you consider yourself healthy? Have there been instances where people assumed you were unhealthy?

I do not currently consider myself healthy for reasons that have to do with both my mental health and my physical health. I think people who know me have tended to assume I’m healthier than I am. It’s only been in the last few years that I have opened up about the ways in which I am unhealthy.

Are your parents both supportive of you at the weight you’re at? Have they always been?

In college when I was first getting comfortable with my body, I wore shirts that let a hint of belly show, and I was getting a bit of a poofy belly. My mom commented on that in a derogatory way. She asked if it was some kind of new fad to show off your belly even though it was getting fat. It won’t surprise you to know that I developed a habit of compulsively covering up my stomach that has been hard to break.

How do you think retailers can improve clothes for plus-size people?

That’s easy. Take those exact same clothes that you make in straight sizes and make them in plus sizes. Don’t add any more ruffles. Don’t add any sequins. Don’t add a floral print. Don’t add elastic. The. Same. Fucking. Clothes. But bigger! See?!

Do you think plus-size women are judged differently than plus-sized men are? How?

Our culture polices women’s bodies harder than men’s bodies. In all the ways.

Do you think there’s an assumption made/stereotype that exists about plus-size people? How would you respond to it?

There are a lot of stereotypes about fat people, and I’ve covered a lot of them here before. Lazy, undisciplined, eat too much, unhealthy, ugly, stupid, slow, oversexed, undersexed, trying-to-hard, “great personality”, sad, happy… some of the stereotypes even contradict. We can’t win, although I do frequently rant about it.

Do you think there’s ever a right way or time to express concern about someone’s weight?

No. If you are worried about someone – for whatever reason – you can make yourself available to them and make yourself a close and trusted friend, so that they feel free to come to you if they are having problems and need help. If they don’t make it your business, don’t make it your business.

What are the worst things people have said to you about your body? How did you respond?

No one has said anything really negative about my body since high school, except for Reddit trolls in my inbox.

Sometimes people say things about my body that another person would be uncomfortable with, but I miss it because I don’t feel bad about my body. For example, I had a doctor once ask me if I had any unwanted hair, and I said no. A few questions later, I realized she was going down the PCOS/hypothyroidism checklist of questions. I said, “Oh! That hair question. You want to check the yes box. I have a lot of hair in a lot of places for a woman. But it isn’t unwanted hair!” She laughed and changed the answer.

Comments about fat are kind of the same way. I get emails telling me I’m fat. Sometimes they use food words to describe me, or animal words. Hamplanet is a common one. Is that supposed to be an insult? I think it’s pretty funny imagery. Sometimes they call me a pig. Uh… I love pigs!

What have people said (or do you wish they’d say) that would compliment your body or appearance?

Unless I’m in costume, I don’t want compliments on my appearance. What I look like is just… what I look like. I don’t have a whole lot to do with it. I’d rather get compliments on something that I try hard to succeed at, like parenting or blogging.

Do you find yourself hanging out with women who are closer to your size?

No. I have friends who are fatter than me and friends who are skinnier than me.

How has your weight affected your sex life, if at all?

It didn’t for years, but I have gained some weight and changed shape some since Dylan was born. That has required some positioning adjustments.

When you’ve been single, has your weight affected your dating life?

I haven’t been single or “dating” since college. I’m more into fucking my friends, and my weight isn’t much of a factor there. Presumably there are people out there who don’t want to fuck me because of my size, but I hope they continue to keep it to themselves.

Do you feel weird if the guy you’re with only dates larger women?

No. 65% of Americans are fat. It would be easy to only date fat people. I wouldn’t want to date someone who fetishized my fat.

Do you feel weird if he’s only dated slimmer women before you?

No. Most people are slimmer than me!

More Reading…

And that’s that for the Cosmo questions. What do you think? Want to read more about the experience of being fat? Don’t forget to read the other bloggers’ answers to these same questions.

(Affiliate links ahead!) You can also check out Fat Chicks Rule!: How To Survive in a Thin-Centric World for a “fun, fact-filled guide to living the big girl’s life with style” or any of the other books on my Fat Acceptance Books list.

Do you have any questions of your own?

Enjoying Exercise in Spite of Obstacles
by Kitty Sarkozy

I am fat and I love exercise. My day just doesn’t feel right without physical activity.

I do aerobics, yoga, dance and weightlifting when I intentionally exercise, but I unintentionally exercise a lot too, gardening and cleaning mostly. Today I moved a bunch of bricks, did a good bit of digging and some raking.

However, I understand how exercise can increase ones body hatred.

I don’t like going to the gym, because when people see me working out, sweating, pushing myself they feel they have to say something. They ask “How much have you lost?” and “How much are you trying to lose?”.

That hurts, because there I am using my body the way I want, feeling good for my strength or speed and some stranger walks up and implies that my body isn’t good enough.

[pullquote]Note from Issa: Jeanette DePatie makes “The Fat Chick Works Out” workout videos for people of all ages and shapes, including “klutzes, wimps, and absolute beginners”. She will NOT shame your body, your abilities, or your motives. [/pullquote]I do videos often. And sometimes they can be emotionally hurtful too. The person on the TV says “You are burning those calories” or “You are going to have a flat tummy in no time” or “Keep doing this and your arms will not jiggle anymore”.

I try to ignore it, but I get so mad sometimes. I don’t want a flat tummy and my arms are always going to jiggle. I am OK with that, but the TV person sells their videos by telling people their bodies are not good enough.

Recently I have lost weight. I want to say that I feel neutral about this, but I don’t. I feel weird about it sometimes. I find myself thinking “Maybe I should diet, I bet I could lose a few more pounds” and “Maybe I shouldn’t eat that food or so much of it”.

When those thoughts happen I try to logic them away, but they are still always on the edge, and I don’t like that. I love food and the food at my house is amazing. I don’t want to count calories or manage my portions. I feel like sometimes my brain is a traitor, thinking hurtful things about my body.

For right now, I am going to keep exercising for a few reasons. First and most importantly because I like it. But also, because it is my fucking body and I will beat these feelings, I will not let professional thin people tell me that my body is “wrong” and let myself believe it.

[pullquote]I exercise because I am still the boss of this body. {Tweet this.}[/pullquote]If I stop exercising because of the message that fat is wrong, then I am agreeing that fat is wrong. I would be agreeing that there are some things that fat people should not do, and that is not going to happen while I am still the boss of this body.