Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye —

It is with a heavy heart that I share some thoroughly depressing news.

Rachelle (aka Statistical Freak, aka No Celery Please) has decided to retire from Fierce, Freethinking Fatties (for good this time). She will still be around, reading and commenting, but she is putting her incredible blogging skills to a rest.

Rachelle has been with us since we launched this endeavor last February, and she is one of those people who I credit with the success that we have had at FFFs. Her energy, enthusiasm and embrasure of Fat Acceptance has made her our favorite iconoclast.

As many of you know, Rachelle is a member the National Weight Control Registry, which is for people who have lost weight and maintained that loss for over a year. Her struggle to maintain her weight and her willingness to share that struggle with us has provided a unique perspective on the issues that matter to us: the fallacy of Calories In/Calories Out; her developing love of movement from a HAES perspective; fat activism for the shy (or lazy); and the many ways in which weight cycling completely fucks your metabolism.

She has also raised our awareness of exercise bulimia and the media’s reinforcement of that disorder; trying to be a better person; and some good ol’ fashioned feminist skewering.

And, of course, one my favorite things about Rachelle was her ability to explain her own difficult lifestyle choices within the framework of Fat Acceptance and how she could bridge the seeming dissonance between the two. The best example of that was when she explained why Vanessa Reece’s transition from FA advocate to weight-loss guru was so galling.

For almost a year, Rachelle has graced us with her hard-core, roller derby badassedness and I, for one, am sorry to see her go. But I am grateful for all that she has left us with and I wish her all the best both in her personal journey and in her public activism, and I’m so glad that she helped us build Fierce, Freethinking Fatties into what it is today.

And so, with that in mind, I have created a Hall of FFFFame, where we will celebrate those bloggers who have made a powerful impact on our blogging community and whose voices will be missed (I will have to go back and add a few more who have left before, to be sure).

Thank you, Rachelle, for all that you have done for FFFs and for all your insights that have educated, entertained and enlightened us. Good luck to you!