The Burnt Toast Podcast

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Emily Ladau, a disability rights activist, and author of Demystifying Disability. Our conversation today is about the many intersections between anti-fatness and ableism. This is such an important conversation, even if you feel like you’re new to both of these worlds. We investigate who is considered a “worthy” disabled person or a Good Fatty — and how these stereotypes so often pit two marginalization experiences against each other. Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you!PS. You can take 10 percent off Demystifying Disability, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you’ve previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Episode 213 TranscriptEmilyI am a disability rights activist. I am a wheelchair user. I’m the author of a book called Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but all of that is really just to say that I am very passionate about educating people about the disability experience, and doing it through a lens that recognizes that we’re all at a different point on the journey of thinking about disability and talking about disability. I really want to welcome people into what I know can be a sometimes overwhelming and uncomfortable conversation.VirginiaYou have been a disability rights activist since you appeared on Sesame Street as a 10 year old. I saw the clip. It’s just adorable, little baby Emily. I mean, first tell us about that if you want! Or if you’re sick of talking about it, I get it. But I would also love to know: When did your disability rights work morph into fat liberation work? And how do you see these two spheres intersecting?EmilyOn the Sesame Street note, my family likes to joke that I am totally milking that, because it happened when I was 10. But that was the first moment that I really understood that disabled people do have a place in the media. Prior to that, I had not seen almost anyone who looked like me, with the exception of two books that I read over and over again. And one other little girl who was also on Sesame Street who used a wheelchair.VirginiaWow.EmilyAnd I’m sure maybe somewhere else out there, there were other things. But I was an early 90s kid, and the media had just not caught up to showing me that I belonged. So having that experience is something that I really don’t take for granted.I like to joke that in many ways, I am the “typical” disabled person. If you look up a stock photo of someone with a disability, it’s probably a white woman using a wheelchair. Oddly enough, she’s probably also on a beach, holding her arms out. You know? VirginiaAs soon as you said it, I have a visual. I’ve seen that picture. Obviously, she’s on a beach.EmilyYes, so I am sort of the cliche version. But at the same time, I’m not. Because there’s sort of an “acceptable” disabled person, and she is the thin, pretty, white woman who is sitting in a wheelchair. I meet, I suppose, some of those traits, but I am someone who, in later years so far, has come to identify as fat and no longer sees that as the derogatory term that it was always leveraged towards me as.Any relationship that I have to fat liberation work has been sort of an evolutionary process for me. It’s newer to me. I didn’t understand when I was younger how that fit into disability rights work. But I see now that we can’t have those conversations separately. First of all, every issue is a disability issue. So every issue impacts disabled people. And second of all, the disability community encompasses every identity, every body type, every experience. There are more than a billion disabled people around the world. So you absolutely have every single possible body type within the disability community. And if we are not talking about fat liberation, if we are not talking about LGBTQIA+ rights, if we are not talking about ensuring that our work is meaningfully intersectional, then it’s not actually disability rights work.VirginiaBut it is tricky to figure out how all those things intersect and fit together for sure.EmilyI feel like I’m constantly playing a game of Tetris with that. And I don’t mean that to say, oh, woe is me. But more so, how do we get society to recognize how those pieces interlock with one another?VirginiaDo you mind sharing a little bit about how anti-fatness shows up in your own experiences? Sometimes it’s helpful to name those moments, because some people listening might think, oh, I’ve had that too, and I didn’t know to name it as anti-fatness, or, oh, I’ve been on the wrong side of that. And it’s helpful to hear why that was not helpful.EmilyThere is no clear direction to take this answer, because it’s impacted me in two diametrically opposed ways.The first is that I have been judged incredibly harshly as being lazy, as being unhealthy, as being someone who maybe doesn’t take care of myself in the way that I should. And the wheelchair is seen as the cause of that.On the flip side, I have also been treated as though disability is the only cause of anything going on in my body, and therefore I should be given a free pass if I am considered, as doctors would say, “overweight.”VirginiaIt’s like, Oh, it’s okay. You’re in a wheelchair. What can we do? We can’t expect you to go for a run.EmilyExactly. So you see what I mean. It’s either one or the other. I’m either bad and lazy or it’s like, oh, poor you. You can’t get up and exercise.VirginiaBoth of those are such judgmental, patronizing ways to talk about you and your body.EmilyThey’re super frustrating. I think that both of those are anti-fatness in their own right. But for me, it sends conflicting messages, because I’m trying to seek medical support for certain issues. And some doctors are like, “Lose weight!” And other doctors are like, “Well, we can’t do anything because you’re in a wheelchair.” And so both of those are very unhelpful responses.VirginiaOh man, it really speaks to the lack of intersectional care in medicine, that people don’t know how to hold these two facts together and also give you comprehensive medical care at the same time.EmilyI wish that we could just have disabled people speaking with medical students as a requirement in every single medical school program. But instead, I feel like we’re either completely relegated to the sidelines of conversations in medical school, or maybe we’re brought up in very clinical and dehumanizing ways, and we don’t stop to think holistically about a person.It’s interesting, because my mom has often said—and I should note, she has the same disability that I do. So she’s a wheelchair user as well. But she feels very strongly that a lot of other medical issues that I am dealing with now were overlooked when I was younger, because everybody was so hung up on my disability that nobody was offering me the support that I needed for other things that could have, in turn, prevented some of what I’m now navigating.So it seems like healthcare can’t hold multiple truths at once.They can’t think about your body and think about everything going on. It’s either you’re fat or you’re disabled.VirginiaGod forbid you have a health condition that is not weight linked and not linked to your disability. That’s going to throw them completely for a loop.EmilyYeah, it’s very much a binary. I think that it’s led to a lot of confusion among healthcare providers. Certainly, I know there have been delayed diagnoses on many, many things. I’ve also had it leveraged against me in terms of what I would consider chronic illness, because I would get sick pretty regularly when I was a child, and every time I would throw up, it would be thrown in my face: “Well you’re eating poorly. You’re not taking care of yourself.” And nobody thought to do anything to check what was actually going on. They just thought that I was not taking care of myself. Turns out I had gallstones and needed my gallbladder removed. But when people see the wheelchair, they don’t take me seriously.VirginiaNo, and let’s be clear: Gallstones is not a condition you can treat by eating salad. Like, that’s not something you can nutrition your way out of.EmilyI could not lettuce my way out of that one.VirginiaAre there any strategies you’ve figured out that helps you get a doctor to cut through some of those biases, or cut through some of that noise and actually focus on what you need them to focus on?EmilyI have to rehearse what I want to say in a doctor’s appointment. And I don’t think I’m unique in that. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who put together their notes and think through very carefully what they want to say before they go. As much as doctors tend to be frustrated when the patient comes in and it’s clear that they were reading WebMD, I’ve found I need to point them in the right direction, because at least it gets them started down the path that I’m hoping to explore.And I’m not saying that I think that I have years of medical school worth of expertise, but when I was little, I used to always complain to my parents, “You’re not in my body. You don’t know how I’m feeling.”VirginiaSo wise.EmilyAnd I think that that remains relevant. I’m not trying to be a difficult patient. But I have very strong awareness of what is happening internally and externally. And so if I come in and I seem like I have it together and I’m prepared, I feel like doctors take me more seriously. And I have a lot of privilege here, because I am a white woman. I communicate verbally. English is my first language. So in a lot of ways, I can prepare in this way. But I don’t think I should have to, to get the medical care that I need.VirginiaDoctors should be meeting us where we are. We shouldn’t be expected to do hours of homework in preparation in order to be treated with basic respect and dignity. And yet, it is helpful, I think, to hear okay, this labor can be beneficial, But it’s a lot of extra labor, for sure.EmilyIt is, and I’ve broken up with doctors over it. And I’ve also had doctors who I think have broken up with me, for lack of a better way to put it.I have had multiple doctors who have just kind of said, “We don’t know how to deal with you, therefore we are not going to deal with you.” And in seeking the care that I need, I have run into walls because of it, whether it’s a literal, physical wall in the sense that I tried to seek care, because I was having GI distress. I tried to go see the doctor, and the doctor’s office was not wheelchair accessible, and they told me it was my fault for not asking beforehand.VirginiaI’m sorry, what? They’re a doctor’s office.EmilyThe one place I actually thought I would be fine and not have to double check beforehand. So that’s sort of the physical discrimination. And then getting into the office, I’ve had doctors who have said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you.” Go see this specialist. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I can do for you, and then not return my calls.VirginiaOh, I knew this conversation was going to make me mad, but it’s really making me mad.EmilyAnd I say all of this is somebody, again, who has health insurance and access to transportation to get to and from doctors, and a general working knowledge of my own body and the healthcare system. But I mean, if it’s this much of a nightmare for me, multiply that by other marginalized identities, and it’s just absurd.VirginiaIt really is. You’ve kind of led us there already just in talking about these experiences, but I think there’s also so much ableism embedded in how we talk about weight and health. And I thought we could unpack some of that a little bit. One that you put on my radar is all this fearmongering about how we all sit down too much, and sitting is killing us. And if you have a job that requires you to sit all day, it’s taking years off your life. And yet, of course, people who use wheelchairs are sitting down. EmilyI think about this a lot, because I would say at least a few times a year some major publication releases an article that basically says we are sitting ourselves to death. And I saw one I know at least last year in the New York Times, if not this year,VirginiaNew York Times really loves this topic. They’re just all over there with their standing desks, on little treadmills all day long.EmilyI actually decided to Google it before we chatted. I typed in, “New York Times, sitting is bad for you.” And just found rows of articles.EmilyThe first time that this ever really came up for me was all the way back in 2014, and I was kind of just starting out in the world of writing and putting myself out there in that way as an activist. And I came across an article that said that the more I sit, the closer I am to death, basically.It’s really tough for me, because I’m sure there’s a kernel of truth in the sense that if you are not moving your body, you are not taking care of your body in a way that works for you. But the idea that sitting is the devil is deeply ableist, because I need to sit. That does not mean that I cannot move around in my own way, and that does not mean that I cannot function in my own way, but it’s just this idea that sitting is bad and sitting is wrong and sitting is lazy. Sitting is necessary.VirginiaSitting is just how a lot of us get things done every day, all day long.EmilyRight, exactly.VirginiaSure, there were benefits to lifestyles that involved people doing manual labor all day long and being more active. Also people died in terrible farming accidents. It’s all part of that romanticization of previous generations as somehow healthier—which was objectively not true. EmilyYou make such a good point from a historical perspective. There’s this idea that it’s only if we’re up and moving and training for a 5k that we’re really being productive and giving ourselves over to the capitalist machine, but at the same time, doing that causes disability in its own way.VirginiaSure does. Sure does. I know at least two skinny runners in my local social circle dealing with the Achilles tendons ruptures. It takes a toll on your body.EmilyOr doing farm labor, as you were talking about. I mean, an agrarian society is great until you throw your back out. Then what happens?VirginiaThere are a lot of disabled folks living with the consequences of that labor. EmilyAnd I’ve internalized this messaging. I am not at all above any of this. I mean, I’m so in the thick of it, all the time, no matter how much work I read by fat liberation activists, no matter how much I try to ground myself in understanding that fatness does not equal badness and that sitting does not equal laziness, I am so trapped in the cycle of “I ate something that was highly caloric, and now I better do a seated chair workout video for my arm cycle.” And I say this because I’m not ashamed to admit it. I want people to understand that disabled people are like all other people. We have the same thoughts, the same feelings. We are impacted by diet culture.VirginiaGetting all the same messaging.EmilyWe are impacted by fat shaming. And I know that no matter what I would tell another person, I’m still working on it for myself.VirginiaWell, I always say: The great thing about fat liberation is you don’t need to be done doing the work to show up here. We are all in a messy space with it, because it’s it’s hard to live in this world, in a body, period, And you have this added layer of dealing with the ableism that comes up. I mean, even in fat liberation spaces, which should be very body safe, we see ableism showing up a lot. And I’d love you to talk a little bit about how you see that manifesting.EmilyI think that this is a problem across pretty much every social justice movement. I just do Control F or Command F and type in the word “disability” on a website and see if it comes up in the mission statement, the vision, the values, what we care about, our issues. And so often it’s not there and you have to go digging.And I don’t say this to say that I think disability should be hierarchically more important than any other form of marginalization. I’m saying disability should be included among the list of marginalizations that we are focusing on, because it coexists with all other identities. And yet in a lot of fat liberation spaces, I still feel like I am not represented. I don’t see myself. It’s still a certain type of body, and that body is usually non-disabled or not disclosing that they have a non-apparent disability.I have a few people that I come across who I would say are in the fat liberation, fat activism spaces where they are also apparently disabled, and they are loud and they are proud about that. But for the most part, I still don’t see myself. And I think that’s where the ableism comes up, is that we are still celebrating only certain types of bodies. It’s very interesting when you’re in a space where the point is to celebrate all bodies, and yet all bodies are still not celebrated.VirginiaWell, and I want to dig into why that is, because I think it’s something really problematic in how fat politics have developed in the last 10-20, years, As the Health at Every Size movement gathered steam and gathered a following, the message that was marketable, that was easy to center and get people interested and excited about, was you can be healthy at every size. And because we have such an ableist definition of what health is, that meant, let’s show a fat person running. Let’s show a fat person rock climbing. Let’s show a fat ballerina. Let’s show a fat weight lifter, and then you’re automatically going to exclude so many people. So, so many people of other abilities.We had the folks from ASDAH on, who are the keepers of the Health at Every Size principles, and they’ve done a lot of work in recent years to start to shift this. They recognize that there was a real lack of centering disability, and I am really impressed with that. But in terms of the way the mainstream media talks about these concepts, certainly the way I talked about them in my own work for years, that mainstreaming of Health at Every Size was embedded with a lot of ableism.EmilyAnd I came to Health at Every Size pretty early on in my quest to lean into fatness and stop with the internalized body shame. But instead, I think it led to internalized ableism, because I then thought, well, if I’m not going to go climb Mount Everest, am I really living up to the principles of Health at Every Size?VirginiaThere was an expectation that we all had to be exceptional fat people. And that you had to be a mythbuster. And the reality is that fat people, just like any people, are not a monolith, and we don’t all want to rock climb, and we can’t all rock climb, and fatness can coexist with disability. It didn’t make space for that.EmilyWe say the same thing about the disability community, And in the same way that there is the “good fat person,” there is the “good disabled person.” There’s the disabled person who is seen as inspirational for overcoming hardship and overcoming obstacles. And I can’t tell you how many times I have been patronized and infantilized and treated as though it’s a miracle that I got out of bed in the morning. And I like to say to people, it’s not inspiring that I got out of bed in the morning, unless you happen to know me well and know that I’m not a morning person, in which case, yes, it is very inspiring.VirginiaI am a hero today. Thank you for noticing.EmilyI mean, I say that as a joke, but it’s true. There’s nothing inspiring about the fact that I got out of bed in the morning, but in order to be performing at all times as the good disabled person, you have to show up in a certain way in the world. And I feel like that pressure is on me doubly, as a disabled fat person.Because not only do I have to be the good disabled person who is doing my own grocery shopping, but I need to be mindful about what it is that I’m grocery shopping for.I need to be eating the salad in front of people instead of something with a lot of cheese on it, right? So I feel like, no matter what I do when I’m in public, I’m putting on a performance, or at least I’m expected to. I’ve started to be able to work through that. Years of therapy and a healthy relationship. But for a very long time, if I wasn’t the ideal disabled person and the ideal fat person in every way, then I was doing something wrong, rather than that society was wrong for putting that on me.VirginiaAnd it just feels like that’s so much bound up in capitalism, in the way we equate someone’s value with their productivity, with their ability to earn and produce and achieve. I haven’t lived as a disabled person, but I have a kid with a disability, and in the years when we were navigating much more intensely her medical condition, I definitely felt the pressure to be the A+ medical mom, the mom of the disabled kid. There are a lot of expectations on that, too. I had to know the research better than any doctor in the room. I had to have all these strategies for her social emotional health. And I had to, of course, be managing the nutrition. And I can remember feeling like, when do I get to just exist? Like, when do we get to just exist as mother and daughter? When do I get to just be a person? Because there was so much piled on there. So I can only imagine lit being your whole life is another level.EmilyI feel like I’m always putting on a show for people. I always need to do my homework. I always need to be informed. And this manifested at such an early age because I internalized this idea that, yes, I’m physically disabled. I can’t play sports. So I need to make academics into my sports, and I need to do everything I can to make sure I’m getting As and hundreds on every test. And that was my way of proving my worth.And then, well, I can’t be a ballerina, but I can still participate in adaptive dance classes. And I try to get as close as I can to being the quote, unquote, normal kid. And let me say there’s, there’s nothing wrong with adaptive programs. There’s nothing wrong with all of those opportunities. But I think that they’re all rooted somewhat in this idea that all disabled children should be as close to normalcy as possible. Some arbitrary definition of it.VirginiaYes, and the definition of normal is again, so filtered through capitalism, productivity, achievement. We need different definitions. We need diversity. We need other ways of being and modeling. EmilyAbsolutely. And what it comes down to is your life is no less worth living because you’re sitting down.VirginiaAmazing that you have to say that out loud, but thank you for saying it.EmilyI really wish somebody had said it to me. There’s so much pressure on us at all times to be better, to be thinner, to make our bodies as acceptable as possible, in spite of our disabilities, if that makes sense.There are thin and beautiful and blonde, blue-eyed, gorgeous women with disabilities. And I’m not saying that that’s my ideal. I’m just saying that’s mainstream society’s ideal. And that’s the disabled woman who will get the role when the media is trying to be inclusive, who will land the cover of the magazine when a company is trying to be inclusive. But I don’t feel like I’m part of that equation. And I’m not saying this to insult anybody’s body, because everybody’s body is valid the way that it is. But what I am saying is that I still don’t feel like there’s a place for me, no matter how much we talk about disability rights and justice, no matter how much we talk about fat liberation, no matter how much privilege I hold, I still feel like I am somehow wrong.VirginiaIt’s so frustrating. And I’m sorry that that that has to be your experience, that that’s what you’re up against. It sucks.EmilyDo you ever feel like these are just therapy sessions instead of podcasts?VirginiaI mean. It’s often therapy for me. So yes.Not to pivot to an even more uplifting topic, but I also wanted to talk about the MAHA of it all a little bit. Everything you’re saying has always been true, and this is a particularly scary and vulnerable time to be disabled.We have a Secretary of Health who says something fatphobic and/or ableist every time he opens his mouth, we have vaccine access under siege. I could go on and on. By the time this episode airs, there will be 10 new things he’s done that are terrifying. It’s a lot right now. How are you doing with that?EmilyIt’s really overwhelming, and I know I’m not alone in feeling that. And I’ll say literally, two days ago, I went and got my covid booster and my flu vaccine, and I was so happy to get those shots in my arm. I am a big believer in vaccination. And I’m not trying to drum up all the controversy here,VirginiaThis is a pro-vaccine podcast, if anyone listening does not feel that way, I’m sorry, there are other places you can work that out. I want everyone to get their covid and flu shots.EmilyI give that caveat because in the disability community, there’s this weird cross section of people who are anti-vaccine and think that it’s a disability rights issue that they are anti-vaccine. So it’s just a very messy, complicated space to be in. But I make no bones about the fact that I am very, very pro-vaccine.More broadly, it’s a really interesting time to be disabled and to be a fat disabled person, because on the one hand, technically, if you’re immunocompromised or more vulnerable, you probably have better vaccine access right now.VirginiaBecause you’re still in the ever-narrowing category of people who are eligible.EmilySo somehow being disabled is working out in my favor a little bit at the moment, but at the same time, as I say that, RFK is also spreading immense amounts of incorrect information about disability, about fitness, about what bodies can and should be doing. And he’s so hung up on finding the causes and then curing autism.VirginiaNobody asked him to do that.EmilyYeah. Like, no one. Or, actually, the problem is a few people said that they wanted it because people are very loud. Also, I saw that he reintroduced the Presidential physical fitness test.VirginiaLike I don’t have enough reasons to be mad at this man. I was just like, what are you doing, sir?EmilySo on the one hand, he’s sort of inadvertently still protecting disabled people, if you want to call it that, by providing access to vaccines. But mostly he’s just making it a lot harder to survive as a disabled person.I am genuinely fearful for what is going to happen the longer he is at the helm of things and continues to dismantle basic access to health care. Because more people are going to become disabled. And I’m not saying that being disabled is a bad thing, but I am saying, if something is completely preventable, what are you doing?VirginiaRight? Right? Yes, if we lose herd immunity, we’re going to have more people getting the things we vaccinate against.EmilyMany of the major players in the disability rights movement as it was budding in the 1960s and the 1970s were disabled because of polio. I am very glad that they existed. I am very, very glad that these people fought for our rights. I’m also very, very glad that there’s a polio vaccine.VirginiaI guess this is a two part question. Number one, is there anything you want folks to be doing specifically in response to RFK? I mean, call your representatives. But if you have other ideas for advocacy, activism work you’d like to see people engaging in. And two, I’m curious for folks who want to be good disability allies: What do you want us doing more of?EmilyI am a big believer in focusing on things that feel attainable, and that doesn’t mean don’t call your reps, and that doesn’t mean don’t get out there and be loud. But sometimes starting where you are can make the most difference. And so if it feels really overwhelming and you’re not gonna get up tomorrow and go to Washington, DC and join a protest, that’s okay. If you don’t feel like you have the capacity to pick up the phone and call your representatives tomorrow, that’s okay, too. But if you can impact the perspective of one person in your life, I genuinely believe that has a ripple effect, and I think that we underestimate the power of that. Throw one stone in the ocean. All of those ripples create the wave. And so if you have somebody in your life who is being ableist in some way, whether it is through anti-vax sentiment, whether it is through the language that they use, whether it is through the assumptions that they make about people with disabilities, try to take the time to educate that person. You may not change the whole system. You may not even change that person’s mind. But at least give them an opening to have a conversation, offer them the tools and the resources point them in the right direction. And I know that that’s really hard and really exhausting, and that sometimes it feels like people are a lost cause, but I have been able to meet people where they are in that way. Where, if I show up with the research, if I show up with the resources, if I say I’m willing to meet you halfway here, I’m not demanding that you change all your views overnight, but will you at least give me a chance to have a conversation? That’s genuinely meaningful. So that’s my best advice. And I know that it’s not going to change everything, but I’m still a believer in the power of conversation.VirginiaThat’s really helpful, because I think we do avoid those conversations, but you’re right. If you go in with the mindset of, I don’t have to totally change this person on everything, but if I can move the needle just a little bit with them, that does something I think that feels a lot more doable and accessible.EmilyAnd I think it also is about honoring your own capacity. If you are a person who is marginalized in multiple ways, and you are tired of having those conversations, it is okay to set that weight down and let somebody else have the conversations.VirginiaThat is a good use of the able-bodied allies in your life. Put us to work tell us to do the thing because it shouldn’t be on you all the time.EmilyAnd I’m more than happy to have these conversations and more than happy to educate but it’s empowering when we can do it on our own terms, and we’re not often given that opportunity, because we have to be activists and advocates for ourselves at every turn. And so sometimes when somebody else picks up that load, that means a lot.ButterEmilyI thought about this a lot.VirginiaEverybody does. It’s a high pressure question.EmilyI am in the last stages of wedding planning. So my recommendation is more from a self care perspective. When you are in the throes of something incredibly chaotic, and when you are in the throes of navigating the entire world while also trying to plan something joyful—lean into that joy. My recommendation is to lean into your joy. I know I could recommend like a food or a TV show or something, but I think it’s more about like, what is that thing that brings joy to you? I bought these adorable gluten-free pumpkin cookies that have little Jack O’Lantern faces on them. And I’m doing my re-watch of Gilmore Girls, which is a wildly problematic and fatphobic show, and ableist.VirginiaIt sure is. But it’s such a good comfort watch too.EmilyIt’s making me feel a little cozy right now. I think my recommendation is just lean into your joy. You don’t need to solve all the world’s problems. And I don’t say that without complete and total awareness of everything going on in the world. I’m not setting that aside. But I’m also saying that if we don’t take time to take off our activist hats and just be for a few moments, we will burn out and be much less useful to the movements that we’re trying to contribute to.So I hope that is taken in the spirit with which it was given, which is not ignoring the world.VirginiaIt’s clear you’re not ignoring the world. But when you’re doing a big, stressful thing, finding the joy in it is so great.Well, my Butter is a more specific, more tangible thing, but it’s very much related to that, which is my 12 year old and I are getting really into doing our nails. And my Butter is bad nail art because I’m terrible at it, but it’s giving me a lot of joy to, like, try to do little designs. I don’t know if you can see on camera.EmilyI’ve been looking at your nails the whole time, and I love the color. It’s my favorite color, but can you describe what’s on it?VirginiaSo I’ve done like, little polka dots, like, so my thumb has all the polka dots in all different colors, and then every finger is like a different color of polka dots. I don’t feel like the colors are translating on screen.EmilyAnd by the way, it’s a bright teal nail polish.VirginiaIt’s a minty green teal color. My 12 year old and I, we watch shows together in the evening after their younger sibling goes to bed. And we just like about once a week, she breaks out her Caboodle, which brings me great joy, as a former 80s and 90s girl, that has all her polishes in it, and we sit there and do our nails. And it’s very low stakes. I work from home, it doesn’t matter what my nails look like. Last night, I tried to do this thing where you put a star shaped sticker on, and then put the polish over it, and then peel off the sticker to have like a little star stencil. It was an utter fail, like I saw it on Instagram. It looked amazing. It looked like trash on my nails. But it’s like, so fun to try something crafty that you can just be bad at and have fun with.EmilyOh, I love that for you. I really miss the days where I would wear like, bright, glittery eyeshadow and stick-on earrings.VirginiaIt is totally bringing me back to my stick on earring years. And I have all these friends who get beautiful nails done, like gels, or they have elaborate home systems. And I’m just, like, showing up to things with, like, a weird cat I painted on my nail that’s like, half chipped off.EmilyI think that’s the right vibe for the moment.VirginiaIt’s super fun and a good bonding activity with tweens who don’t always want to talk to their mom. So it’s nice when we get there.EmilyYou’re reminding me to go hug my mom.VirginiaPlease everyone, go hug your moms, especially if you were once 12 years old! Emily, this was wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can be supporting your work.EmilyYeah. So I would say the best place to find me is Substack. My Substack is called Words I Wheel By or you can find me on Instagram. But most importantly, I just love connecting and being here to support people wherever they are on their journey. So I hope people will take me up on that.VirginiaThank you, and I always appreciate you in the Burnt Toast comments too. So thanks for being a part of the space with us.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith. These episodes are usually just for our Extra Butter membership tier — but today we’re releasing this one to the whole list. So enjoy! (And if you love it, go paid so you don’t miss the next one!) Episode 212 TranscriptCorinneToday is a family meeting episode. We’re catching up on summer breaks, back to school, and a whole bunch of diet culture news stories that we’ve been wanting to discuss with you all.VirginiaWe’re also remembering how to make a podcast, because we haven’t recorded together in like six weeks. And it didn’t start off great. But I think we’re ready to go now.CorinneSomeone definitely said, “What day is it?”VirginiaIt’s hard coming out of summer mode. I don’t know if you feel that because you don’t have kids, during back to school, but it is a culture shift.CorinneI don’t think I feel the back to school thing as much, but I’m still in Maine, and it’s actively fall. It’s actively getting cold, and I’m just like, what is happening? I feel this pressure to do something, but I’m not sure what? Hibernate?Virginia“Should I buy a notebook? Should I be wearing fleece? I could go either way.” I don’t know. It’s weird. It is the start of fall. So we are moving into fall mindset. But like, don’t rush me, you know? The dahlias bloom till first frost. That’s my summer.CorinneSummer is so brief.VirginiaI’m having a lot of clothing feelings right now. I am not in a good place getting dressed, and it is for sure weather related, shoulder season-related. I’m in my annual conundrum of when do the Birkenstocks go away? When must our toes be covered for polite society? Am I showing arms? I just I don’t even know how to get dressed. I hate all my clothes. Everything’s terrible.CorinneI think this is part of what I’m feeling. I don’t have enough warm clothes and I also don’t want to buy another pair of sweatpants.VirginiaAnd you’re traveling. So you’re like, “I have warm clothes at home.” Didn’t bring them because you didn’t understand, even though you grew up in Maine and should remember that fall starts quite early there.CorinneI need to get it tattooed on my body. Bring a sweater, bring sweatpants.VirginiaWell, to be fair for this Maine trip, you were really focused on your sister’s wedding. You had your nephew. You’ve had a lot going on.CorinneI was very focused on August, and really not thinking about September.VirginiaWill we even exist after? I mean, that’s how it always is when you’re gearing up for a big event, the post-event doesn’t exist.And I don’t know if you do the thing where you’re like, well, I can deal with that after the big event. And then suddenly it’s after the big event. You’re like, well, now there’s 47 things I need to deal with.CorinneI absolutely do that. Now I’m like, wait. How and when do I get back to New Mexico? Am I going back to New Mexico ever? In which case maybe I do need to buy sweatpants?VirginiaIt’s so hard. Even without a wedding —I feel like all summer, because I have pretty skeleton childcare and I’m wanting to take time off, and it’s a privilege that our job allows some flexibility like that, so when I get requests to, like, do a podcast, do a special thing. I’m like, “Talk to me in September. I can’t do it this summer. Summer mode Virginia can’t do anything extra!” And now I’ve just spent the week saying no to lots of things, because September me can’t do it either. That was folly. I should have just said no the first time!That’s one of those life lessons I’m always relearning that’s really funny. If it’s not an instant yes, it’s a no. And I so often fall into the trap of it’s not an instant yes, so let me kick that can down the curb a little bit, and then then I feel ruder because they come back and I’m like, no, I’m sorry. Actually, we were never going to do that.CorinneAs someone who’s been on the other side of that where, like, I’ll reach out to someone for the Style Questionnaire, and they’ll be like, “Oh, can you ask me in two months?” And then when I reach out in two months, and they’re like, “No.”VirginiaTotally. I’m on the other side of it all the time when we’re booking podcast guests. So I’m completely aware of how shitty it feels. So I have a resolution. Summer Virginia just has to say no to things and not push it to Fall Virginia. Everyone hold me accountable next summer, because I’m so sorry to everybody I’ve said no to this week, but September is a real intense parenting month. There are just a lot of moving parts.I get 62 emails a day from the school. The middle school just announced back to school night will be tomorrow. They told us yesterday! One cool thing is, my older kid is in seventh grade now, so I no longer have to scramble for babysitters, which is a real achievement unlocked. Although she’s going to realize at some point that she should increase her rates with me.CorinneOh, you pay her!VirginiaFor stuff where I’m going to be out of the house and need her to put her sister to bed. It’s one thing, if I’m like, “I’m going to the store, you guys don’t want to come.” Fine. You can doodle around at home. And it’s not even really babysitting. She’s going to ignore her the whole time. But I’m going to be out from 6 to 8pm tomorrow night. I need her to actually make sure her younger sibling gets in pajamas and brushes teeth and, moves towards bed. I’m not expecting them to be in bed when I get home, but I would like them to not be nowhere close.CorinneThat’s really sweet.VirginiaPlus we have some big stuff in the works for both Burnt Toast and Big Undies, which we cannot discuss just yet. Yes, I am actively teasing it for you all.CorinneYou’re going to bring that up now?! I feel like we should mention it at the end.VirginiaI think we can mention it whenever we feel like? I think they’re probably like, “Why are they both doing reader surveys? What’s going on?” And we can’t say yet, but there’s something going on, and it’s also requiring a lot of our time and attention.CorinneWe’re really busy. But I think it’s going to be really good, and everyone’s going to love it.VirginiaIn the meantime, though: What are we wearing? Real talk, what are we wearing to get through this weird it’s not summer, it’s not fall, it’s some hybrid state. Are you still wearing open toed shoes? Sandals?CorinneNo, I’m not.VirginiaOkay. Should I stop, too?CorinneI mean, I’m only not because I’m cold. It depends on if you’re cold. I also think now is kind of the perfect time for socks with sandals.VirginiaMost of my sandals are something between my toes style. CorinneOh, I was thinking, like, socks with Birkenstocks.VirginiaAh! I do have some of the two strap Birkenstocks, and I don’t tend to wear them a lot in summer. Maybe I should experiment!CorinneI feel like, when you wear socks with the two strap Birkenstocks, they become really cozy.VirginiaI don’t wear them a lot in summer because I don’t have particularly wide feet, and they’re a little wide on me. But the sock would solve for that! And they would be cozy… all right, I’m going to experiment with this, as part of my shoulder season style.CorinneI’m still figuring out my fall must haves, which is one of my favorite topics. Although I will say I feel like this year I’ve seen a lot of people posting like, “I don’t want to hear about back to school, or I don’t want to hear about fall fashion.”VirginiaI have terrible news for people about this podcast. CorinneI feel it’s very light hearted. It could be literally anything like, who cares? We are entering fall, so…VirginiaTime is passing.CorinneI am getting cold. I do want to put on socks with my sandals and sweatshirts.VirginiaTrigger warning for anyone who is not available for a fall fashion conversation.CorinneMaybe by the time this comes out, people will be ready.I know this is like florals for spring, but I’m feeling for fall… brown pants.VirginiaWait, what? You’re blowing my mind? You’ve been feeling brown for a little while. CorinneBrown has been ramping up. I’m wearing brown pants right now.VirginiaIs it one of your colors, as a true spring?CorinneWell, I do think there are definitely some camels. And I think brown is preferable to black. So I’m thinking brown pants instead of black pants.VirginiaOh, I don’t even know what I’m thinking about pants. I’m thinking frustration with pants. I have my one pair of jeans that I reliably wear. I think I need to order another pair in case they stop making them. I’m at a scarcity mindset point with those Gap jeans. I mean, they aren’t going to stop making them. They’ve had them for years, but I just feel like I need an insurance policy.CorinneDo you fit other Gap pants, or just the jeans?VirginiaI only buy that one pair of jeans. I mean, I generally try not to shop at the Gap because they do not have a plus size section.CorinneBut they do have some really cute stuff.VirginiaIt’s gross though! Make it bigger.CorinneIf it fits you, maybe you should buy it.VirginiaCorinne is like, “Or counterpoint, don’t take a stand.”CorinneI’m always sending links to my straight-size sister for stuff at the Gap that I think she should buy.VirginiaThey do have some really cute stuff, but it infuriates me that Old Navy can make plus sizes, and Gap cannot, and Banana Republic really cannot. It’s just like, hello, class system, capitalism. It’s so revolting.CorinneOh, my God. Do you know what else I’m feeling outraged about? I went thrift shopping here a couple weeks ago, and I found some vintage Land’s End that was in sizes that they don’t make anymore.VirginiaWow, that’s rude.CorinneIt was a 4X! So they used to be way more 26/28 or 28/30. So they also, at some point, kind of cut back.VirginiaThey do, at least legitimately have a section called plus size, though.CorinneThey do, but it clearly used to be bigger.VirginiaNo, no, no. I’m not saying it’s great. I am wearing my favorite joggers a lot, because I think I’m really resisting the shift back to hard pants.CorinneHow do you feel about trousers, like a pleated trouser kind of pant?VirginiaIs that comfortable for working from home? A pleated trouser?CorinneWell, I feel like they’re comfortable because they’re kind of baggy but narrower at the bottom, you know?VirginiaI do love a tapered ankle. I also unpaused my Nuuly. And I did get a blue corduroy pair of pants from them that it hasn’t been quite cold enough to wear because shoulder seasons. Corduroy, to me is like a real like we are fully in cold weather fabric. And when it’s 50 in the morning, but 75 by lunchtime, am I going to be hot in corduroys? I guess I should just start wearing them and see.CorinneAre they jeans style? VirginiaThey’re slightly cropped so that’s another reason to wear them now, while I can still have bare ankles. They’re slightly cropped and slightly flared, and they’re like a royal blue corduroy.They’re Pilcro, which is an Anthropologie brand and I know we feel gross about Anthropologie. But when it comes to pants, I think Corinne is saying we can’t have moral stances because pants are so hard to find. Other things, yes.CorinneIt’s just hard.VirginiaI’m not excited about clothes right now. I want to feel more excited. Maybe I need to think about what my fall must haves are. Maybe I need to make a pin board or something.CorinneI think that’s a good idea. Is there anything you’re feeling excited about? I remember the last episode you were talking about those Imbodhi pants.VirginiaOh yeah. They’ve really become lounge around the house pants, and they’re great, but they’re very thin. Imbodhi feels like a brand you could not wear once it gets cold.Although, the jumpsuit I have from them in periwinkle—which does feel like a very summery color to me—I also got black. And over the summer it felt a little too black jumpsuit. It felt like too formal or something. But I’ve been enjoying it as a transition piece. I am still wearing it with sandals. I think it would look cute with maybe my Veja sneakers, though, and then layering over my denim shirt from Universal Standard, like open over it.I’m glad we’re talking about this, because that’s what I’m going to wear to back to school night tomorrow night, which is a high pressure dressing occasion.CorinneI can see that.VirginiaYou don’t want to look like you tried too hard, but you also don’t want to look like you came in pajamas. Lots of yoga moms, a lot of pressure. Okay, I’m going to wear that black jumpsuit. I’m glad we talked about that. That’s been a good transition piece.CorinneYeah, okay, well, speaking of transitions, I want to ask you about something else. Are you familiar with the Bechdel Test?VirginiaYes.CorinneDon’t you think we should have a Bechdel test for anti-fatness? And/or diets? Like, does this piece of culture have a fat character who’s not the bad guy, or on a weight loss journey, or being bullied for their size?[Post-recording note: Rebecca Bodenheimer reached out after this episode aired to let us know she wrote about this exact concept for the LA Times in 2020. Read her excellent piece here!]VirginiaOohhh… OK, so what would our terms be? They can’t be the fat villain.CorinneWell, I feel like there’s one list for anti fatness, and one would be a piece of culture or whatever that doesn’t discuss dieting or weight loss. And I don’t know if it should all be one under one Bechdel test umbrella, or if it should be two different tests.VirginiaI feel like it’s related. Wait, I need to look up the actual Bechdel Test criteria.CorinneIt’s like, does the movie have two female characters talking about something other than a man.VirginiaThe work must feature at least two women.They must talk to each other. And their conversation must be about something other than a man.I was just watching Your Friends and Neighbors, that new John Hamm show about super rich people stealing from each other, and it’s very entertaining, but it fails the Bechdel test so dramatically. It’s got Amanda Peet in it! She’s so smart and funny, and all she does is talk about her ex husband and how much she loves him. And I’m just like, fail, fail, fail. Anyway, okay, I love this idea.CorinneSo it’s like, does it have a fat character?VirginiaWait, I think it should have more than one fat character.CorinneThat bar is too high. I feel like we have to be able to name something that passes the test. And what are we calling the test? The Burnt Toast Test?VirginiaWe can workshop names in the comments.CorinneWe need a famous fat person to name it after, maybe.VirginiaWell, I guess Allison Bechdel named it after herself. So it could be the Fay test, because you did this. The Corinne Fay test.CorinneOh, God.So it has to have one fat character, they have to talk about something other than weight loss, and they can’t be the villain.VirginiaI would like them not to be the sidekick, too. I think it’s a central fat character.CorinneCan we name anything that passes?VirginiaShrill by Lindy West. And Too Much. Well, Lena Dunham doesn’t totally pass the Bechdel Test, but she passes the fat test.CorinneSee, it gets very complicated. This is intersectionality!VirginiaWe strive for an intersectional world where the shows pass all the tests. This is such an interesting topic. I love this.CorinneI was also thinking about it because on my drive out, I read two of these Vera Stanhope mysteries. Have you read any of these?VirginiaI have not.CorinneThe main detective woman is fat, and I feel like it’ mostly fine. Like, 90% of the time they’re just talking about her, she’s fat, and she’s sloppy. She’s a sloppy fat person. And then, like, occasionally, there’ll be like, a sentence or two where I’m like, Ooh, I didn’t like that.VirginiaIt’s so deflating when you have something that’s seeming good, and then it takes a turn on you real fast.CorinneSo would that pass the the fat Bechdel Test? Or whatever? Probably would.VirginiaBecause it’s as good as we can get.CorinneShe’s the main character and not talking about dieting, really.VirginiaYeah, wait, so where does it fall apart for you?CorinneI should have brought an example, but I feel like occasionally there will be narration about her, and it’s suddenly like, “her body was disgusting,” you know? VirginiaOh God! I was thinking she maybe lumbered, or she sat heavily, or something. And you’re like—CorinneYes. She sat heavily, that kind of thing. And I’m like, okay, sure.But occasionally there’s just a twinge where I’m like, oh, you do kind of hate fat people.VirginiaI would then like that author to read Laura Lippman’s work. Because Laura Lippman—regular Burnt Toasty! Hi, Laura!—has been doing such good work as a thin author to really work on her fat representation. And I just read Murder Takes a Vacation, which is one of Laura’s most recent novels, and it’s such a good read. Her protagonist, Mrs. Blossom, I believe was previously a side character in other novels who now has her own book. And the way she writes about body stuff in there is like… Laura’s been doing the work. She’s been really doing the work. It for sure, passes the Fay Fat Test.CorinneThat’s awesome.VirginiaSo everyone check that out. And I would like Ann Cleeves to be reading Laura Lippman.Should we talk about airplanes? Are you in a safe space to talk about airplane feelings?CorinneSure. Yes.VirginiaCorinne was just quoted in The Washington Post, which is very exciting, alongside Tigress Osborne, friend of the show, Executive Director of NAAFA, about how Southwest Airlines is changing their passenger of size policy. Do you want to brief us on what’s happening there?CorinneSo Southwest has had a policy in which a “customer of size,” meaning a person who doesn’t fit between two plane arm rests, can book two seats and be refunded for the second seat. Or you could show up at the airport day of, and ask for two seats. And not have to pay up front and then be refunded.And in the past couple of months, this policy has somehow gotten really wobbly. I’ve heard all these anecdotal stories about people showing up at the airport and having Southwest tell them, “You’re not going to be able to do this anymore.” Like, don’t expect to show up and be able to book a second seat. You need to do it in advance. Blah, blah, blah.Now Southwest has come out and said they’re changing the policy. They’re also implementing assigned seating, which they didn’t used to have. So going forward, you are going to have to book two seats in advance, and you will only be refunded if there are empty seats on the plane. Which, when are there ever empty seats?VirginiaThere are never empty seats on the plane? Never happens.I don’t understand, because you needed two seats before, you still need two seats. So why does it matter whether there’s an empty seat or not? My brain breaks trying to follow the logic.CorinneI think the logic says like they could have sold the second seat to someone else.VirginiaBut then they’re not selling seats that work for people who are paying money to be there. Like, they’re taking your money, but if you can’t fit on the plane, then they just took your money. It’s so shady,CorinneAnd people who don’t need a whole seat don’t pay less.VirginiaOver the age of two, your children do not get discounts for the fact that, they are using a third of a seat. You pay the same price for a child. CorinneYep. It’s really sad, and it’s making life harder and sadder for a lot of people.VirginiaI’m curious if another airline will step up on this. I think NAAFA has been doing a good job of making noise about this. I think people are putting pressure on them. It will be interesting if someone else realizes this is like a marketing opportunity.CorinneI think, they absolutely will not.VirginiaWell, I’m not naive enough to think someone would do it just because it’s the right thing to do. But I’m hoping maybe one of Southwest’s direct competitors would realize it’s an opportunity.CorinneBut I think that Southwest previously was the that airline. I think they were using that to their advantage, and now I think they’ve just been like, “It’s not worth it.” I think Alaska has the same policy where you can book two seats, and then if there is an empty seat, they’ll refund it.VirginiaWell that’s great because Alaska flies so many places, people need to go.CorinneWell, if you’re in the if you’re in the part of the country where I live, they do! But.VirginiaOh! That’s good to know.CorinneI think they’re more on a competition level with Southwest versus like United or something, right? I don’t think United or Delta even has a customer of size policy.VirginiaThey’ve never cared.CorinneThere’s no way to even book a second ticket for yourself, even if you want to just straight up pay for it.VirginiaIt leaves you the option of figuring out if you can afford business class to have a bigger seat. And that makes flying so much more expensive.CorinneRight? And it’s also just like, does business class fit everyone? Probably not.VirginiaWell, we’re mad about that, but I did, like seeing you in the Washington Post article saying smart things. So thank you. Thanks your advocacy.Let’s see what else has been going on… The Guardian had this interesting piece, which I’m quoted in a little bit, by Andrea Javor. She’s articulating something I’ve seen a few people starting to talk about, which is the experience of being on Ozempic and not losing weight from it.And I think this is an interesting kind of under the radar piece of the whole GLP1s discourse. Some folks are non-responders, whether because they stay on a lower dose by choice, and it improves their numbers, but they don’t really lose weight, or some folks just don’t really lose weight on it. Her piece really articulates her feelings of shame and failure that this thing that’s supposed to be a silver bullet didn’t work for her.CorinneWhen I started reading the piece, I was extremely confused, because the the author has diabetes, but type one diabetes, and these drugs don’t help with type one diabetes. She eventually goes on it, just for weight loss. So what it didn’t work for was weight loss, And I think it actually may have ended up helping with her, like A1C, and stuff. I agree that it does a good job of looking at the feelings that come along with that. And I do think, this does happen, and it’s not being talked about as as much as it’s happening probably.VirginiaIt feels important to highlight it in this moment where we have Serena Williams talking, about her husband’s telehealth company and promoting her use of GLP1s. And we had a great chat on Substack chat about the whole Serena Williams of it all. So I won’t rehash that whole discourse here. I also think that’s a conversation where I want to hear from Black women. Chrissy King wrote an incredible piece. I also really appreciated the conversation that Sam Sanders, Zach Stafford and Saeed Jones had on Vibe Check about it. So, I don’t need to get into Serena’s personal choices. But it does mean, we have another huge, very admired celebrity pushing into the conversation again to say, “This is this magic trick. This is the thing I was always looking for. It finally worked for me” And we are all vulnerable to that messaging. So it’s important to read stories like this one and understand oh, it really doesn’t actually work for everybody. Setting aside whether we think people should be pursuing weight loss, this isn’t necessarily going to be guaranteed, amazing results. CorinneAnother interesting article that I thought maybe would want to mention is the the one in The Cut about ARFID.VirginiaThis was a great cover story in New York Magazine. The headline is The Monster at the Dinner Table, and it’s basically just encapsulating that ARFID has really been on the rise in recent years, and I think a lot of that is just because now we know what it is and we can diagnose it.But it did include a pretty interesting discussion of what causes kids to lose the instinct to eat, what things get in the way of it. Like, it can be trauma, it can be a feature of autism. It can be a choking experience, all sorts of different things.CorinneARFID is one of those conditions that I feel like I barely knew about before TikTok, and then I’ve just seen so much stuff about it on Tiktok.VirginiaIt only became a diagnosis in 2013, so it’s very, very new. My kiddo would have been diagnosed with it, if it was more fully in the vernacular at that point, but it wasn’t. So we were just told it was a “pediatric feeding disorder” type of thing. But it was very vague.I think it’s great it’s getting more attention. Both for kids and adults. It can be such a source of anxiety and shame for parents. It is so much work. It is very difficult, and it’s harder than it should be because of diet culture, because of all the pressure put on parents to feed our kids certain ways. The backlash against ultraprocessed foods is really not helping anyone navigate ARFID. I can’t underscore that enough, really not helping. No one needs to feel shame about your kid living on chicken nuggets or frozen burritos or whatever it is.CorinneThe amount of stigma against people who eat certain ways is nuts.VirginiaIt’s nuts and it’s sad.CorinneYeah it’s socially isolating.VirginiaIt is harder to share, right? It’s very socially isolating, and it’s sad for the people around them. Anytime you’re navigating eating together with someone with food restrictions, it does create barriers and extra work and more you have to navigate.But if we didn’t have that layer of stigma over it, where it’s like, it’s probably the mom’s fault, if only they like more whole foods at home, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, if we didn’t have all of that, you could focus just on the logistics are hard enough. You don’t need the shame.So many sad topics. Airlines are terrible. Virginia doesn’t have any clothes to wear. ARFID is sad. Do we have anything to bring it up?CorinneWell, our exciting news? VirginiaOh, right! We are working on some very fun things.It is exciting to think about new directions that Burnt Toast and Big Undies are going in. So stay tuned. Don’t worry, it’s not a reality TV show.ButterVirginiaOkay, my Butter is adjacent to the wardrobe frustration conversation. Which is: I have started cutting the collars off a lot of my shirts.To back up: Last month, I’m on vacation in Cape Cod with my sister, and she comes down looking extremely cute. She’s wearing a graphic tee tucked into a long maxi skirt. And I was like, “This whole thing is delightful. What’s happening here?” And she was like, “Well, this shirt was actually too small for me, but I realized if I just cut the collar off it, it opened up the neck enough that then the shirt, the whole shirt fit better.” And she could still wear this cute shirt. And she said she got the idea from watching Somebody Somewhere, because Bridgett Everett cuts the collars off all her shirts.CorinneOh yes! That was my signature look when I was 18. A Hanes T-shirt with the collar cut off.VirginiaI’m dressing like 18-year-old Corinne, and I’m here for it! But I’ve realized, frequently a place that something doesn’t fit me is my neck. I’ve talked about feelings about chins and necks. I have many complicated feelings about chins and necks. This is one place where my fatness sits. So the shirt might otherwise fit okay, but it doesn’t fit my neck, and then it feels tight and it’s a miserable feeling. So at the end of our trip, I wanted to buy a Cape Cod sweatshirt, because there were some really cute sweatshirts. But they were not size inclusive. So I was like, can I make this extra large work? And it was a little small, but I cut the collar off, and now it’s okay.And then I did it with my old Harris Walz T-shirt from the election. It was a cute stripe. I just really liked the stripe. And I was like, Oh, I could still wear this if I get the collar off it. And a couple other things. I’ve just been, like, cutting collars off shirts that are uncomfortable. I’m into it!CorinneI think that’s a great Butter. I’m into any kind of clothes modification that will make you wear stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise wear.VirginiaIt was a good solution for a couple of things in my closet that I did like, but I was not reaching for. And now I’ll use them again. And the key I figured out, because I experimented with a couple ways to cut it, is really just cut right along the seam of the sewed on collar. You might think that’s going to not open it up enough, but it will stretch once you start wearing it. you could always cut more if you needed to, but that seems to have done it for me.CorinneOkay, well, I want to recommend a recipe, and I feel like I possibly mentioned this before. I’m staying with my mom, and we’ve been making this recipe from the New York Times called stuffed zucchini, and it’s a really good recipe for if you have a surplus of zucchini, which a lot of people do this time of year. You kind of scoop out the middle of a zucchini and then mix some of that together with, like, sausage, tomatoes, basil, and then put it back in the zucchini and bake it with, like, some crispy breadcrumbs, and it’s so good. I can literally, eat a whole zucchini in one sitting. Highly recommend.VirginiaThat sounds amazing. All right. Well, that makes me a little more excited about the season.CorinneYeah, it is a very good time of year for eating. We should have talked more about food maybe?VirginiaThat is a good point. Our tomatoes in the garden are going gangbusters. I’ve made some great sauces. I’m having a lot of cheese and tomato sandwiches. toasted and not toasted. Delightful.Well, this was a good family meeting catch up. I think we’ve covered a lot of ground. I’m excited to hear what folks are feeling about their dressing issues, and airlines, all the stuff we got into today.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Denise Hamburger, founder and director of Be Real USA. Be Real is a nonprofit that imagines a world where every child can grow up with a healthy relationship to food and their body. They work with body image researchers, psychologists, teachers and public health officials to design curricula about nutrition and body image that are weight neutral, and inclusive of all genders, abilities, races and body sizes.So many of you reach out to me every September to say, “Oh my God, you're not going to believe what my kid is learning in health class.” Food logs, fitness trackers, other diet tools are far too common in our classrooms— especially in middle and high school health class. Denise is here to help us understand why those assignments are so harmful and talk about what parents and educators can do differently. This episode is free — so please, share it with the parents, teachers and school administrators in your communities! But if you value this conversation, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!Two Resources You’ll Want From This Episode: BeReal Let’s Eat Curriculum is attached.And here’s a roundup of everything I’ve written on diet culture in schools:The Burnt Toast Guide to Diet Culture in SchoolsEpisode 211 TranscriptDeniseWell, this all started I would say about 10 years ago. Actually, about 12 years ago. I was an environmental lawyer in my first career—that's what I'm trained to do. I went to law school, was practicing in big law firms. Which has nothing to do with body image, except I was an environmental lawyer who weighed herself every day and got her mood affected by the number on the scale for 40 years. So that's four decades.VirginiaSo many times getting on a scale.DeniseI really felt like I didn’t want anyone else, especially young women today, to waste the amount of time and energy that I had wasted distracting them from what they need to be doing in their lives, figuring out their own person possibilities. That’s really what you’re here to do. And it takes us away from what we’re supposed to be doing.With that in mind, I went back to school at the University of Chicago, and I was thinking of get a social work degree and doing something with body image. But then I wrote a paper on my own body image for one of my classes at the School of Social Work and I found 50 years of research on body image. And then 30 years of discussion and research on how to prevent eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. Like, wow, there is so much out there, so much research on this. But I haven’t heard any of this. It feels like it’s not making its way into resources that people can use.So I started speaking on it, and I was speaking to middle-aged women, and I thought the message that we all would really benefit from would be everybody’s got this. Because I feel like, especially my generation, where we didn’t really talk about how we felt about our bodies. I’m at the tail end of the Baby Boom. So I’m 62 and I felt that people in my generation—again, I was 50 at the time—weren’t in touch with their own feelings on body image. After talking about this for so many years, younger generations have access to it I think a lot more. But I felt like we could all benefit from knowing that everybody’s got it—so kind of a common humanity. It’s not our fault, which helps with the shame around it.So everyone has it, it’s not our fault, and society has given it to us. And I think that this is something that would resonate with my generation. So I started speaking in local libraries and community houses to women my age, and quickly learned that it is really hard to undo decades worth of thought patterns and feelings around food, body and eating. People came to hear me talk about body image, and I think, in general, when I started out, they were hoping I had a new diet.VirginiaOh, I’m sure they were. I’m sure they were like, “Oh, we’re going to go hear her talk about how to love your body by making it smaller!”DeniseAbsolutely. And all of the women, because they were women in my workshops, were starting to talk about their daughters. They’re saying that my daughter’s got this, and she’s coming home and saying this. Then in one of my audiences, I had a health teacher at my local high school. There was a health teacher who came and said—this is about 2015—you should hear what the young girls are saying. They’ve got this new thing called Instagram and and they’re seeing pictures of, “perfect” looking people and feeling bad about themselves or feeling flawed in comparison.So she said, “What resources are there for for the students in my class?” And I said, there has got to be something because there is 50 years’ of research there, there has got to be something fabulous for you. And I called the professors listed on the the studies. The granddaddy of the industry, Michael Levine, I called him up. I said, “Michael, just tell me, what can I recommend to these teachers?” And he’s like, “I don’t know. I don’t know. We don’t have it. It’s not there. Even though the research is there.”So there was a curriculum created for high risk kids. It needed to be given by facilitators called The Body Project. And I called one of the professors who wrote The Body Project and said, “Listen, I’d like to give this tool to a teacher for universal,” which means giving it to everybody in the classroom, and and she wants to bring it to her high school, but it looks like you need to be trained. And it was a script. The Body Project was a script. And this teacher said to me, I’m not reading a script in a classroom. You’re not going to get a high school teacher to read a script.VirginiaYeah. I would imagine high school students sitting in a classroom aren’t going to respond to someone just reading a script at them.DeniseNobody wants to hear it. It’s not useful. It wasn’t created for that use. So this professor, Carolyn Becker, had actually written a paper on how the academics need to work with stakeholders to make sure that their research makes it to the public. And I said, I’m calling you. I’m a stakeholder. What do you need? And she said, “We need somebody to translate it.” And I said, “I’m your girl.”VirginiaI mean, it’s wild that the research has been there. We’ve known what works, or what strategies to use for so long, and yet it’s not in the pedagogy, it’s not in the classrooms.So you started with the body image curriculum, BodyKind. And now this year, you’ve just released your weight neutral nutrition curriculum for middle and high school students, called Let’s Eat.Full disclosure: I got to be a early reader of the of the curriculum and offer a few notes. It was already amazing when I read it.DeniseThank you.VirginiaI did not have to add a lot at any by any means, but it was really cool to see the development process, and see where you ended up with it. It’s really remarkable. So let’s start by talking about why nutrition. You’ve done the body image thing, that’s really powerful. Why was nutrition the next logical place to go?DeniseI have spoken at this point to probably 10,000 teachers. And they’re always asking me, what nutrition curriculum do you recommend? Same deal. There’s not one out thereAnd I had asked one of my interns to give me her textbook on it, like what are you learning about nutrition? And in my intern’s textbook, it was 2018, you saw encapsulated the entire problem of what’s wrong with nutrition curriculum.They are asking the children to weigh and measure themselves, and they’re asking the children to count calories in different ways, and to track their food. Food logs. Again, these were best practices in the 90s and and 2000s on how to teach nutrition. So this is all over the nutrition curriculum.Then, of course, they’re talking about good and bad foods, which foods can you eat, which foods you can’t you eat, and all of these things in the research we know cause disordered eating and eating disorders, they all contribute to it. I have a list of probably nine research papers that point to each of these things and tell you why these are bad ideas to have a nutrition class.And we also know there have been two papers written, where they polled students or young people coming in for eating disorder treatment and asked them, what do you think triggered your eating disorder? And around 14% in both studies said, “My healthy eating curriculum at school was where I started getting this obsession.” So you know, what’s out there hasn’t been helpful, and even worse, has been part of the problem in our society.[Post-recording note: Here’s Mallary Tenore Tarpley writing about this research in the Washington Post, and quoting Oona Hanson!]VirginiaIt’s so rooted in our moral panic around “the childhood obesity epidemic.” Educators, public health officials, everyone feels like, that’s the thing we have to be worried about if we’re going to talk about kids and food. It all has to be framed through that lens. And what you are arguing is: That weight-centered approach causes harm. We can see from the data that it’s not “fixing” the obesity epidemic. Kids aren’t thinner than they were 40 years ago. So it didn’t work. And it’s having all these unintended ripple effects, or sometimes, I would say, intended ripple effects.DeniseYes, exactly. Studies on nutrition curriculum have shown that over 11 years, teaching diet and exercise did not do anything, in two age groups. One was elementary/middle school, another one was a high school group. And they found no changes in body size or nutritional knowledge and and only the effects of what they call weight stigma. Which is just anti-fat bias. So it only causes harm. And these meta studies were from “obesity researchers,” right? So they are even acknowledging we don’t know how to prevent obesity.VirginiaSo you could see very clearly why the current landscape is harmful. How did you think about how to design a better curriculum?DeniseWe had been working on the back burner on an intuitive eating for students type of curriculum. Because the question I get from my teachers is, “What should I be teaching?” So we had been kind of working on an intuitive eating curriculum, and then one of my ambassadors, Selena Salfen, she works in Ramsey County Public Health in Minnesota, said, “Hey, we’re looking for a nutrition curriculum. Why don’t we do one together?”It really turned into how to eat, not what to eat. So we started working on body cues and building trust with your food. And then started really focusing on empowering the student as an authority on their own eating behavior, teaching them how to learn from their own eating experiences. Which is part of responsive feeding. And Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility In Feeding. So we have pieces from all of these. We are empowering students to be experts on their own eating.VirginiaIt’s also so much more respectful of students’ cultural backgrounds, as opposed to the way we learned, like the food pyramid or MyPlate, saying “this is what your plate should look like.” And that doesn’t look like many plates around the world. That’s not what dinner is in lots of families. Your curriculum is saying, let’s empower students to be the experts is letting them own their own experience.DeniseAbsolutely, and trust their own experience. And trust themselves. And they don’t have to go outside of themselves. We want to teach them to act in their own best interests. That’s part of self-care, teaching them to take care of themselves. They need to learn it somewhere.So if you do what they’ve done for years and tell them you need to cut out sugar and you need to cut out carbs, or you need to get this this many grams of protein, it leaves off all of the wonderful parts of eating that we get to experience many times a day, which is the joy, the pleasure, the sharing of food. So in our curriculum, we ask the kids, what do you do in your culture around food? How do you celebrate in your culture with food? What do you eat?We get the discussion going with them and allowing them to feel pride in how their family celebrates. And so it’s really bringing in all these other aspects that we experience with food every day into talking about food. And we talk about pleasure, what do you like, what food do you like, what food do you enjoy? And we want them to be able to hold what foods they like, what their needs are that day.So you talked about MyPlate, MyPlate is stagnant. It always looks the same. But your nutritional needs change every day. If I’m sick, my needs around nourishment are different from if I’ve got a soccer match after school that day. So we’re trying to teach them to be flexible and really throw perfectionism out the window, because it’s unhelpful in any area of life, but especially around eating, especially around food.VirginiaI’m wondering what you’re hearing from school districts who are worrying about the federal guidelines. Because they do need to be in compliance with certain things. DeniseSo we spent a long time with the Food and Nutrition guidelines. The CDC food and nutrition guidelines, and we spent a long time with the HECAT standards, which are the health curriculum standards. We know that teachers are trying to match up what they’re teaching to the federal standards and the state standards. Because every state has their own discussion of this, and they write their own rules. Usually they look like the federal standards, but we find with food and nutrition, sometimes they go off. You’ll get somebody on the committee who hates soda, and will write 10 rules around soda. So every state has their own idiosyncratic rules around it as well.VirginiaI mean, on the flip side, that means there have been opportunities for advocacy. For example in Maryland, Sarah Ganginis was able to make real progress on her state standards. But yes, the downside is you’re gonna have the anti-soda committee showing up.DeniseTotally. And half of the country. We really tried to hit the big standards. I’m actually thumbing through the curriculum right now. We have two pages of the HECAT model food nutrition lessons and which ones this curriculum hits. And then if you’re interested in talking about some of the others — like some of them really want to talk about specifically sugary drinks— we give links in the curriculum to discussions that we agree with. So we may mention sugary drinks in a little piece of the curriculum, but if you want to get the article or the discussion on it that frames it the way we’d like to see it framed, we’ve got links in the curriculum for that.VirginiaSo tell me about the response so far. What are you hearing from teachers and districts?DeniseThe biggest response I’m getting is, “It’s a breath of fresh air.” It’s safe, as you say. And for the teachers out there that are familiar with all of the things that we’ve been teaching that haven’t been working, this is important. And I just want to say to all the health teachers who have been teaching nutrition out there because this is the way we’ve taught it for years: This is how it’s been done. But when you know better, you do better. And that’s the point we’re at now. I know people have been weighing and measuring kids and telling them to count calories for decades because that was best practices at the time. But we’re beyond that. The research has figured out that that’s not the best practices going forward.VirginiaThat’s right.DeniseWe had about 50 teachers and 250 students trial it. We get the experts to say everything we want to say in the curriculum, and we put it in there, and then let’s say that takes nine months. We have another nine months where we have expert teachers like Sarah weighing in on the curriculum. Telling us what happens when she teaches it in class with her and the students. What would you like to see different? Even down to activities. How would this activity work better? So we spent another nine months making sure that the teachers and the students like it, can relate to it, and that the activities are what are working in class.So that’s an extra step after some of the other research curriculum that we really want to make sure it’s user friendly and the students like it. We got a lot of feedback. We did two rounds of that.Now we released it to the public after we had a masters student write a thesis on all of the the data we collected, and felt very comfortable that it does no harm.VirginiaIt’s been tested.DeniseYeah, it’s been tested. It’s feasible and acceptable. Now we’re going to go and do the official feasibility and acceptability tests, like we’ve done on BodyKind with Let’s Eat and then take it to schools. We use the University of North Carolina’s IRB. We use the Mind Body Lab there, run by Dr. Jennifer Webb, and we are going to be doing research on Let’s Eat. We’ve got the Portland Public Schools, and then we’ve got a school district in Maryland, in Arundel County, that we’ve identified and that we’re working with to test students. And then, we’ll hopefully do an official test, write an official paper, as we’ve done with BodyKind.VirginiaAnd I should also mention, you’re making this resource free! Schools don’t have to pay for this, which I think everyone who’s ever tried to make any change in the school district of any kind knows, if it costs money, it’s harder to get done. So that’s great. DeniseYou know, it’s so funny. I’ve been speaking on this for years. I mean, we’ve been in curriculum development for five years, and I always forget to say that! I don’t know why. It’s a free curriculum! I’m a nonprofit. I’ve never been paid. This is such a passion project for me, and I continue to wake up every day energized by the work I’m doing.And the mission of our nonprofit is to get the best, well tested resources out to schools. And we want to remove barriers. And how we remove barriers is offering it for free.VirginiaA lot of our listeners are parents. They’re going to be listening to this thinking, “Okay, I want this in my kid’s school.” How do we do that? What do you recommend parents do? DeniseSo a couple things. We find the best advocate is the person at the school, the wellness professional, charged with curriculum decisions. So there are people in your district whose job it is to make sure that the teachers have the latest and greatest curriculum on nutrition.And they want these resources because they want to make sure that their students get the best resources out there. So it takes a little bit of sleuthing to call up the school, whether it’s the administrator or a health teacher, and figure out who’s that person, who’s the wellness coordinator. It could be a wellness coordinator. It could be a health teacher, who’s responsible for curriculum. Find that person and talk to them. They’re looking for this conversation. It’s part of their job. You could even say I heard about this new curriculum. It’s available for free. And you can hand them the postcard. That’s what I hand out when I speak at conferences. And it’s got a QR code. It describes what this curriculum does. We teach tuned in eating. It describes what tuned in eating does. VirginiaDownload that PDF below to QR code it right from this episode! DeniseYes. So you can send them as a PDF. You can write an email, figure out who the person is, send them the curriculum. Say “I was listening to a podcast, and there’s this great curriculum out there. I’d love you to check it out.”VirginiaI think that feels really doable, it’s a great starting point. What about when a kid comes home and tells a parent “Oh, we did calorie counting today?” Because that’s often how parents start to think about this issue. It kind of lands on their lap. Is it useful to engage directly with the teacher? How do you think about that piece of it? Because obviously, especially the school year is underway, asking a teacher like, hey, can you just change your whole curriculum right on a dime, they probably won’t appreciate that. So, what’s a, better way to think about this advocacy?DeniseI thought you did a great job in your book Fat Talk on giving them scripts, giving parents scripts to walk into the school. You want to be sensitive to how overloaded the health teacher is, the nutrition teacher is. They’re teaching 10 subjects in health that they need to be experts on so, you know, this is just one piece of what they’re teaching.The great thing about nutrition is, most health teachers are teaching nutrition so they’ve got some background in it, and you can just be as sensitive as possible to their time and do as you say in the book, you know, in a in a positive, collaborative way. “I heard about this research, I thought you might be interested,” rather than a critical way. And and again, your kid might not be taking health, they might just be in the school district. So maybe you have this discussion with an administrator, and ask them, who wants to talk to me about this? And ask them, who can I speak to? It could be a guidance counselor. Could be school social worker. You know, this is eating disorder and body dissatisfaction prevention, right? So who, who is interested in this topic?VirginiaWho in the district is working on that and wants to know about this? That’s super helpful.And I’ll also add: One thing I learned in reporting the book and thinking more about the school issue is we do, as parents, always have the right to opt our kids out of the assignments that we know to be harmful. So if you see a calorie counting assignment coming, you can ask for an alternative assignment. You can accept that your kid might get a lower grade because they don’t do it, but that might feel fair.Especially with older kids, I think it’s important to involve them. Like, don’t just swoop in. Never a good idea. They may want to talk to the teacher or you have do it. Work that out with your kid and figure out the best way forward. But I think it’s definitely worth doing that. If your kid’s like, no, don’t talk to the teacher. No, I’m not opting out. You can still have the conversation at home about why this assignment is not aligned with your values, and that’s yes important to do, too.The Burnt Toast Guide to Diet Culture in SchoolsDeniseI also wanted to say, we have an ambassador program at Be Real, and we have 135 ambassadors. What we’ve done with all of the materials we’ve been using for 10 years, which are presentations and worksheets for the presentations. We have frequently asked questions, where I quote you all the time. What do I do with my mother in law, who’s saying this thing? We give them scripts. What do I do when people equate body size with health? What do we do when people assume that everyone could be small if they tried hard enough? We have answers for all of these questions in our materials, frequently asked questions.I have templated the presentations I give. I use the notes, I give the talk track, so my ambassadors can give a talk with a teleprompter if they’re doing it on Zoom. Use the presentation as a teleprompter, and all the accompanying material we have on Canva that the ambassadors can create their own and add to it, and use their own name and picture to give talks and and things like that. We’ve got all of this so people are able to take this resource to their own local area,VirginiaSo they might give this talk to a PTA or a church group or any kind of community organization they’re affiliated with.DeniseAbsolutely. And we’ve been doing this for about seven years, and the last five years, it’s grown tremendously, and we have meetings every quarter. And at the meetings, people say, how do I get into my local school? And someone else will say, you know, I tried the principal and they didn’t answer my phone calls. And then I went and looked up so and so and and then I started out doing this for professional development for health teachers in the state of Illinois. So we also have ways to to be certified as a professional development trainer on this topic. So that’s how I initially got to health teachers. And then they also speak at conferences. So I speak at National SHAPE, which is the health teacher conference, but there are state SHAPE conferences out there that my Ambassadors will go speak at and it’s really how to get all of this material, another way to get it disseminated all throughout the world.VirginiaOh, I love that. Well, we will definitely link in the show notes for anyone who’s interested in becoming about an ambassador. ButterDeniseI am obsessed with Orna Guralnik, she is a psychotherapist who has a show on Showtime called Couples Therapy.VirginiaYes, I’ve been hearing about this.DeniseOh my God, it is so good. I don’t know why I like it so much, but I just binge watched the new season. And I say every time, I’ve got to string it out and enjoy it, but no, it’s impossible. And so I just binge watched the whole season, and as I was preparing for this interview, I just kept Googling what podcast she’s been on.VirginiaThat’s so satisfying. I love when you get a really good rabbit hole to dive down with the show. Another podcast I really enjoy, called Dire Straights , hosted by two writers, Amanda Montei and Tracy Clark-Flory, they just did an episode looking at the history of couples therapy and it actually has a pretty problematic history. Was not always great for women, very much developed as a way to help husbands control unruly wives—but has become other things. But you would enjoy that episode because they talk quite a bit about the show couples therapy and, she’s obviously doing something quite different.DeniseOkay, that’s my next one. Definitely going out and getting that.VirginiaI will also do a TV show butter, because they are so satisfying. I just started watching with my middle schooler a show that’s been off the air for a few years now. It’s called it’s Better Things, starring Pamela Adlon and created by her. It’s about a divorced mom with three daughters. She’s a working actor in LA but it’s just like about their life. It’s very funny. It’s very real and kind of gritty. My middle schooler and I have watched a lot of sitcoms together, and this is definitely a more adult show than we’ve watched before. But it’s still a family show, and it’s just, it’s so so good. It’s just a really incredible authentic portrayal of mothers and daughters. Which, you know, being a mother and a daughter, sometimes I’m like, is this making you like me more? Is this making you appreciate me? Probably not.DeniseHaving raised three kids, I don’t aspire to that anymore.VirginiaNot the goal, not the goal.DeniseJust never going to show up.VirginiaBut it is really sweet bonding in a way that I hadn’t expected. So that is my recommendation.DeniseLovely, lovely, lovely.VirginiaAll right, Denise. Tell folks again, just in case anyone missed it. Where do we find you? Where do we find the curriculums? How do we support your work?DeniseCome to berealusa.org—that’s our website. We have more information on everything I’ve mentioned, on all of the curriculum, on how to become an ambassador, and just more explanation. On the website, we have fact sheets on everything we do. So if you go in, I think on the homepage, you drop down, they’ll say fact sheets. And we also have probably have 10 fact sheets that will give you more information on this. We also talk about why you shouldn’t be taking BMI school. We had a “don’t weigh me in school” campaign about five years ago that kind of went viral. So anyway, that’s all good on our website.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your September Indulgence Gospel!It’s time for a mailbag episode, so we’ll be diving into your questions about:⭐️ How to clap back when people say, “Wow, you’ve changed!” ⭐️ What to do with ageist grandparents? (We’re surprisingly…Team Grandparent on this one?)⭐️ Why it’s so hard to like photos of ourselves!!! ⭐️ Is Back To School (the hype, the myth, the culture)…a diet? And so much more!To hear the full story, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Mara Gordon, MD.Dr. Mara is a family physician on the faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as a writer, journalist and contributor to NPR. She also writes the newsletter Your Doctor Friend by Mara Gordon about her efforts to make medicine more fat friendly.Dr. Mara is back today with Part 2 of our conversation about weight, health, perimenopause and menopause! As we discussed last time, finding menopause advice that doesn’t come with a side of diet culture is really difficult. Dr Mara is here to help, and she will not sell you a supplement sign or make you wear a weighted vest.This episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!And don’t miss these: Dr. Mara Will Not Sell You a Weighted VestHealthcare is Ground Zero for FatphobiaIs Dr. Mary Claire Haver Making MenopauseEpisode 209 TranscriptVirginiaSo today we’re going to move away from the weight stuff a little bit, into some of the other the wide constellation of things that can happen in menopause and perimenopause. Before we get into some nitty gritty stuff, I want to do Laurie’s question about hormone replacement therapy, since that is still one of those topics that people are like, Is it good? Is it bad? I don’t know.So Laurie asked: Is there a reason why a doctor would not want to prescribe hormone replacement therapy? My doctor seems more willing to treat individual symptoms instead of using HRT. Is that maybe because I’m still getting my period?MaraI love this question. Now my professor hat can nerd out about interpretation of scientific research! So first, I’ll just briefly say, Laurie, no big deal that you said HRT. But just so everyone’s aware, the preferred term is menopausal hormone therapy, MHT, or just hormone therapy, and it’s not a huge deal. But I think the North American Menopause Society now uses “menopausal hormone therapy.” The thinking is, hormones don’t necessarily need to be replaced. It comes back to that idea of, menopause is a natural part of life, and so the idea that they would need to be replaced is not totally accurate. VirginiaWe’re not trying to get you out of menopause, right? The goal isn’t to push you back into some pre-menopausal hormonal state. MaraBut again, not a big deal. You’ll see HRT still used, and a lot of doctors still use that term. So I graduated from medical school in 2015 and I remember one of the first times that a patient asked me about using menopausal hormone therapy, I was terrified. And I was still in training, so luckily, I had a mentor who guided me through it. But I had absorbed this very clear message from medical school, which is that menopausal hormone therapy will cause heart disease, cause pulmonary emboli, which are blood clots in the lungs, and cause breast cancer.And I was like, “Ahhh! I’m gonna cause harm to my patients. This is scary.” I had also learned that hot flashes–they weren’t life threatening. So a patient could just use a fan and she’d be fine, right? She didn’t need medicine for it.VirginiaCool.MaraI think the dismissal of symptoms here is just straight up misogyny. That message of, oh, you should just live with this You’re tough, you’re a woman, you can do it. This is just the next stage of it. Is just misogyny, right?But the fear of using menopausal hormone therapy has a specific historical context. There was a major study called the Women’s Health Initiative, and it was a randomized control trial, which is the gold standard in medical research. People were given estrogen and progestin to treat menopausal symptoms or they were given a placebo, and they didn’t know which pill they took. But WHI was actually halted early because they found an increased risk of breast cancer. This was on the front page of The New York Times. It was a really, really big deal. That was 2002 or 2003. So even 15 years later, when I was starting out as a doctor, I was still absorbing its message. And I think a lot of doctors who are still in practice have just deeply absorbed this message.But there’s a lot to consider here. The first issue is in the way that information about the Women’s Health Initiative was communicated. Nerd out with me for a second here: There is a big difference between absolute risk and relative risk. And this is a really subtle issue that’s often communicated poorly in the media.So I looked it up in the initial paper that came out of the Women’s Health Initiative. There was a relative risk of 26 percent of invasive breast cancer, right? So that meant that the people who got the estrogen and progestin, as opposed to a placebo, had a relative increased risk of 26 percent compared to the placebo arm.VirginiaWhich sounds scary,MaraSounds terrifying, right? But the absolute risk is the risk in comparison to one another. And they found that if you’re a patient taking the estrogen/progestin, your absolute risk was 8 people out of 10,000 women a year would get invasive breast cancer. So it’s very, very small.And this is an issue I see in medical journalism all the time. We talk about relative risk, like your risk compared to another group, but the absolute risk remains extremely low.And just to round it out: I looked all this up about cardiovascular events too. Things like a heart attack, a stroke. So the absolute risk was 19. So there were 19 cases of a cardiovascular event out of 10,000 women in a year. People just freaked out about this because of the way that it was covered in the media. VirginiaI was fresh out of college, doing women’s health journalism at the time. So I fully own having been part of that problem. We definitely reported on the relative risk, not the absolute risk. And I don’t understand why. I look back and I’m like, what were we all doing? We ended up taking this medication away from millions of women who could really benefit from it.MaraI found a paper that showed between 2002 and 2009 prescriptions for menopausal hormone therapy declined by more than 60 percent. VirginiaI’m not surprised. MaraAnd then even up until the time I started my training, right in 2015, we’re just seeing a huge decline in hormone therapy prescriptions.One other thing that’s also super important to acknowledge about the Women’s Health Initiative is that they enrolled women over 60, which is not really representative of women who want or need hormone therapy. So the average age of menopause is 51 and the vast majority of women who are experiencing symptoms that would respond well to hormone therapy are much younger. We’re talking here mostly about hot flashes. Which we call vasomotor symptoms of menopause, but it’s basically hot flashes. Women dealing with this are much younger, right? So they’re approaching menopause, late 40s, and right after the menopausal transition, early 50s, and then they don’t necessarily need it anymore, after their symptoms have improved.VirginiaAnd it will also be true that with women in their 60s, you’re going to see more incidence of cancer and heart disease in that age group than in women in their 40s anyway, right? MaraRightVirginiaSo even the 19 cases, the eight cases—they were looking at a higher risk population in general. MaraYeah. And so there have been all these subsequent analyses, which is why now we’re seeing menopausal hormone therapy sort of on the upswing. There’s a lot of increased interest in it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends it, the North American Menopause Society, the British Menopause Society; here’s a full run-down. It’s not that everybody needs it, and we’ll get to that in a second, but it is a totally safe and appropriate treatment for—specifically and most importantly—for vasomotor symptoms of menopause. Like hot flashes. There’s been all these further analyses of the Women’s Health Initiative data and and then from other studies, too. And basically, it shows that when the hormone therapy is initiated before age 60, or within 10 years of menopause, there’s a reduced risk of heart disease and reduced mortality.VirginiaWow! MaraSo the timing matters. Isn’t that so interesting? The timing matters.Also, the route of administration matters. So what that means in English is that an estrogen patch seems to have a lower risk of blood clots. So one of those fears of the, you know, initial Women’s Health Initiative data was that you might have an increased risk of blood clots. But it’s something about the way that the estrogen is metabolized. It’s not metabolized through the liver when it’s absorbed through the skin, and something about that process seems to decrease the risk of blood clots.So that’s why your doctor, if you’re interested in menopausal hormone therapy, might recommend an estrogen patch rather than a pill.VirginiaGot it. MaraThere’s a lot of ambiguity in all of this data, because, you know, we’re talking about just huge numbers of people, and it’s hard to sort of isolate variables when you’re studying just like massive cohorts of people and trying to understand what you know, what factors affect your risk for which diseases. It’s not clear that taking hormones prevents heart disease. And that’s one of the big claims I see with menopause influencers, that every single person needs this.The data don’t support it at this point in time, and the major menopause organizations do not recommend it as a universal preventative treatment for everybody. But it seems like there might be some sort of association that may become clearer as research continues. That said, now it seems like the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction. I learned, “be afraid of menopausal hormone treatment.” And now all these menopause influencers are saying everyone should be on hormone therapy.I don’t know the answer. And so the way that I try to parse through all of this noise is, you know, go to trusted sources, right? So I stick to society guidelines, like the North American menopause society, the British menopause society, they’re run by world experts in menopause.VirginiaOkay, so we don’t need to be terrified of hormone therapy, and you can be on it if you’re still getting your period right? Just to finish Laurie’s question.MaraIf you’re still getting a period regularly, you’re more in perimenopause than past the menopausal transition. And we will often use contraception to help and that you can have a lot of the same benefits from using contraception in that stage. It’s also useful just because unintended pregnancy still can be totally a thing in your 40s. But yes, you can absolutely use traditional regimens of menopausal hormone therapy while you’re still getting a period too. Just know it won’t prevent pregnancy. VirginiaSince we talked a little bit about hot flashes, I’m gonna jump to Judy’s question so we can kind of round that piece out: One of the things I am really struggling with is the way I have lost all ability to regulate temperature. I am boiling hot almost all the time, and the slightest thing makes me break out into a full sweat, which makes me not want to move at all.My doctor has not been super helpful in navigating this. What can I do to mitigate this issue? If anything, it is so very hard for me not to blame the size of my body for this, since the correlation seems so clear, smaller body less sweating, larger body sweating all the dang time.MaraJudy, I empathize first of all. Just one caveat I can’t really give medical advice to Judy. There are a lot of things that could be going on, and it’s really important that you see a doctor and get a full history and physical exam. But I will say that this is one of the things that menopausal hormone therapy is extremely helpful for, is hot flashes.VirginiaThat was my first thought! MaraThere are a lot of influencers who really overstate the benefits of hormone therapy, right? Hormone therapy is not really going to cause significant weight loss or prevent weight gain. It’s not totally clear that it helps with mood symptoms or even sleep is a little more ambiguous. But the one thing it really works for is hot flashes. So that would be my thought: Start there. VirginiaAnd on the feeling like you want to blame your body for it: I don’t know if Judy identifies as fat, but as someone who identifies as fat, I often feel like I’m sweatier now than when I was thinner. I run warmer. All my skinny friends will be bundled up in coats, and I still won’t be wearing one in October. I do notice that. And I think that this is a situation where that is, even if those two things correlate— you’re larger and you’re sweatier—is that worth putting yourself through the hell of weight loss? You may decide yes, it is, if hormone therapy doesn’t work for you.But that’s one of those times where I bring it back to “What would actually make my daily life miserable?” I can drink water, I can be in AC, I’m gonna find a link to this nighttime cooling bed thing that my friend Claire Zulkey really loves. MaraI’ve heard of those!VirginiaI think there are options to mitigate your suffering with this. Medicine is definitely an option. Before you go to “okay, my body size has to be the thing that changes.”MaraI totally agree. I just deal with this all the time where people tell me in my clinic that they want to lose weight. And when I sort of gently ask, what are you hoping to achieve? What are your goals? They’re often things that can be achieved through other means. Like, people say my clothes don’t fit, right? And most of my patients are low-income, right? I’m not trying to be flippant about the idea that everyone can just go and purchase a new, you know, multi $1,000 wardrobe at the drop of a hat. But it is possible to get new clothes in affordable ways. Don’t torture yourself with clothes that don’t fit because you feel like weight gain is a moral failing. And I think that there are things that we can do to help keep us at a comfortable temperature, right wear clothes that feel, you know, that feel good. Air conditioning is an amazing modern invention. And, you know, cool beverages, ice cream. VirginiaPopsicle O’Clock is very important in my summer right now, very important. MaraWait, what’s a popsicle clock?VirginiaOh, Popsicle O’Clock. It’s just the time of day where you eat popsicles. It could be 9am it could be 4pm just whenever I feel like we need to add popsicles to a situation.MaraI think we all need more popsicles in our life, that is absolutely for sure.So I think what I’m hearing from Judy’s question is once again, shame about body size, and also this myopic zooming in on weight loss as the only possible solution. Which I blame doctors for in many ways! Some people do benefit from weight loss, right? I’m not opposed to the idea that anybody would ever want to lose weight. I don’t think that that’s a betrayal of fat solidarity, necessarily. But that there are other things you can do just to make your life feel better in the meantime, or even if you choose to never pursue weight loss. There are things you can do to feel better, and we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of those things.VirginiaAnd you don’t know that it is the weight gain. It could be age and hormones, and those coincided with the weight gain for you personally. But there are lots of thin women getting hot flashes all the time too.Okay, this next question is from Michaela: I am super curious about the connection between perimenopause, menopause and mental health symptoms, specifically, an uptick in anxiety and depression. Is this a thing?We also got many questions about whether perimenopause and menopause exacerbate ADHD symptoms. MaraSo this is a question I get a lot from my patients, and I’ve seen a lot of discourse about online. And the short answer is: There is probably a connection between the hormonal changes of perimenopause and the menopausal transition and mental health. Do we understand it? No. So I mean, with ADHD specifically, I will say: This is really not my area of expertise. It’s a very complex mental health condition, and our medical understanding of it is really rapidly evolving. I have many patients who have a diagnosis of ADHD but I’m typically not the one who diagnoses them. That being said: Estrogen affects neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are implicated in ADHD. Declining estrogen does seem to affect dopamine, in particular, which is implicated in ADHD. And anecdotally, I’ve had many of my patients say that they feel like their ability to focus and sustain attention decreases. And they experience brain fog as they enter perimenopause and menopause. So it’s there’s probably something going on, and a lot of researchers are really actively studying it, but we don’t know yet.VirginiaDo we know if this is something that hormone therapy can help with?MaraSo I think the answer is, I don’t know.VirginiaWhat about anxiety and depression?MaraI don’t think the data are there, right? Hormone therapy is usually not considered a first line treatment for the mental health conditions that are often associated with the menopausal transition. But we have great medicines for those conditions. We have good treatments for ADHD, we have good treatments for anxiety and depression. And sometimes during the menopausal transition, patients might need an increase of those treatments. And that could mean going back into therapy, if you’ve been out of therapy, increasing your medications or restarting a med that you may have stopped years ago. Those are all totally valid approaches during this phase.And I guess what I’d say, is that it’s okay to trust your body. And if you notice changes in your mental health associated with perimenopause or menopause itself, ask about it. Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself. And while hormone therapy doesn’t look like it is an effective treatment specifically for those symptoms, there are other treatments, and you should feel empowered to ask about them.VirginiaThe next question goes back to some of the diet and exercise stuff we’ve touched on. This person writes: Since recently reaching menopause, my cholesterol has become high. I understand there is a proven link between menopause and increased cholesterol, and that weight is part of the picture. I’m trying to lower my cholesterol with focus on nutrition and exercise. But it is fucking with my head because it feels like a very restrictive diet. I’d love any thoughts on the menopause cholesterol connection and keeping cholesterol low with nutrition and exercise without falling into the abyss of obsessing about how many almonds I’ve eaten.MaraOh, that is such a good question!VirginiaThe almond of it all. MaraAlmonds are really good in some scenarios, but also just like, kind of a sad snack. I always think about President Obama eating those, like, eight almonds, or whatever.VirginiaIt turns out that was a joke and he wasn’t doing that. But just the fact that everybody assumed he would says a lot! MaraThat is hilarious, and I didn’t know! And it just shows how with information online, the initial story sticks. Like to this day, 10 years later, I still thought that Barack Obama ate eight almonds as his indulgent midnight snack every single night. I hope the man is eating some ice cream and living his best life. Okay, so there is absolutely a link between menopause and elevated risk of cardiovascular disease. But even within the term cholesterol, there are different types. I wouldn’t really say to a patient, “Your cholesterol is high.” One thing you might hear is “your LDL cholesterol is high,” which is known popularly as, the “bad” cholesterol. Which, again, moral language alert. But LDL cholesterol is a proxy for risk of cardiovascular disease. I will say it’s not a great one; it’s kind of a blunt instrument. We measure and we treat it, because we don’t have other great ways of predicting cardiovascular risk. But it is not the full portrait, although it’s certainly a risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease. And the transition of menopause seems to impact LDL, cholesterol, other biomarkers of cardiovascular disease, and increases your risk for cardiovascular disease.And what’s interesting–I think we talked about this a little bit already, is that this happens, this this risk happens independent of normal aging.So, for example, women who go through menopause early start developing this increased risk earlier than women who go through menopause slightly later. And overall, we see that women develop cardiovascular disease, at rates lower than men, and at later in life than men. And there’s a hypothesis that this has to do with menopause, right? That there’s a protective effect of estrogen, but then when your estrogen starts to decline in menopause, it puts women at an increased risk compared to where they were pre-menopause.There’s also some data to suggest that the severity of menopause symptoms—particularly vasomotor symptoms like hot flashes or sleep disturbances—may indicate risk for developing cardiovascular disease. So this is not to scare everyone, but it’s good to have knowledge. If you’re having really severe hot flashes, it may indicate that you are at slightly higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease than somebody who is not. The intention of having this knowledge is not to make you feel shame, and not to berate you for your belly fat or whatever. It’s to have knowledge so that you can help mitigate risk factors in ways that feel aligned with your values and ways that feel aligned with the way that you want to pursue health in your life.And so I would approach this reader’s or this listener’s question with smy same approach to all of my patients questions. “I have hypertension, does that mean I need to lose weight?” “I have diabetes, does that mean I need to lose weight?” The answer is that we have many treatments that can help you address these concerns independent of weight loss. But this is not to say that you cannot pursue weight loss too, right? And if using a GLP-1 agonist to reduce your visceral adiposity is aligned with your values, and you can tolerate the side effects, and you feel good about it, and it’s covered by your insurance….that’s totally a reasonable approach. But it’s not the only one. So I think what I’m hearing from this patient is the menopause flavor of what I do every single day in my work as a size inclusive doctor. Which is: How can we disentangle weight stigma and body shame from these questions of how to lead a healthy life? And the idea of giving you more information, I hope, is not to shame you or make you feel guilt for the relationship between body size and risk of cardiovascular disease, but instead, to give you information that might help you take proactive care of your body, right?And proactive care might mean committing to an exercise routine. Proactive care might mean taking a statin. A statin is a very common cholesterol medicine like Lipitor. It might mean getting your blood pressure under control and taking an antihypertensive.VirginiaI also want to say on cholesterol, specifically, I did a piece that I’ll link to digging into the connection between nutrition and cholesterol. And the data is not as strong as I think a lot of doctors are telling folks.And I think the benefit of making dietary changes—the amount it could lower cholesterol—was not huge. It was like three points or six points or something in one of the studies we looked at. So if it’s making you crazy to count almonds, it’s possible that medication might be a more health promoting strategy for you. Because it will be less stressful and it will have a bigger benefit on your cholesterol than just trying to control it through diet and exercise.MaraYeah, I totally agree. I think there’s a really strong genetic component that we haven’t fully understood and medication is a totally reasonable approach and very safe approach. Honestly, statins are pretty benign medications. They’re pretty inexpensive, pretty minimal side effects, which is not to say– nobody’s paying me from the statin companies, I swear to God!–but yeah, like they’re, they’re pretty benign as medications go. And I think it’s a totally reasonable way to approach this issue.VirginiaI just think it’s one of those times where this is shame coming in, where it’s like, “You should be able to fix this with how you eat and exercise, and so you don’t get the medication unless you fail at that!” This is a framing that I’ve encountered from doctors. But what if we gave the medication, what if we also consider diet and exercise, but don’t make that a pass/fail situation in order to earn the medication? MaraYeah, that’s really interesting.And even the language you’re using Virginia is what we use in the medical record, and I’ve tried to stop it. But the way we’re taught to describe patients, is “patient failed XYZ treatment,” right? And I feel like we’re both at once, overly invested in pharmaceutical treatments, right and underinvested. They’re a very useful tool. And we moralize it, both pro and con? Sometimes, like, we moralize in favor of it. So if your BMI is 26 or above, you need to be on a GLP one agonist, which is just false, right?But on the other hand, I think we often underutilize medications because there’s this sense that you’re getting at —that you have to exhaust all of your like willpower options first, and it’s somehow failing to use a med. And that is really false too. They’re really useful tools. Science is really useful, and we shouldn’t feel ashamed to use it.VirginiaAll right. And our last question, I like because it just will give us a chance to kind of sum up some key points: As a post menopausal woman, I feel like I’m swimming in information, and I’m overwhelmed by it all. What are Dr Gordon’s top three pieces of advice out of all of the WHO meaning, if women at this time only did these three things, it would make the biggest difference, and then they just had it. You know, is, does it need to be different for perimenopause versus post menopause? Or maybe not.So what are your top three? Top three tips for surviving this life stage?MaraOh, my God, if only I knew! I’m flattered that you’re asking, and I will do my best to answer, but I don’t think there’s a right answer at all.So I’ve thought about a couple things. I will say that, you know, longevity and wellness and health span is extremely complicated, but it’s also kind of simple, right?So sometimes the advice that we’ve just heard over and over again is actually really, really good, right? So, sleep. Are we sleeping enough?Staying engaged with social relationships, that seems to be extremely important for longevity. And it’s kind of amazing, actually. When they do these long-term studies on people who are thriving into old age, like they have really strong relationships. And that is so important.Moving our bodies and it does not need to be punishing. Workouts can be gardening. I know Virginia, I love receiving your gardening content online. Gardening is an amazing form of exercise, and can be very life affirming, and does not need to feel like punishment. Just getting up, moving our bodies, sleeping enough, maintaining relationships, cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives. It’s actually been really studied right, that people who have a sense of meaning and have a sense of purpose in their lives tend to live longer and live longer, healthier lives.So all of this is to say that like it’s complicated, but sometimes it’s not. And there are a million people on the Internet who want to sell you a miracle drug, a miracle supplement, a miracle weighted vest, whatever. But sometimes simple, Simple is good. Easier said than done, right?VirginiaYeah, but start simple. That’s wonderful.MaraCan I ask? Virginia, what would your advice be? VirginiaI love the three areas you hit on: Sleep, social relations and exercise or moving your body. None of those are about weight loss or dieting. I think that’s really helpful for us to keep in mind that the things that might protect our health the most can also be very joyful as well. The idea that doing things that makes you happy and reduce your stress can be health-promoting is great. And I think that’s something especially in midlife. We are all incredibly busy. We’re holding a lot of things together. A lot of us are caregivers, maybe sandwich generation caregivers. So prioritizing your own joy in that feels really wonderful.ButterVirginiaAll right, so speaking of joy, let’s do some Butter! Dr. Mara, what do you have for us?MaraI have a Philadelphia-specific one, but hopefully it can be extrapolated to our listeners in different locations. So I have recently been really craving soft serve ice cream. And so I googled best soft serve in Philadelphia, and I found this Vietnamese coffee shop called Càphê Roasters, which is in North Philly. In a neighborhood called Kensington. And it has condensed milk soft serve ice cream. So good.And so I recently, I had to give a lecture at a medical school in the north part of the city early in the morning. It was like, 8am and I was like, “Oh, I’m never up in this neighborhood. I gotta get over there.” And I went after I gave my lecture, and I bought myself ice cream at 10:30 in the morning. And I ate it in my car, and it was so good. Condensed milk. So good. But soft serve in general, is my Butter. But for those of you in Philly, go to Càphê Roasters in Kensington and get the condensed milk. It is chef’s kiss, delicious.VirginiaAmazing. I’m gonna double your Butter and say ice cream in general is my Butter right now. We have a spare fridge freezer that I have just been loading up with all of the popsicles to get us through summer. But also: Ice cream dates. Something that comes up a lot for me as a co-parent is figuring out how to have one on one time with my kids. Since we have joint custody, they move as a package. So I get kid-free time, which is wonderful, but when they’re with me, it’s just me. So one thing I’ve been figuring out is pockets of time when I can take one kid out for ice cream. It’s usually when a sibling is at another activity, and so we have an hour to kill, and often we would just like, wait for the activity, or go home and come back, and then you’re just driving.And now I’m like, No, that will be our ice cream break!MaraI love that.VirginiaSo one kid’s at the library doing her book trivia team stuff, and the other kid and I are getting ice cream while we wait for her. And it’s great one on one time with kids. Obviously, the ice cream is delicious. The other thing I’ve realized, especially if you have younger kids who are still building restaurant skills, ice cream is a great practice run at being a person in a restaurant, which is really hard for kids understandably. It is one food thing that they’re excited to go do. And you do have to sit and practice eating it somewhat neatly. There’s a high mess potential. My pro-move for that is, always have wipes in your car, bring a pack of wipes in. MaraI love that, and it’s so intentional about sort of creating traditions with kids. That feels really special. But I will say I had my ice cream solo, and that was also really good solo ice cream too.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Ash Brandin of Screen Time Strategies, also know as The Gamer Educator on Instagram. Ash is also the author of a fantastic new book, Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. Ash joined us last year to talk about how our attitudes towards screen time can be…diet-adjacent. I asked them to come back on the podcast this week because a lot of us are heading into back-to-school mode, which in my experience can mean feelingsss about screen routines. There are A LOT of really powerful reframings in this episode that might blow your mind—and make your parenting just a little bit easier. So give this one a listen and share it with anyone in your life who’s also struggling with kids and screen time.Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you! PS. You can take 10 percent off Power On, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you’ve previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Episode 208 TranscriptVirginiaFor anyone who missed your last episode, can you just quickly tell us who you are and what you do?AshI’m Ash Brandin. I use they/them pronouns.I am a middle school teacher by day, and then with my online presence, I help families and caregivers better understand and manage all things technology—screen time, screens. My goal is to reframe the way that we look at them as caregivers, to find a balance between freaking out about them and allowing total access. To find a way that works for us. VirginiaWe are here today to talk about your brilliant new book, which is called Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. I can’t underscore enough how much everybody needs a copy of this book. I have already turned back to it multiple times since reading it a few months ago. It just really helps ground us in so many aspects of this conversation that we don’t usually have.AshI’m so glad to hear that it’s helpful! If people are new to who I am, I have sort of three central tenets of the work that I do: * Screen time is a social inequity issue. * Screens can be part of our lives without being the center of our lives. * Screens and screen time should benefit whole families.Especially in the last few years, we have seen a trend toward panic around technology and screens and smartphones and social media. I think that there are many reasons to be concerned around technology and its influence, especially with kids. But what’s missing in a lot of those conversations is a sense of empowerment about what families can reasonably do. When we focus solely on the fear, it ends up just putting caregivers in a place of feeling bad.VirginiaYou feel like you’re getting it wrong all the time.AshShame isn’t empowering. No one is like, “Well, I feel terrible about myself, so now I feel equipped to go make a change,” right?Empowerment is what’s missing in so many of those conversations and other books and things that have come out, because it’s way harder. It’s so much harder to talk about what you can really do and reasonably control in a sustainable way. But I’m an educator, and I really firmly believe that if anyone’s in this sort of advice type space, be it online or elsewhere, that they need to be trying to empower and help families instead of just capitalizing on fear.VirginiaWhat I found most powerful is that you really give us permission to say: What need is screen time meeting right now? And this includes caregivers’ needs. So not just “what need is this meeting for my child,” but what need is this meeting for me? I am here recording with you right now because iPads are meeting the need of children have a day off school on a day when I need to work. We won’t be interrupted unless I have to approve a screen time request, which I might in 20 minutes.I got divorced a couple years ago, and my kids get a lot more screen time now. Because they move back and forth between two homes, and each only has one adult in it. Giving myself permission to recognize that I have needs really got me through a lot of adjusting to this new rhythm of our family.AshAbsolutely. And when we’re thinking about what the need is, we also need to know that it’s going to change. So often in parenting, it feels like we have to come up with one set of rules and they have to work for everything in perpetuity without adjustment. That just sets us up for a sense of failure if we’re like, well, I had this magical plan that someone told me was going to work, and it didn’t. So I must be the problem, right? It all comes back to that “well, it’s my fault” place.VirginiaWhich is screens as diet culture.AshAll over again. We’re back at it. It’s just not helpful. If instead, we’re thinking about what is my need right now? Sometimes it’s “I have to work.” And sometimes it’s “my kid is sick and they just need to relax.” Sometimes it’s, as you were alluding to earlier, it’s we’ve all just had a day, right? We’ve been run ragged, and we just need a break, and that need is going to dictate very different things. If my kid is laid up on the couch and throwing up, then what screen time is going to be doing for them is very different than If I’m trying to work and I want them to be reasonably engaged in content and trying to maybe learn something. And that’s fine. Being able to center “this is what I need right now,” or “this is what we need right now,” puts us in a place of feeling like we’re making it work for us. Instead of feeling like we’re always coming up against some rule that we’re not going to quite live up to.VirginiaI’d love to talk about the inequity piece a little more too. As I said, going from a two parent household to a one parent household, which is still a highly privileged environment—but even just that small shift made me realize, wait a second. I think all the screen time guidance is just for typical American nuclear families. Ideally, with a stay at home parent.So can you talk about why so much of the standard guidance doesn’t apply to most of our families?AshIt’s not even just a stay at home parent. It’s assuming that there is always at least one caregiver who is fully able to be present. Mom, default parent, is making dinner, and Dad is relaxing after work and is monitoring what the kids are doing, right? And it’s one of those times where I’m like, have you met a family?VirginiaPeople are seven different places at once. It’s just not that simple.AshIt’s not that simple, right? It’s like, have you spent five minutes in a typical household in the last 10 years? This is not how it’s going, right?So the beginning of the book helps people unlearn and relearn what we may have heard around screens, including what research really does or doesn’t say around screens, and this social inequity piece. Because especially since the onset of COVID, screens are filling in systemic gaps for the vast majority of families.I’m a family with two caregivers in the home. We both work, but we’re both very present caregivers. So we’re definitely kind of a rarity, that we’re very privileged. We’re both around a lot of the time. And we are still using screens to fill some of those gaps.So whether it’s we don’t really have a backyard, or people are in a neighborhood where they can’t send their kids outside, or they don’t have a park or a playground. They don’t have other kids in the neighborhood, or it’s not a safe climate. Or you live in an apartment and you can’t have your neighbors complain for the fifth time that your kids are stomping around and being loud. Whatever it is—a lack of daycare, affordable after school care —those are all gaps. They all have to be filled. And we used to have different ways of filling those gaps, and they’ve slowly become less accessible or less available. So something has to fill them. What ends up often filling them is screens. And I’m not saying that that’s necessarily a good thing. I’d rather live in a world in which everyone is having their needs met accessibly and equitably. But that’s a much harder conversation, and is one that we don’t have very much say in. We participate in that, and we might vote for certain people, but that’s about all we can really do reasonably. So, in the meantime, we have to fill that in with something and so screens are often going to fill that in.Especially if you look at caregivers who have less privilege, who are maybe single caregivers, caregivers of color, people living in poverty—all of those aspects of scarcity impacts their bandwidth. Their capacity as a caregiver is less and spread thinner, and all of that takes away from a caregiver’s ability to be present. And there were some really interesting studies that were done around just the way that having less capacity affects you as a caregiver.And when I saw that data, I thought, well, of course. Of course people are turning to screens because they have nothing else to give from. And when we think of it that way, it’s hard to see that as some sort of personal failure, right? When we see it instead as, oh, this is out of necessity. It reframes the question as “How do I make screens work for me,” as opposed to, “I’m bad for using screens.”VirginiaRight. How do I use screen time to meet these needs and to hopefully build up my capacity so that I can be more present with my kids? I think people think if you’re using a lot of screens, you’re really never present. It’s that stereotype of the parent on the playground staring at their phone, instead of watching the kid play. When maybe the reason we’re at the playground is so my kid can play and I can answer some work emails. That doesn’t mean I’m not present at other points of the day.AshOf course. You’re seeing one moment. I always find that so frustrating. It just really feels like you you cannot win. If I were sitting there staring at my child’s every move in the park, someone would be like, “you’re being a helicopter,” right? And if I look at my phone because I’m trying to make the grocery pickup order—because I would rather my child have time at the playground than we spend our only free hour in the grocery store and having to manage a kid in the grocery store and not having fun together, right? Instead I’m placing a pickup order and they’re getting to run around on the playground. Now also somehow I’m failing because I’m looking at my phone instead of my kid. But also, we want kids to have independent time, and not need constant input. It really feels like you just can’t win sometimes. And being able to take a step back and really focus on what need is this meeting? And if it’s ours, and if it is helping me be more present and connected, that’s a win. When I make dinner in the evening, my kid is often having screen time, and I will put in an AirPod and listen to a podcast, often Burnt Toast, and that’s my decompression. Because I come home straight from work and other things. I’m not getting much time to really decompress.VirginiaYou need that airlock time, where you can decompress and then be ready to be present at dinner.I’m sure I’ve told you this before, but I reported a piece on screen time for Parents Magazine, probably almost 10 years ago at this point, because I think my older child was three or four. And I interviewed this Harvard researcher, this older white man, and I gave him this the dinner time example. I said, I’m cooking dinner. My kid is watching Peppa Pig so that I can cook dinner, and take a breath. And then we eat dinner together. And he said, “Why don’t you involve her in cooking dinner? Why don’t you give her a bag of flour to play with while you cook dinner?”AshOf all the things!VirginiaAnd I said to him: Because it’s 5pm on a Wednesday and who’s coming to clean the flour off the ceiling?AshA bag of flour. Of all the things to go to! VirginiaHe was like, “kids love to make a happy mess in the kitchen!” I was like, well I don’t love that. And it was just exactly that. My need didn’t matter to him at all. He was like, “h, well, if you just want to pacify your children…” I was like, I do, yes, in that moment.AshWell, and I think that’s another part of it is that someone says it to us like that, and we’re like, “well, I can’t say yes,” right? But in the moment, yeah, there are times where it’s like, I need you to be quiet. And as hard as this can be to think, sometimes it’s like right now, I need you to be quiet and convenient because of the situation we’re in. And that doesn’t mean we’re constantly expecting that of them, and hopefully that’s not something we’re doing all the time. But if the need is, oh my God, we’re all melting down, and if we don’t eat in the next 15 minutes, we’re going to have a two hour DEFCON1 emergency on our hands, then, yeah, I’m gonna throw Peppa Pig on so that we can all become better regulated humans in the next 15 minutes and not have a hungry meltdown. And that sounds like a much better alternative to me!VirginiaThan flour all over my kitchen on a Wednesday, right? I mean, I’ll never not be mad about it. It’s truly the worst parenting advice I’ve ever received. So thank you for giving us all more space as caregivers to be able to articulate our own needs and articulate what we need to be present. It’s what we can do in the face of gaps in the care system that leave us holding so much.That said: I think there are some nitty gritty aspects of this that we all struggle wit, so I want to talk about some of the nuts and bolts pieces. One of my biggest struggles is still the question of how much time is too much time? But you argue that time really isn’t the measure we should be using. As you’re saying, that need is going to vary day to day, and all the guidance that’s been telling us, like, 30 minutes at this age, an hour at this age, all of that is not particularly germane to our lives. So can you explain both why time is less what we should fixate on? And then how do I release myself? How do I divest from the screen time diet culture?AshOh man, I wish I had a magic bullet for that one. We’ll see what I can do.When I was writing this and thinking about it and making content about it, I kept thinking about you. Because the original time guidelines that everyone speaks back to—they’re from the AAP. And they have not actually been used in about 10 years, but people still bring them up all the time. The “no time under two” and “up to an hour up to age five” and “one to two hours, five to 12.” And if you really dig in, I was following footnote after footnote for a while, trying to really find where did this actually come from? It’s not based on some study that found that that’s the ideal amount of time. It really came from a desire to find this middle ground of time spent being physically idle. These guidelines are about wanting to avoid childhood obesity.VirginiaOf course.AshIt all comes back, right?VirginiaI should have guessed it.AshAnd so in their original recommendations, the AAP note that partially this is to encourage a balance with physical movement. Which, of course, assumes that if you are not sitting watching TV or using an iPad, that you will be playing volleyball or something.VirginiaYou’ll automatically be outside running around.AshExactly, of course, those are the only options.VirginiaIt also assumes that screen time is never physical. But a lot of kids are very physical when they’re watching screens.AshExactly. And it, of course, immediately also imposes a morality of one of these things is better—moving your body is always better than a screen, which is not always going to be true, right? All these things have nuance in them. But I thought that was so interesting, and it shouldn’t have surprised me, and yet somehow it still did. And of course it is good to find movement that is helpful for you and to give your kids an enjoyment of being outside or moving their bodies, or playing a sport. And putting all of that in opposition to something else they may enjoy, like a screen, really quickly goes to that diet culture piece of “well, how many minutes have you been doing that?” Because now we have to offset it with however many minutes you should be running laps or whatever.So those original recommendations are coming from a place of already trying to mitigate the negatives of sitting and doing something sort of passively leisurely. And in the last 10 years, they’ve moved away from that, and they now recommend what’s called making a family media plan. Which actually I think is way better, because it is much more prioritizing what are you using this for? Can you be doing it together? What can you do? It’s much more reasonable, I think. But many people still go back to those original recommendations, because like you said, it’s a number. It’s simple. Just tell me.VirginiaWe love to grab onto a number and grade ourselves.AshJust tell me how much time so that I can tell myself I’m I’m doing a good job, right? But you know, time is just one piece of information. It can be so specific with what am I using that time to do? If I’m sitting on my computer and doing work for an hour and a half, technically, that is screen time, but it is going to affect me a lot differently than if I’m watching Netflix or scrolling my phone for an hour and a half. I will feel very different after those things. And I think it’s really important to be aware of that, and to make our kids aware of that from an early age, so that they are thinking about more than just, oh, it’s been X amount of minutes. And therefore this is okay or not okay.Because all brains and all screens are different. And so one kid can watch 20 minutes of Paw Patrol, and they’re going to be bouncing off the walls, because, for whatever reason, that’s just a show that’s really stimulating for them. And somebody else can sit and watch an hour and a half of something, and they’ll be completely fine. So if you have a kid that is the first kid, and after 20 minutes, you’re like, oh my god, it’s not even half an hour. This is supposed to be an okay amount. This is how they’re acting. We’re right back to that “something’s wrong. I’m wrong. They’re bad,” as opposed to, “What is this telling me? What’s something we could do differently? Could we try a different show? Could we try maybe having some physical movement before or after, see if that makes a difference?” It just puts us more in a place of being curious to figure out again, how do I make this work for me? What is my need? How do I make it work for us?And not to rattle on too long, but there was a big study done in the UK, involving over 120,000 kids. And they were trying to find what they called “the Goldilocks amount of time.”VirginiaYes. This is fascinating.AshSo it’s the amount of time where benefit starts to wane. Where we are in that “just right”amount. Before that, might still be okay, but after that we’re going to start seeing some negative impacts, particularly when it comes to behavior, for example.What they found in general was that the Goldilocks number tended to be around, I think, an hour and 40 minutes a day. Something around an hour and a half a day. But if you looked at certain types of screens, for computers or TV, it was much higher than that. It was closer to three hours a day before you started seeing some negative impacts. And even for things like smartphones, it was over an hour a day. But what I found so so interesting, is that they looked at both statistical significance, but also what they called “minimally important difference,” which was when you would actually notice these negative changes, subjectively, as a caregiver.So this meant how much would a kid have to be on a screen for their adult at home to actually notice “this is having an impact on you,” regularly. And that amount was over four and a half hours a day on screens.VirginiaBefore caregivers were like, “Okay, this is too much!” And the fact that the statistically significant findings for the minutia of what the researchers looking at is so different from what you as a caregiver are going to actually be thrown by. That was really mind blowing to me.AshRight, And that doesn’t mean that statistical significance isn’t important, necessarily. But we’re talking about real minutiae. And that doesn’t always mean that you will notice any difference in your actual life.Of course, some people are going to hear this and go, “But I don’t want my kid on a screen for four and a half hours.” Sure. That’s completely reasonable. And if your kid is having a hard time after an hour, still reasonable, still important. That’s why we can think less about how many minutes has it been exactly, and more, what am I noticing? Because if I’m coming back to the need and you’re like, okay, I have a meeting and I need an hour, right? If you know, “I cannot have them use their iPad for an hour, because they tend to become a dysregulated mess in 25 minutes,” that’s much more useful information than “Well, it says they’re allowed to have an hour of screen time per day so this should be fine because it’s an hour.”VirginiaRight.AshIt sets you up for more success.VirginiaAnd if you know your kid can handle that hour fine and can, in fact, handle more fine, it doesn’t mean, “well you had an hour of screen time while I was in a meeting so now we can’t watch a show together later to relax together.” You don’t have to take away and be that granular with the math of the screens. You can be like, yeah, we needed an extra hour for this meeting, and we’ll still be able to watch our show later. Because that’s what I notice with my kids. If I start to try to take away from some other screen time, then it’s like, “Oh, god, wait, but that’s the routine I’m used to!” You can’t change it, and that’s fair.AshYes, absolutely. And I would feel that way too, right? If someone were giving me something extra because it was a convenience to them, but then later was like, “oh, well, I have to take that from somewhere.” But they didn’t tell me that. I would be like, Excuse me, that’s weird. That’s not how that works, right? This was a favor to you, right?VirginiaYeah, exactly. I didn’t interrupt your meeting. You’re welcome, Mom.Where the time anxiety does tend to kick in, though, is that so often it’s hard for kids to transition off screens. So then parents think, “Well, it was too much time,” or, “The screen is bad.” This is another very powerful reframing in your work. So walk us through why just because a kid is having a hard time getting off screens doesn’t mean it was too much and it doesn’t mean that screens are evil? AshSo an example I use many times that you can tweak to be whatever thing would come up for your kid is bath time. I think especially when kids are in that sort of toddler, three, four age. When my kid was that age, we had a phase where transitioning to and from the bathtub was very hard. Getting into it was hard. But then getting out of it was hard.VirginiaThey don’t ever want to get in. And then they never want to leave.AshThey never want to get out, right? And in those moments when my kid was really struggling to get out of the bathtub, imagine how it would sound if I was like, “Well, it it’s the bathtub’s fault.” Like it’s the bath’s fault that they are having such a hard time, it’s because of the bubbles, and it smells too good, and I’ve made it too appealing and the water’s too warm. Like, I mean, I sound unhinged, right?Virginia“We’re going to stop bathing you.”AshExactly. We would not say, “Well, we can’t have baths anymore.” Or when we go to the fun playground, and it’s really hard to leave the fun playground, we don’t blame the playground. When we’re in the grocery store and they don’t want to leave whichever aisle, we don’t blame the grocery store. And we also don’t stop taking them to the grocery store. We don’t stop going to playgrounds. We don’t stop having baths. Instead, we make different decisions, right? We try different things. We start a timer. We have a different transition. We talk about it beforehand. We strategize, we try things.VirginiaGive a “Hey, we’re leaving in a few minutes!” so they’re not caught off guard.AshExactly. We talk about it. Hey, last time it was really hard to leave here, we kind of let them know ahead of time, or we race them to the car. We find some way to make it more fun, to make the transition easier, right? We get creative, because we know that, hey, they’re going to have to leave the grocery store. They’re going to have to take baths in a reasonable amount of time as they grow up into their lives. We recognize the skill that’s happening underneath it.And I think with screens, we don’t always see those underlying skills, because we see it as this sort of superfluous thing, right? It’s not needed. It’s not necessary. Well, neither is going to a playground, technically.A lot of what we do is not technically required, but the skill underneath is still there. So when they are struggling with ending screen time, is it really the screen, or is it that it’s hard to stop doing something fun. It’s hard to stop in the middle of something. It’s hard to stop if you have been playing for 20 minutes and you’ve lost every single race and you don’t want to stop when you’ve just felt like you’ve lost over and over again, right? You want one more shot to one more shot, right?People are going to think, “Well, but screens are so much different than those other things.” Yes, a screen is designed differently than a playground or a bath. But we are going to have kids who are navigating a technological and digital world that we are struggle to even imagine, right? We’re seeing glimpses of it, but it’s going to be different than what we’re experiencing now, and we want our kids to be able to navigate that with success. And that comes back to seeing the skills underneath. So when they’re struggling with something like that, taking the screen out of it, and asking yourself, how would I handle this if it were anything else. How would I handle this if it were they’re struggling to leave a friend’s house? I probably wouldn’t blame the friend, and I wouldn’t blame their house, and I wouldn’t blame their boys.VirginiaWe’re never seeing that child again! Ash I would validate and I would tell them, it’s hard. And I would still tell them “we’re ending,” and we would talk about strategies to make it easier next time. And we would get curious and try something, and we would be showing our kids that, “hey, it’s it’s okay to have a hard time doing that thing. It’s okay to have feelings about it. And we’re still gonna do it. We’re still going to end that thing.”Most of the time, the things that we are struggling with when it comes to screens actually boil down to one of three things, I call them the ABCs. It’s either Access, which could be time, or when they’re having it, or how much. Behavior, which you’re kind of bringing up here. And Content, what’s on the screen, what they’re playing, what they what they have access to.And so sometimes we might think that the problem we’re seeing in front of us is a behavior problem, right? I told them to put the screen away. They’re not putting the screen away. That’s a behavior problem. But sometimes it actually could be because it’s an access issue, right? It’s more time than they can really handle at that given moment. Or it could be content, because it’s content that makes it harder to start and stop. So a big part of the book is really figuring out, how do I know what problem I’m even really dealing with here? And then what are some potential things that I can do about it? To try to problem solve, try to make changes and see if this helps, and if it helps, great, keep it. And if not, I can get curious and try something else. And so a lot of it is strategies to try and ways to kind of, you know, backwards engineer what might be going on, to figure out how to make it work for you, how to make it better.VirginiaIt’s so helpful to feel like, okay, there’s always one more thing I can tweak and adjust. Versus “it’s all a failure. We have to throw it out.” That kind of all or nothing thinking that really is never productive. The reason I think it’s so helpful that you draw that parallel with the bath or the play date is it reminds us that there are some kids for whom transitions are just always very difficult—like across the board. So you’re not just seeing a screen time problem. You’re being reminded “My kid is really building skills around transitions. We don’t have them yet.” We hope we will have them at some point. But this is actually an opportunity to work on that, as opposed to a problem. We can actually practice some of these transition skills.AshAnd I really like coming back to the skill, because if we’re thinking of it as a skill, then we’re probably more likely to tell our kids that it’s a skill, too. Because if we’re just thinking of it as like, well, it’s a screen. It’s the screen’s fault, it’s the screen’s fault. Then we might not say those literal words to our kids, but we might say, like, it’s always so hard to turn off the TV. Why is that, right? We’re talking about it as if it’s this sort of amorphous, like it’s only about the television, or it’s only about the iPad, and we’re missing the part of making it clear to our kids that, hey, this is a skill that you’re working on, and we work on this skill in different ways.VirginiaI did some good repair with my kids after reading your book. Because I was definitely falling into the trap of talking about screen addiction. I thought I was saying to them, “It’s not your fault. The screens are programmed to be bad for us in this way” So I thought, I was like at least not blaming them, but being like, we need less screens because they’re so dangerous.But then I read your book, and I was like, oh, that’s not helpful either. And I did have one of my kids saying, “Am I bad because I want to watch screens all the time?” And I was like, oh, that’s too concrete and scary.And again, to draw the parallel with diet culture: It’s just like telling kids sugar is bad, and then they think they’re bad because they like sugar. So I did do some repair. I was like, “I read this book and now I’ve learned that that was not right.” They were like, oh, okay. We’re healing in my house from that, so thank you.AshOh, you’re very welcome, and I’m glad to hear that!I think about those parallels with food all the time, because sometimes it just helps me think, like, wait, would I be wanting to send this message about food or exercise or whatever? And if the answer is no, then how can I tweak it so that I’m sending a message I’d be okay with applying to other things. And I like being able to make those parallels with my kid. In my household right now, we’re practicing flexibility. Flexibility is a skill that we’re working on in so many parts of our lives. And when I say we, I do mean we. Me, everybody is working on this.VirginiaParents can use more flexibility, for sure.AshAbsolutely. And so like, when those moments are coming up, you know, I’m trying to say, like, hey, like, what skill is this right now? Who’s having to be flexible right now? Flexible can be a good thing, right? We might be flexible by saying yes to eating dinner on the couch and watching a TV show. That’s flexibility. Flexibility isn’t just adjust your plans to be more convenient to me, child, so that I can go do something as an adult. And coming back to those skills so they can see, oh, okay, this isn’t actually just about screens. This applies to every part of these of my life, or these different parts of my life, and if I’m working on it here, oh, wow, it feels easier over there. And so they can see that this applies throughout their life, and kind of feel more of that buy in of like, oh, I’m getting better at that. Or that was easier. That was harder. We want them to see that across the board.VirginiaOh, my God, absolutely.Let’s talk about screens and neurodivergence a little bit. So one of my kiddos is neurodivergent, and I can both see how screens are wonderful for them at the end of a school day, when they come home and they’re really depleted. Screen time is the thing they need to rest and regulate. And they love the world building games, which gives them this whole world to control and explore. And there’s so much there that’s wonderful.And, they definitely struggle more than their sibling with this transition piece, with getting off it. One kid will naturally put down the iPad at some point and go outside for a bit, and this kid will not. And it creates more anxiety for parents. Because neurodivergent kids may both need screens—in ways that maybe we’re not totally comfortable with, but need to get comfortable with—and then struggle with the transition piece. So how do you think about this question differently with neurodivergence? Or or is it really the same thing you’re just having to drill in differently?AshI think it is ultimately the same thing, but it certainly is going to feel quite more heightened. And I think especially for certain aspects of neurodivergence, especially, I think it feels really heightened because of some of the ways that they might be discussed, particularly online, when it comes to how they relate to technology. I think about ADHD, we’ll see that a lot. Where I’ll see many things online about, like, “kids with ADHD should never be on a screen. They should never be on a device, because they are so dopamine-seeking.” And I have to just say that I find that to be such an ableist framing. Because with ADHD, we’re talking about a dopamine deficient brain. And I don’t think that we would be having that same conversation about someone needing insulin, right? Like, we wouldn’t be saying, like, oh yeah, nope, they can’t take that insulin. VirginiaThey’re just craving that insulin they need to stay alive.AshA kid seeking a thing that they’re that they are somehow deficient in—that’s not some sort of defiant behavior. VirginiaNo, it’s a pretty adaptive strategy.AshAbsolutely, it is. And we want kids to know that nobody’s brain is good or bad, right? There’s not a good brain or a bad brain. There are all brains are going to have things that are easier or harder. And it’s about learning the brain that you’re in, and what works or doesn’t work for the brain that you’re in.And all brains are different, right? Neurotypical brains and neurodivergent brains within those categories are obviously going to be vastly different. What works for one won’t work for another, and being able to figure out what works for them, instead of just, “because you have this kind of brain, you shouldn’t ever do this thing,” that’s going to set them up for more success. And I think it’s great that you mentioned both how a screen can be so regulating, particularly for neurodivergent brains, and then the double-edged sword of that is that then you have to stop. VirginiaTransition off back into the world.AshSo if the pain point is a transition, what is it really coming from? Is it coming from the executive function piece of “I don’t know how to find a place to stop?” A lot of people, particularly kids ADHD, they often like games that are more open-ended. So they might like something like a Minecraft or an Animal Crossing or the Sims where you can hyperfocus and deep dive into something. But what’s difficult about that is that, you know, if I play Mario Kart, the level ends, it’s a very obvious ending.VirginiaRight? And you can say, “One more level, and we’re done.”AshExactly. We’ve reached the end of the championship. I’m on the podium. I quit now, right?But there’s a never ending series of of tasks with a more open-ended game. And especially if I’m in my hyper focus zone, right? I can just be thinking, like, well, then I can do this and this and this and this and this, right?And I’m adding on to my list, and the last thing I want to do in that moment is get pulled out of it when I’m really feeling like I’m in the zone. So if that’s the kind of transition that’s difficult. And it’s much less about games and more about “how do I stop in the middle of a project?” Because that’s essentially what that is.And that would apply if I’m at school and I’m in the middle of an essay and we’re finishing it up tomorrow. Or I’m trying to decorate a cake, and we’re trying to walk out the door and I have to stop what I’m doing and come back later. So one of the tricks that I have found really helpful is to ask the question of, “How will you know when you’re done?” Or how will you know you’re at a stopping point? What would a stopping point be today? And getting them to sort of even visualize it, or say it out loud, so that they can think about, “Oh, here’s how I basically break down a giant task into smaller pieces,” because that’s essentially what that is.VirginiaThat’s a great tip. Ash“Okay, you have five minutes. What is the last thing you’re going to do today?” Because then it’s concrete in terms of, like, I’m not asking the last thing, and it will take you half an hour, right? I’m at, we have five minutes. What’s the last thing you’re wrapping up? What are you going to do?Then, if it’s someone who’s very focused in this world, and they’re very into that world, then that last thing can also be our transition out of it. As they’re turning it off, the very first thing we’re saying to them is, “So what was that last thing you were doing?”VirginiaOh, that’s nice.AshThen they’re telling it to us, and then we can get curious. We can ask questions. We can get a little into their world to help them transition out of that world. That doesn’t mean that we have to understand what they’re telling us, frankly. It doesn’t mean we have to know all the nuance. But we can show that interest. I think this is also really, really important, because then we are showing them it’s not us versus the screen. We’re not opposing the screen, like it’s the enemy or something. And we’re showing them, “Hey, I can tell you’re interested in this, so I’m interested in it because you are.” Like, I care about you, so I want to know more.VirginiaAnd then they can invite you into their world, which what a lot of neurodivergent kids need. We’re asking them to be part of the larger world all the time. And how nice we can meet them where they are a little more.AshAbsolutely. The other thing I would say is that something I think people don’t always realize, especially if they don’t play games as much, or if they are not neurodivergent and playing games, is they might miss that video games actually are extremely well-accommodated worlds, in terms of accommodating neurodivergence.So thinking about something like ADHD, to go back to that example, it’s like, okay, some really common classroom accommodations for ADHD, from the educator perspective, the accommodations I see a lot are frequent check ins, having a checklist, breaking down a large task into smaller chunks, objectives, having a visual organizer.Well, I think about a video game, and it’s like, okay, if I want to know what I have available to me, I can press the pause menu and see my inventory at any time. If I want to know what I should be doing, because I have forgotten, I can look at a menu and see, like, what’s my objective right now? Or I can bring up the map and it will show me where I supposed to be going. If I start to deviate from what I’m supposed to be doing, the game will often be like, “Hey, don’t forget, you’re supposed to be going over there!” It’ll get me back on task. If I’m trying to make a potion that has eight ingredients, the game will list them all out for me, and it will check them off as I go, so I can visually see how I’m how I’m achieving this task. It does a lot of that accommodation for me. And those accommodations are not as common in the real world, or at least not as easily achieved.And so a lot of neurodivergent kids will succeed easily in these game worlds. And we might think “oh because it’s addicting, or the algorithm, or it’s just because they love it” But there are often these structural design differences that actually make it more accessible to them.And if we notice, oh, wow, they have no problem knowing what to do when they’re playing Zelda, because they just keep checking their objective list all the time or whatever—that’s great information.VirginiaAnd helps us think, how can we do that in real life? AshExactly. We can go to them and say, hey, I noticed you, you seem to check your inventory a lot when you’re playing that game. How do we make it so that when you look in your closet, you can just as easily see what shirts you own. Whatever the thing may be, so that we’re showing them, “hey, bring that into the rest of your world that works for you here.” Let’s make it work for you elsewhere, instead of thinking of it as a reason they’re obsessed with screens, and now we resent the screens for that. Bring that in so that it can benefit the rest of their lives.VirginiaI’m now like, okay, that just reframes something else very important for me. You have such a helpful way of helping us divest from the guilt and the shame and actually look at this in a positive and empowering way for us and our kids. And I’m just so grateful for it. It really is a game changer for me.AshOh, thank you so much. I’m so glad to hear that it was helpful and empowering for you, and I just hope that it can be that for others as well.ButterAshSo my family and I have been lucky enough to spend quite a lot of time in Japan. And one of the wonderful things about Japan is they have a very huge bike culture. I think people think of the Netherlands as Bike cCentral, but Japan kind of rivals them.And they have a particular kind of bike that you cannot get in the United States. It’s called a Mamachari, which is like a portmanteau of mom and chariot. And it’s sort of like a cargo bike, but they are constructed a little differently and have some features that I love. And so when I’ve been in Japan, we are on those bikes. I’m always like, I love this kind of bike. I want this kind of bike for me forever. And my recent Butter has been trying to find something like that that I can have in my day to day life. And I found something recently, and got a lovely step through bike on Facebook Marketplace. VirginiaSo cool! That’s exciting to find on marketplace, too.AshOh yes, having a bike that like I actually enjoy riding, I had my old bike from being a teenager, and it just was not functional. I was like, “This is not fun.” And now having one that I enjoy, I’m like, oh yes. I feel like a kid again. It’s lovely.VirginiaThat’s a great Butter. My Butter is something both my kids and my pets and I are all really enjoying. I’m gonna drop a link in the chat for you. It is called a floof, and it is basically a human-sized dog bed that I found on Etsy. It’s like, lined with fake fur.AshMy God. I’m looking at it right now.VirginiaIsn’t it hilarious?AshWow. I’m so glad you sent a picture, because that is not what I was picturing?Virginia I can’t describe it accurately. It’s like a cross between a human-sized dog bed and a shopping bag? Sort of? AshYes, yes, wow. It’s like a hot tub.VirginiaIt’s like a hot tub, but no water. You just sit in it. I think they call it a cuddle cave. I don’t understand how to explain it, but it’s the floof. And it’s in our family room. And it’s not inexpensive, but it does basically replace a chair. So if you think of it as a furniture purchase, it’s not so bad. There’s always at least a cat or a dog sleeping in it. Frequently a child is in it. My boyfriend likes to be in it. Everyone gravitates towards it. And you can put pillows in it or a blanket.Neurodivergent people, in particular, really love it, because I think it provides a lot of sensory feedback? And it’s very enclosed and cozy. It’s great for the day we’re having today, which is a very laid back, low demand, watch as much screen as you want, kind of day. So I’ve got one kid bundled into the floof right now with a bunch of blankets in her iPad, and she’s so happy. AshOh my gosh. Also, it kind of looks like the person is sitting in a giant pita, which I also love.VirginiaThat’s what it is! It’s like a giant pita, but soft and cozy. It’s like being in a pita pocket. And I’m sure there are less expensive versions, this was like, 300 something dollars, so it is an investment. But they’re handmade by some delightful person in the Netherlands.Whenever we have play dates, there are always two or three kids, snuggled up in it together. There’s something extremely addictive about it. I don’t know. I don’t really know how to explain why it’s great, but it’s great.AshOh, that is lovely.VirginiaAll right, well tell obviously, everyone needs to go to their bookstore and get Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. Where else can we find you, Ash? How can we support your work?AshYou can find me on Instagram at the gamer educator, and I also cross post my Instagram posts to Substack, and I’m on Substack as Screen Time Strategies. It’s all the same content, just that way you’re getting it in your inbox without, without having to go to Instagram. So if that’s something that you are trying to maybe move away from, get it via Substack. And my book Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family is available starting August 26 is when it fully releases.VirginiaAmazing. Thank you so much. This was really great.AshThank you so much for having me back.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.For our last August hiatus episode, we’re looking back at a conversation we ran back in February of this year — exploring the work of attorney turned self-help guru Mel Robbins.Did Mel steal the concept of “let them?” Is she just Andrew Huberman for the “We Can Do Hard Things” crowd? Is high-fiving yourself in the mirror every morning a diet? As you’ll hear, Corinne and I didn’t totally agree… until we did. Let’s get into it.To hear our discussion, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Today, we’re going to revisit our conversation about Emily Oster, and her evolving views on kids, weight and health.This episode first aired in November 2024, right after the presidential election. We’re now 8 months into Trump’s second term, and continuing to grapple with how America has slid to the right. So the story of a public health advocate and scholar who is now aligned with conservative media feels incredibly timely—especially because many of you are starting back at school this month, and Emily’s take on school lunches is particularly complex. That said, we also want to hold space for how much Emily’s work has meant to so many of us (including Virginia!).EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Today Virginia is chatting with Anna Maltby. Anna is a health journalist, editor, content strategist, personal trainer, and author of the newsletter How to Move. Anna also created Pilates For Abortion Funds, a monthly online class that has raised about $30,000 for abortion funds since July 2022. She has been an ACE-certified personal trainer since 2015, and a certified mat pilates instructor since 2021. She’s also a certified prenatal and postpartum exercise specialist. Anna lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two kids, and two extremely cute cats.Anna was previously a guest on one of Burnt Toast’s most popular ever episodes, The Myth of Visible Abs. What’s so great about Anna—and what makes her different from a lot of fitness writers and personal trainers out there—is that she’s so smart about bodies, she’s truly anti-diet and size neutral as a fitness professional…and, she’s been in the belly of the beast. Anna worked in women’s magazines with me long enough to know all the diet culture tricks. So she’s one of my favorite people to talk fitness with, because she can dissect what is marketing, what is diet culture, and what is actually maybe useful for your body.Two content warnings for today:1. We are going to talk about specific forms of exercise. This will always be through a weight neutral lens, but if you’re recovering from an eating disorder or just otherwise in a place where exercise is not serving you, please take care.2. CW for Butter, because we ended up talking quite a lot about toilets! And while I feel it’s all incredibly practical information and you’re going to thank me for my great Butter recommendation this week, I do realize that toilet conversation is not for everyone. It’s usually not for me! So I get it! You’ve been warned.To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out in paperback! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! We are Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith, and this month we’re discussing… Things Thin People Say. 👀 The list includes: ⭐️ The most bananas comment about swimsuit shopping⭐️ That thing where they think their boyfriend’s clothes will fit you ⭐️ How Caroline Chambers’ thin privilege shows up⭐️ Our thoughts on Haley Nahman’s sugar addict essay. ⭐️ And more! To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Mara Gordon, MD. Dr. Mara is a family physician on the faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as a writer, journalist and contributor to NPR. She also writes the newsletter Your Doctor Friend by Mara Gordon about her efforts to make medicine more fat friendly. And she was previously on the podcast last November, answering your questions on how to take a weight inclusive approach to conditions like diabetes, acid reflux, and sleep apnea.Dr. Mara is back today to tackle all your questions about perimenopause and menopause! Actually, half your questions—there were so many, and the answers are so detailed, we’re going to be breaking this one into a two parter. So stay tuned for the second half, coming in September! As we discussed in our recent episode with Cole Kazdin, finding menopause advice that doesn’t come with a side of diet culture is really difficult. Dr Mara is here to help, and she will not sell you a supplement sign or make you wear a weighted vest. This episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!And don’t miss these: Healthcare is Ground Zero for FatphobiaIs Dr. Mary Claire Haver Making Menopause a Diet?Episode 203 TranscriptVirginiaWhen I put up the call out for listener questions for this, we were immediately inundated with, like, 50 questions in an hour. People have thoughts and feelings and need information! So I’m very excited you’re here. Before we dive into the listener questions, let’s establish some big picture framing on how we are going to approach this conversation around perimenopause and menopause.MaraI should start just by introducing myself. I’m a family doctor and I have a very general practice, which means I take care of infants and I have a couple patients who are over 100. It’s amazing. And families, which is such an honor, to care for multiple generations of families. So, perimenopause and menopause is one chunk of my practice, but it is not all of it.I come from the perspective of a generalist, right? Lots of my patients have questions about perimenopause and menopause. Many of my patients are women in that age group. And I have been learning a lot over the last couple of years. The science is emerging, and I think a lot of practice patterns amongst doctors have really changed, even in the time that I have been in practice, which is about 10 years. There has been a huge shift in the way we physicians think about menopause and think about perimenopause, which I think is mostly for the better, which is really exciting.There’s an increased focus on doctors taking menopause seriously, approaching it with deep care and concern and professionalism. And that is excellent. But this menopause advocacy is taking place in a world that’s really steeped in fatphobia and diet culture. Our culture is just so susceptible to corporate influence. There are tons of influencers who call themselves menopause experts selling supplements online, just selling stuff. Sort of cashing in on this. And I will note, a lot of them are medical doctors, too, so it can be really hard to sort through.VirginiaYour instinct is to trust, because you see the MD.MaraTotally. There’s a lot of diet talk wrapped up in all of it, and there’s a lot of fear-mongering, which I would argue often has fatphobia at its core. It’s a fear of fatness, a fear of aging, a fear of our bodies not being ultra thin, ultra sexualized bodies of adolescents or women in their 20s, right? This is all to say that I think it’s really exciting that there’s an increased cultural focus on women’s health, particularly health in midlife. But we also need to be careful about the ways that diet culture sneaks into some of this talk, and who might be profiting from it. So we do have some hearty skepticism, but also some enthusiasm for the culture moving towards taking women’s concerns and midlife seriously.VirginiaThe cultural discourse around this is really tricky. Part of why I wanted you to come on to answer listener questions is because you approach healthcare from a weight inclusive lens, which is not every doctor. It is certainly not every doctor in the menopause space. And you’re not selling us a supplement line or a weighted vest, so that’s really helpful. So that’s a good objective place for us to start! Here’s our first question, from Julie: It’s my understanding that the body naturally puts on weight in menopause, especially around the torso, and that this fat helps to replace declining estrogen, because fat produces estrogen. I don’t know where I’ve heard this, but I think it’s true? But I would like to know a doctor’s explanation of this, just because I think it’s just more evidence that our bodies know what they’re doing and we can trust them, and that menopause and the possible related weight gain is nothing to fear or dread or fight.MaraOof, okay, so we are just diving right in. Thank you so much for this question. It’s one I get from many of my patients, too. So I looked into some of the literature on this, and it is thought that declining estrogen—which happens in the menopausal transition—does contribute to what we call visceral adiposity, which is basically fatty tissue around the internal organs. And in clinical practice, we approximate this by assessing waist circumference. This is really spotty! But we tend to think of it as “belly fat,” which is a fatphobic term. I prefer the term “visceral adiposity” even though it sounds really medical, it gets more specifically at what the issue is, which is that this particular adipose tissue around internal organs can be pathologic. It can be associated with insulin resistance, increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, and risk of what we call metabolic—here’s a mouthful—metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease, which is what fatty liver disease has been renamed.So I don’t think we totally understand why this happens in the menopausal transition. There is a hypothesis that torso fatty tissue does help increase estrogen, and it’s the body’s response to declining estrogen and attempts to preserve estrogen. But in our modern lives, where people live much longer than midlife, it can create pathology. VirginiaI just want to pause there to make sure folks get it. So it could be that this extra fat in our torsos develops for a protective reason —possibly replacing estrogen levels—but because we now live longer, there’s a scenario where it doesn’t stay protective, or it has other impacts besides its initial protective purpose.MaraRight? And this is just a theory. It’s kind of impossible to prove something like that, but many menopause researchers have this working theory about, quote—we’ve got to find a better term for it—belly fat. What should we call it, Virginia? Virginia. I mean, or can we reclaim belly fat? But that’s like a whole project. There is a lot of great work reclaiming bellies, but we’ll go with visceral adiposity right now.MaraAnyway, this is an active area of menopause research, and I’m not sure we totally understand the phenomenon. That being said, Julie asks, “Should we just trust our bodies?” Do our bodies know what they’re doing? And I think that’s a really philosophical question, and that is the heart of what you’re asking, Julie, rather than what’s the state of the research on visceral adiposity in the menopause transition.It’s how much do we trust our bodies versus how much do we use modern medicine to intervene, to try to change the natural course of our bodies? And it’s a question about the role that modern medicine plays in our lives. So obviously, I’m a fan of modern medicine, right? I’m a medical doctor. But I also have a lot of skepticism about it. I can see firsthand that we pathologize a lot of normal physiologic processes, and I see the way that our healthcare system profits off of this pathology.So this is all to say: Most people do tend to gain weight over time. That’s been well-described in the literature. Both men and women gain weight with age, and women tend to gain mid-section weight specifically during the menopausal transition, which seems to be independent of age. So people who go through menopause earlier might see this happen earlier. This weight gain is happening in unique ways that are affected by the hormone changes in the menopausal transition, and I think it can be totally reasonable to want to prevent insulin resistance or prevent metabolic dysfunction in the liver using medications. Or can you decide that you don’t want to use medications to do that; diet and exercise also absolutely play a role. But I think it’s a deep question. I don’t know, what do you think? Virginia, what’s your take?VirginiaI think it can be a both/and. If everybody gains weight as we age, and particularly as we go through menopause transition, then we shouldn’t be pathologizing that at baseline. Because if everybody does it, then it’s a normal fact of having a human body. And why are we making that into something that we’re so terrified of?And I think this is what we’re going to get more into with these questions: It’s also possible to say, can we improve quality of life? Can we extend life? Can we use medicine to help with those things in a way that makes it not about the weight gain, but about managing the symptoms that may or may not be caused by the weight gain? If the weight gain correlates with insulin resistance, of course you’re going to treat the insulin resistance, because the insulin resistance is the concern. Does that mean weight loss is the thing we have to do? Not necessarily.MaraTotally. I define size inclusive medicine—which is the way that I practice medicine—as basically not yelling at my patients to lose weight. And it’s quite revolutionary, even though it shouldn’t be. I typically don’t initiate conversations about weight loss with my patients. If my patients have evidence of metabolic dysfunction in the liver, if they have evidence of diabetes or pre-diabetes, if they have high blood pressure, we absolutely tackle those issues. There’s good medications and non-medication treatments for those conditions.And if my patients want to talk about weight loss, I’m always willing to engage in those conversations. I do not practice from a framework of refusing to talk with my patients about weight loss because I feel that’s not centering my patients’ bodily autonomy. So let’s talk about these more objective and less stigmatized medical conditions that we can quantify. Let’s target those. And weight loss may be a side effect of targeting those. Weight loss may not be a side effect of targeting those. And there are ways to target those conditions that often don’t result in dramatic or clinically significant weight loss, and that’s okay.One other thing I’ll note that it’s not totally clear that menopausal weight gain is causing those sort of metabolic dysfunctions. This is a really interesting area of research. Again, I’m not a researcher, but I follow it with interest, because as a size-inclusive doctor, this is important to the way that I practice. So there’s some school of thought that the metabolic dysfunction causes the weight gain, rather than the weight gain causing the metabolic dysfunction. And this is important because of the way we blame people for weight gain. We think if you gain weight, you’ve caused diabetes or whatever. This flips thta narrative on its head. Diabetes is a really complex disease with many, many factors affecting it. It’s possible that having a genetic predisposition to cardiometabolic disease may end up causing weight gain, and specifically this visceral adiposity. So this is all to say there’s a lot we don’t understand. And I think at the core is trying to center my patients values, and de-stigmatize all of these conversations.VirginiaI love how Julie phrased it: “The possible related weight gain in menopause is maybe nothing to fear, dread, or fight.” I think anytime we can approach health without a mindset of fear and dread and not be fighting our bodies, that seems like it’s going to be more health promoting than if we’re going in like, “Oh my God, this is happening. It’s terrible. I have to stop it.”And this is every life stage we go through, especially as women. Our bodies change, and usually our bodies get bigger. And we’re always told we have to fight through puberty. You have a baby, you have to get your body back as quickly as possible. I do think there’s something really powerful in saying: “I am going through a big life change right now so my body is supposed to change. I can focus on managing the health conditions that might come along with that, and I can also let my body do what it needs to do.” I think we can have both.MaraYeah, that’s so beautifully said. And Julie, thank you for saying it that way.VirginiaOkay, so now let’s get into some related weight questions.I was just told by my OB/GYN that excess abdominal weight can contribute to urinary incontinence in menopause. How true is this, and how much of a factor do you think weight is in this situation? And I think the you know, the unsaid question in this and in so many of these questions, is, so do I have to lose weight to solve this issue?MaraYes. So this is a very common refrain I hear from patients about the relationship between BMI and sort of different processes in the body, right? I think what the listeners’ OB/GYN is getting at is the idea that mass in the abdomen and torso might put pressure on the pelvic floor. And more mass in the torso, more pressure on the pelvic floor.But urinary incontinence is extremely complicated and it can be caused by lots of different things. So I think what the OB/GYN is alluding to is pelvic floor weakness, which is one common cause. The muscles in the pelvic floor, which is all those muscles that basically hold up your uterus, your bladder, your rectum—all of those muscles can get weak over time. But other things can cause urinary incontinence, too. Neurological changes, hormonal changes in menopause, can contribute.Part of my size inclusive approach to primary care is I often ask myself: How would I treat a thin person with this condition? Because we always have other treatment options other than weight loss, and thin people have urinary incontinence all the time.VirginiaA lot of skinny grandmas are buying Depends. No shame!MaraTotally, right? And so we have treatments for urinary incontinence. And urinary incontinence often requires a multifactorial treatment approach.I will often recommend my patients do pelvic floor physical therapy. What that does is strengthen the pelvic floor muscles particularly if the person has been pregnant and had a vaginal delivery, those muscles can really weaken, and people might be having what we call genitourinary symptoms of menopause. Basically, as estrogen declines in the tissue of the vulva, it can make the tissue what we call friable.VirginiaI don’t want a friable vulva! All of the language is bad.MaraI know, isn’t it? I just get so used to it. And then when I talk to non-medical people, I’m like, whoa. Where did we come up with this term? It just means sort of like irritable.VirginiaOk, I’m fine having an irritable vulva. I’m frequently irritable.MaraAnd so that can cause a sensation of having to pee all the time. And that we can treat with topical estrogen, which is an estrogen cream that goes inside the vagina and is an amazing, underutilized treatment that is extremely low risk. I just prescribe it with glee and abandon to all of my patients, because it can really help with urinary symptoms. It can help with discomfort during sex in the menopausal transition. It is great treatment.VirginiaItchiness, dryness…MaraExactly, yeah! So I was doing a list of causes of urinary incontinence: Another one is overactive bladder, which we often use oral medications to treat. That helps decrease bladder spasticity. So this is all to say that it’s multifactorial. It’s rare that there’s sort of one specific issue. And it is possible that for some people, weight loss might help decrease symptoms. If somebody loses weight in their abdomen, it might put less pressure on the pelvic floor, and that might ease up. But it’s not the only treatment. So since we know that weight loss can be really challenging to maintain over time for many, many reasons, I think it’s important to offer our patients other treatment options. But I don’t want to discount the idea that it’s inherently unrelated. It’s possible that it’s one factor of many that contributes to urinary incontinence.VirginiaThis is, like, the drumbeat I want us to keep coming back to with all these issues. As you said, how would I treat this in a thin person? It is much easier to start using an estrogen cream—like you said, low risk, easy to use—and see if that helps, before you put yourself through some draconian diet plan to try to lose weight.So for the doctor to start from this place of, “well, you’ve got excess abdominal fat, and that’s why you’re having this problem,” that’s such a shaming place to start when that’s very unlikely to be the full story or the full solution.MaraTotally. And pelvic PT is also underutilized and amazing. Everyone should get it after childbirth, but many people who’ve never had children might benefit from it, too.VirginiaOkay, another weight related question. This is from Ellen, who wrote in our thread in response to Julie’s question. So in related to Julie’s question about the role of declining estrogen in gaining abdominal fat:If that’s the case, why does hormone replacement therapy not mitigate that weight gain? I take estrogen largely to support my bone health due to having a genetic disorder leading to fragile bones, but to be honest I had hoped that the estrogen would also help address the weight I’ve put on over the past five years despite stable eating and exercise habits. That hasn’t happened, and I understand that it generally doesn’t happen with HRT, but I don’t understand why. I guess I’d just like to understand better why we tend to gain abdominal fat in menopause and what if anything can help mitigate that weight gain. I’m working on self acceptance for the body I have now, and I get frustrated when clothes I love no longer fit, or when my doctor tells me one minute to watch portion sizes to avoid weight gain, and the next tells me to ingest 1000 milligrams of calcium per day, which would account for about half of the calories I’m supposed to eat daily in order to lose weight or not gain more weight. It just feels like a lot of competing messages! Eat more protein and calcium, but have a calorie deficit. And it’s all about your changing hormones, but hormone replacement therapy won’t change anything.Ellen, relatable. So many mixed messages. Dr. Mara, you spoke to what we do and don’t know about the abdominal fat piece a little bit already in Julie’s question, so I think we can set that aside. But yes, if estrogen is playing a role, why does hormone replacement therapy not necessarily impact weight? And what do we do with the protein of it all? Because, let me tell you, we got like 50 other questions about protein.MaraI will answer the first part first: I don’t think we know why menopausal hormone therapy does not affect abdominal fat. You’re totally right. It makes intuitive sense, but that’s not what we see clinically. There’s some evidence that menopausal hormone therapy can decrease the rate of muscle mass loss. But we consider it a weight neutral treatment. Lots of researchers are studying these questions. But I don’t think anybody knows.So those messages feel like they’re competing because they are competing. And I don’t think we understand why all these things go on in the human body and how to approach them. So maybe I’ll turn the question back to you, Virginia. How do you think about it when you are seeking expertise and you get not a clear answer?VirginiaI mean, I’m an irritable vulva when it happens, that’s for sure. My vulva and I are very irritated by conflicting messages. And I think we’re right to be. I think Ellen is articulating a real frustration point.The other thing Ellen is articulating is how vulnerable we are in these moments. Because, as she’s saying, she’s working on self-acceptance for the body she has. And I think a lot of us are like, “We don’t want weight loss to be the prescription. We don’t want to feel pressured to go in that direction.” And then the doctor comes in and says, “1000 milligrams of calcium a day, an infinity number of protein grams a day. Also lose weight.” And then you do find yourself on that roller coaster or hamster wheel—choose your metaphor. Again, because we’re so programmed to think “well, the only option I have is to try to control my weight, control my weight, control my weight.” And you get back in that space.What I usually try to do is phone a friend, have a plan to step myself out of that. Whether it’s texting my best friend or texting Corinne, so they can be that voice of reason. And I would do this for them, too! You need help remembering: You don’t want to pursue intentional weight loss. You’re doing all this work on self-acceptance. Dieting is not going to be helpful. So what can you take from this advice that does feel doable and useful? And maybe it’s not 1000 milligrams of calcium a day, but maybe it’s like, a little more yogurt in your week. Is there a way you can translate this to your life that feels manageable? I think it’s what you do a great job of. But I think in general, doctors don’t do a great job with that part.MaraYeah, I bet you Ellen’s doctor had 15 minutes with her. And was like, “Well, eat all this calcium and definitely try to lose weight,” right? And then was rushing out the door because she has 30 other patients to see that day.I think doctors are trying to offer what maybe they think patients want to hear, which is certainty and one correct answer. And it can feel hard to find the space to sort of sit in the uncertainty of medicine and health and the uncertainty of like our bodies. And corporate medicine is not conducive to that, let’s put it that way.VirginiaBut so how much protein do we need to be eating?MaraI have no idea. Virginia, I don’t think anybody knows. I think exercise is good for you. It’s not good for every single body at every single moment in time. If you just broke your foot, running is not a healthy activity, right? If you’re recovering from a disordered relationship with exercise, it’s not healthy.But, movement in general prolongs our health span. And I’m reluctant to even say this, but, the Mediterranean diet—I hate even calling it a diet, right? But vegetables, protein—I don’t even want to call them healthy fats, it’s just so ambiguous what that means. But olive oil. All those things seem to be good for you. With the caveat that it’s really hard to study the effects of diet. And this is general diet, not meaning a restrictive diet, but your diet over time. But I don’t think we know how much, how much protein one needs to eat. It is unknowable.VirginiaAnd that’s why, I think what we’ve been saying about figure out how to translate this into something that feels doable in your life. It’s not like, Oh, olive oil forever. Never butter again. MaraOf course not. I love butter. Oh, my God. Extra butter!VirginiaRight. Butter is core to the Burnt Toast philosophy. I know you wouldn’t be coming here with an anti-butter agenda.MaraOh, of course not. Kerry Gold forever.VirginiaBut it’s, how can you take this and think about what makes sense in your life and would add value and not feel restrictive? And that’s hard to do that when you’re feeling vulnerable and worried and menopause feels like this big, scary unknown. But you still have the right to do that, because it’s still your body.MaraBeautifully said.ButterVirginiaWell, this has all been incredibly helpful. Let’s chat about things that are bringing us joy. Dr Mara, do you have some Butter for us? MaraI had to think about this a lot. The Butter question is obviously the most important question of the whole conversation.We have been in a heat wave in Philly, where I live, and it’s really, really hot, and we have a public pool that is four blocks from our house. Philly actually has tons of public pools. Don’t quote me on this, but I’ve heard through the grapevine—I have not fact-checked this—that it is one of the highest per capita free public pools in the country. I don’t know where I heard that from. I know I should probably look that up, but anyway, we’ve got a lot of pools in Philly. And there’s one four blocks from my house.So I used to think of pool time as a full day, like a Saturday activity. Like you bring snacks, you bring a book, you lounge for hours. But our city pool is very bare bones. There’s no shade. And so, I have come to approach it as an after work palate cleanser. We rush there after I get my kid from daycare, and just pop in, pop out. It’s so nice. And pools are so democratic. Everybody is there cooling off. There’s no body shame. I mean, I feel like it’s actually been quite freeing for my experience of a body shame in a bathing suit, because there’s no opportunity to even contemplate it. Like you have to hustle in there to get there before it closes. There’s no place to put your stuff. So you can’t do all those body shielding techniques. You have to leave your stuff outside of the pool. So you have to go in in a bathing suit. And it’s just like, all shapes and sizes there. I love it. So public pools are my Butter.VirginiaWe don’t have a good public pool in my area, and I wish we did. I’m so jealous. That’s magical. Since we’re talking about being in midlife, I’m going to recommend the memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller, which I just listened to on audiobook. Definitely listen to it on audiobook. Obviously, Jeff Hiller is a man and not in menopause, but he is in his late 40s, possibly turned 50. He’s an actress of a certain age, as he says. If you watched “Somebody Somewhere” with Bridget Everett, he plays her best friend Joel. And the show was wonderful. Everyone needs to watch that.But Jeff Hiller is someone who had his big breakout role on an HBO show at the age of, like, 47 or something. And so it’s his memoir of growing up as a closeted gay kid in Texas, in the church, and then moving to New York and pursuing acting and all that. It’s hilarious. It’s really moving. It made me teary several times. He is a beautiful writer, and it just makes you realize the potential of this life stage. And one of his frequent refrains in the book, and it’s a quote from Bridget Everett, is Dreams Don’t have Deadlines, and realizing what potential there is in the second half of our lives, or however you want to define it. Oh my gosh, I loved it so much. There’s also a great, great interview with Jeff on Sam Sanders podcast that I’ll link to as well. That’s just like a great entry point, and it will definitely make you want to go listen to the whole book.MaraI love it.I will briefly say one thing I’ve been thinking about during this whole conversation is a piece by the amazing Anne Helen Petersen who writes Culture Study, which is one of my favorites of course, in addition to Burnt Toast. She wrote a piece about going through the portal. That was what she calls it. And she writes about how she’s talking with her mom, I think, who says, “Oh, you’re starting to portal!” to Anne. And I just love it.What she’s getting at is this sort of surge of creativity and self confidence and self actualization that happens in midlife for women in particular. And I just love that image. Whenever I think of doing something that would have scared me a few years ago, or acting confident, appropriately confident in situations. I’m like, I’m going into the portal. I just, I love it, it’s so powerful, and I think about it all the time.VirginiaWell, thank you so much for doing this. This was really wonderful. Tell folks where they can find you and how we can support your work.MaraThank you so much, Virginia. I’m such a fan of your work. It has been so meaningful, meaningful to me, both personally and professionally. So it’s such an honor to be here again. You can find me on Substack. I write Your Doctor Friend by Mara Gordon . And I’m on Instagram at Mara Gordon MD, too. And you can find a lot of my writing on NPR as well. And I’m writing a book called, tentatively, How to Take Up Space, and it’s about body shame and health care and the pursuit of health and wellness. So lots of issues like we touched on today, and hopefully that will be coming into the world in a couple of years. But yeah, thanks so much for having me, Virginia.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Hello on this steamy Summer Friday! We’re popping in to share the (unedited! very casual!) video from the Live we did Wednesday… just generally catching up on some urgent summer news like: * Our new favorite tank tops* Why we hate And Just Like That (but can’t stop watching)* Why we love Lena Dunham but are…complicated?? maybe in love?? with Too Much. * Plus some Butters! As a reminder, we use the Substack Live feature super casually. These haven’t been edited to audio or visual perfection. We’re at the mercy of Substack tech (and our iPhones and Airpods) to sound good. And there is an AI-generated transcript attached (click the video to access it!) but it won’t be as beautifully edited as podcast episode transcripts, which Corinne and I spend hours on every week. Totally get if these low production values are not your jam! But if you want to debate who wears light yellow best… here you go. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Tracy Clark-Flory. Tracy is the feminist writer behind the newsletter TCF Emails and the author of Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey into the Heart of Desire. She’s also the cohost of the new podcast Dire Straights where she and Amanda Montei unpack the many toxic aspects of heterosexual relationships and culture. I brought Tracy on the podcast today to talk about my feet, but we get into so much more. We talk about porn, sexual identity, and the male gaze—and, of course, how all of this makes us feel in our bodies.My Feet Are On the InternetThis episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!Episode 202 TranscriptVirginiaI am so excited. We’ve been Internet friends for a long time, and it’s so nice to finally have a conversation. I’m very jazzed! TracyRight? I feel like we’ve talked before, but we have not, which is such an odd sensation. We’ve emailed.VirginiaWe’ve emailed, we’ve DM-ed, we’ve commented on each other’s things. But we have not, with our faces and mouths, had a conversation. The Internet is so weird.Well, the Internet being weird is a lot of what we’re gonna talk about today. Because where I want to start today is feet.TracyWhy not?VirginiaSo I initially emailed you when I was working on my essay about my Wikifeet experience, because you have written so extensively about porn and the Internet’s treatment of women. And when I discovered my Wikifeet, one of my first thoughts was, “I need to talk to Tracy about this.” TracyThat makes me so happy. I want to be the first person that everyone thinks of when they find themselves on Wikifeet.VirginiaI was like, “I don’t know how she’ll feel…” so I’m glad you take that as a compliment.I don’t even know where to start. Even though I wrote a whole essay about this, my brain is still, like, “record scratch moment” on the whole thing. Sojust talk to us a little bit where in your vast reporting on porn did you kind of become aware of fetish sites and what’s your read on them? What’s going on there?TracyI think I first became aware of Wikifeet in 2008-ish when they launched, and that’s when I was a proper, full-time sex writer, on the sex beat, covering every weird niche Internet community. And then in the years since, I’ve unfortunately had many women colleagues—often feminist writers—who have ended up on the site. So unfortunately, you’re not the first person I know who’s ended up on there.VirginiaIt’s a weird thing that a certain type of woman writer is gonna end up on Wikifeet. Why?TracyThere are no shortage of women who are consensually volunteering photos of their feet online for people to consume in a sexualized way, right? So the fact is that this site is providing a venue for people to do it in a very nonconsensual way, where images are taken from other venues that are not sexualized. They’re stolen images, you know? Things that are screenshotted from Instagram stories, that kind of thing—and then put into this sexualized context. Not only that, but put into a sexualized context where there is a community around sexualizing and objectifying and even rating and evaluating body parts.My take is that this violation is part of the point. Because there is having a foot fetish—great, have at it, enjoy. And then there’s consuming images that are nonconsensual. So I think that the violation is part of the point. And to the point of feminist writers, women writers online, ending up on it—I don’t think it’s an accident. Because I think that there is—perhaps for some, maybe not all—some pleasure taken in that aspect of trespass.VirginiaYes. My best friend is a food blogger, and I immediately searched for her because she’s way more famous than I am, and she’s not on there. And I’m glad, I don’t want her non-consensually on there! But I was like, oh, it’s interesting that I’m on there, lyz is on there. It is a certain type of woman that men are finding objectionable on the Internet. And putting us on WikiFeet is a retaliation or just a way of—I don’t know. It’s not a direct attack, because I didn’t even know about it for however long my feet have been up there. But it is a way for men to feel like they’re in control of us in some way, right?TracyOh, totally. And it’s because there is something interesting about taking a body part that is not broadly and generally sexualized, and sexualizing it. There is this feeling of a “gotcha!” in it.There is something, too, about feet—I mean, I think this is part of what plays into foot fetish, often. There is this sense of dirtiness, potentially, but also the sense of often being hidden away. It’s secret, it’s private, it’s delicate, it’s tender. Feet are ticklish, there’s so much layered in there that I think can make it feel like this place of vulnerability.I’ve written about upskirting. This was maybe like 15 years ago. But it’s these communities where men take upskirt videos and photos of women on the subway or wherever, and then they share them in online forums. And that’s very clearly a physical trespass. You’re seeing something that was not meant to be seen. So it’s quite different. But it’s feels like it exists on a spectrum of trespass and violation and taking sexualized enjoyment out of that.VirginiaFrom someone who had no intention of you taking that enjoyment, who’s just trying to ride the train to work.TracyTotally. And the foot thing, it just makes me think of all these different ways that women experience their bodies in the world. You can’t just be at ease in your body, because someone might think your feet are hot.VirginiaIt’s really interesting. I’ve talked about this on the podcast before: A little bit after I got divorced and I started having, weekends totally to myself in my house, it was the first time I’d been alone in my house in a long time. Obviously, usually my kids were there. My husband used to be there. And I had this strange sensation of being observed, even when I was completely alone in the house.It’s just me and the dog. She’s asleep. I’m making dinner or watching TV or doing whatever I’m doing. And I couldn’t shake the sensation that I was watching myself, still thinking about what I was going to wear. It was so weird, and I realized it actually isn’t particularly a comment on my marriage. It’s more a comment on women are so trained to always feel observed. It’s really hard for us to actually access a space where we’re not going to be observed. It was wild.TracyWe adopt that perspective of the watcher, and we are the watched. We experience ourselves in that way, as opposed to being the watcher, the person who sees and consumes the world and experiences the world. It’s like we experience ourselves being experienced by someone else—an imagined man often.VirginiaYes, you’re always self-objectifying. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to please that gaze, whether you’re trying to protect yourself against that gaze. Whatever it is, we’re always aware of how we’ll be perceived in a way that I don’t think cis men ever have to consider. I don’t think that’s a part of their experience of the world in the same way.TracyAnd how messed up is that tension between trying to please and trying to protect oneself? What an impossible tightrope walk to be constantly doing.VirginiaRight, and to not even know which one you want sometimes. Like, which one you need, which one you want.TracyYeah, going back and forth between those extremes. You’re always kind of monitoring and on edge.VirginiaAnd, it did shift. Now when I’m alone in my house, I don’t feel like I’m watching myself. Like, it did lessen. But it was this very stark moment of noticing that. And I think the way our work is so online, we are so online, it doesn’t help. Because we also have all learned through the performance art of social media to constantly be documenting. And even if you’re by yourself, you might post something about it. There’s that need to narrate and document and then also objectify your experience.TracyThe sense of, like, if I don’t take a photo of it, it doesn’t exist. It didn’t happen. It’s not real. It must be consumed by other people. I mean, when you were talking earlier about that sense of being surveyed, I think that is a very just common experience for women, period. But then I think, for me, growing up with reality TV, the explosion of reality TV, like that added this like sense of a camera on one’s life.And then I think, like, if you want to bring porn into it, too—Like, in the bedroom, that sense of the watcher, so you have this sense of being watched by men, but then you have the sense of kind of performing for an audience, because that’s so much of what I came up with culturally.VirginiaI mean, the way we often conceive of our sexuality is through performance and how are you being perceived not how are you experiencing it yourself? I mean, you write about that so well, that tension.TracyThat was my whole thing. My sexual coming of age memoir is so much about what it meant to try to move out of that focus on how I’m being perceived by my partner and into a place of what am I experiencing? What do I even want beyond being wanted?VirginiaMan, it’s amazing we’ve all survived and gotten where we are. Another layer to this, that I thought about a lot as I was processing my Wikifeet, was how instantly I felt like I had to laugh it off. I really felt like I couldn’t access my true reaction to it. I just immediately sort of went into this Cool Girl, resigned, jaded, like “What do you expect from the Internet?” This is why I wanted to talk to you. Because I was like, oh, this feels very similar to stuff Tracy struggled with and wrote about in her memoir.TracyOh, totally. It makes total sense to me that you would go to that default place. It makes me think of how I, especially early in my career writing online as a feminist blogger, I would print out the very worst, most misogynistic hateful comments and post them on my fridge because I was willing myself to find them funny, to be able to laugh at them and just kind of distance myself from them and to feel untouched by them.I think that Cool Girl stance is a way of putting on protective armor. So I think that makes sense as a woman writing online, but I also think it makes sense in the context of sex. So much of what I did—this performative sexuality, this kind of sense of being down for whatever in my 20s—was, subconsciously, a kind of defensive posture. Because I think I had this feeling that if I’m down for anything, then nothing can be done against my will, you know? And that was the mental gambit that I had to engage in, in order to feel safe enough to explore my sexuality freely. Granted, it wasn’t very freely, turns out. But it makes total sense that you would want to default to the laughing at what is really a violation. Because I do think that there’s something protective about that. It’s like, “No, you’re not going to do this to me. You’re not going to make me feel a certain way about this.” But that only takes you so far.VirginiaWell, because at the same time, it also is a way of communicating, “Don’t worry, I can take a joke. I’m not one of those feminists.” It also plays right into that. So it’s protective and you can’t rattle me. And, I’ll also minimize this just like you want me to minimize it. So I’m actually doing what you want. Then my brain breaks.TracyRight? And then we’re back to that thing we were just talking about, the wanting to please, but then wanting to protect oneself, and the impossible balancing act of that. VirginiaLike you were saying you’ve experienced these horrific misogynistic troll comments. I experienced them in the more fatphobic sense, but like a mix, misogyny and fatphobia, very good friends.So I think when you’ve experienced more extreme things, you then do feel like you have to downplay some of the minor stuff. It feels scarier for men to say that my children should be taken away from me than it does for them to take pictures of my feet. I can hold that. And yet I’m still allowed to be upset about the foot thing. Just because some things are more awful, it doesn’t mean that we stop having a conversation about the more mundane forms of violation, because the more mundane forms of it are also what we’re all experiencing all the time.TracyRight? Like the daily experience of it. I mean, unfortunately, there just is a full, rich spectrum of violation.VirginiaSo many choices, so many ways, so many body parts.TracyI do think that the extreme examples do kind of serve to normalize the less extreme, you know? And what we sort of end up putting up with, you know? VirginiaWhat would you say was a helpful turning point for you? What helped you start to step back from being in that cool girl mode? From being in that “I’m performing sex for other people” mode? What helped you access it for yourself?TracyI mean, honestly? A piece of it was porn. It’s funny because I turned to porn as a teenager online in the 90s as a source of—I felt at the time—intel about what men wanted. Like, here’s how to be what men wanted. And I tried to perform that, you know? And there were downsides to that, of course. There are some downsides. But I would also say that like in the midst of plumbing the depths of 2000s-era, early 2000s-era tube sites to understand what men “wanted,” I also started to kind of explore what I wanted.I wasn’t drawn to it from that place of self discovery, but I kind of accidentally stumbled into it because I was watching these videos. And then I was like, oh, wait, what about this thing? Like, that’s kind of interesting to me. And then, you start to kind of tumble down the rabbit hole accidentally. Women are socialized to not pursue that rabbit hole for themselves, right? So it was only in pursuing men’s desires that I felt like I was able to unlock this whole other world of fantasy and desire for myself that I wanted to explore and that I was able to get into some non-mainstream, queer indie porn that actually felt very radical and eye opening.It was this circuitous route to myself. That was just a piece, I think, of opening up my mind to the world of fantasy, which felt very freeing. Then, getting into a relationship where with a partner who I could actually be vulnerable with, was a huge piece of it. To actually feel safe enough to explore and not be performing, and to have those moments of awkwardness and that you’re not just this expert performer all the time. Like, that doesn’t lead to good sex.VirginiaNo, definitely not.There’s a part in the memoir with your then boyfriend, now husband, and you say that you wanted—you call it “a cozy life.” And I think you guys put that in your wedding vows. I think about that all the time. I think it’s so beautiful. Just like, oh right, that’s what we’re looking for. It’s not this other giant thing, the performing and the—I don’t know, there’s something about that really stuck with meTracyThat’s so interesting. I haven’t thought about that for a while. It’s really interesting, and it’s funny, because it was part of our wedding vows. VirginiaCozy means safety with another person, that felt safety with another person, right? And the way we are trained to think of sex and relationships really doesn’t prioritize women’s safety, kind of ever.TracyI mean, yeah, it’s true. There is something very particular about that word cozy—it’s different from when people say, like, “I want a comfortable life.” VirginiaYeah, that’s bougie.TracyCozy is like, I want to be wrapped in a cozy blanket on the couch with you. And feel safe and intimate and vulnerable. So thank you for reminding me of that thing that I wrote.VirginiaWell, It was really beautiful, and I think about it often, and it was kind of clarifying for me personally. And it’s not saying sex won’t be hot, you know? It’s just that you have that connection and foundation to build whatever you’re going to build.TracyRight? And I think coziness kind of is a perfect starting point for being able to experience sexiness and hotness. I think we have this cultural idea that one must have this mystery and sense of otherness in order to be able to build that kind of spice and fire. And at least in my experience, that was not ever the case. I know that other people have that experience, but for me, I never had the experience of that sense of otherness and kind of fear even, and trepidation about this other person leading to a really exciting experience. It was more like being able to get to a place of trust and vulnerability that could get you there.VirginiaAnd obviously, there are all different ways people enjoy and engage in sex. And I don’t think every sexual relationship has to be founded in any one thing, but I think when we’re talking about this transition that a lot of women go through, from participating in sex for his pleasure, for performance, for validation, to it being something you can do on your own terms, I think the coziness concept is really helpful. There’s something there.All right, well, so now you are working on a new podcast with Amanda, as we mentioned, called Dire Straights. Tracy, I’m so excited, because Heterosexuals are not okay. We are not okay, as a population.TracyJust like, literally, look at anywhere. Open up the front page of The New York Times. We’re not okay on so many levels.VirginiaSo tell us about the pod.TracySo it’s a feminist podcast about heterosexual love, sex, politics and culture, and every episode, we basically pick apart a new element of straight culture. So examples would be couples therapy, dating apps, sex strikes, monogamy, the manosphere, pronatalism, the list goes on and on. Literally this podcast could just never end. There’s too much fodder. Unfortunately, I’d love for it to end for a lack of content, but that’s not going to happen.So we look at both sex and dating alongside marriage and divorce, and the unequal realm of hetero parenting. We examine celebrities and politicians and consider them as case studies of dire heterosexuality. Tech bros, tradwives, terfs, all the whole cast of terrible hetero characters are up for examination, and our aim is to examine the worst of straight culture, but it’s also to step back and kind of try to imagine better possibilities.It’s not fatalist, it’s not nihilistic. I think we both have this sense of wanting to engage in some kind of utopian dreaming one might say, while we’re also picking apart what is so awful and terrible about the current state of heterosexual culture.So our first episode is about dark femininity influencers. I don’t know if you’ve ever encountered them online.VirginiaYes, but I hadn’t connected the dots. So I was like, oh, this is a thing.TracyThat’s that thing, yeah. That’s how I experienced it. It was, like, they just started showing up on my TikTok feed, these women who are usually white and wearing a bold red lip and smokey eyes, and they’re essentially promising to teach women how to use their sex appeal in order to manipulate straight men into better behavior. They’re selling this idea of seduction as liberation, and specifically liberation from the disappointments of the straight dating world. This idea is that by harnessing your seductive powers, you can be in control in this terrible, awful straight dating sphere.VirginiaIt’s like, if Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer wrote a dating book. I don’t know if that reference speaks to you or not.TracyI’m a little rusty on my Buffy, I have to say.VirginiaShe’s like, pale skin, red lips, black hair, and tortures men. But yeah, it’s this idea that you harness all your like, seductive powers to torture men to get what you want, which is men. Which is a husband or a boyfriend or gifts or whatever. They’re shooting for a heterosexual relationship by exerting this power over men, and so the idea is it is somehow it’s giving them more power in a patriarchal dynamic. But it doesn’t really because they end up in the same place.TracyIt’s the same place, it’s the same exact place. It feels to me, in some ways, like a corrective against the cool girl stuff that we’re talking about that kind of emerged in the 2000s, where, you know, it’s this sort of like being down for whatever, that kind of thing. These women are kind of saying, you’re not going to sleep with him on the first date. You’re going to make him work for it, you know? And so there’s a sense of like, I’m in control, because I’m not giving it away for free. It plays into all these awful ideas about women and sex and power. But it is ultimately ending up in the same place, and it is just ultimately about getting a man, keeping a man. And so, you know, how different is it really? I don’t think it is.VirginiaI mean, it’s not. It’s the same rules and conversations that Charlotte’s having in the first season of Sex in the City, which is ancient at this point. How are we still here? Are we still here?TracyWe’re just inventing new aesthetics to kind of repackage these very old, retro, sexist ideas, you know?VirginiaI also think it’s really interesting and helpful that you are interrogating straight culture as someone inside a heterosexual marriage. I’ve written about my own divorce, my critiques of marriage, and it triggers great conversations, but it always triggers a very uncomfortable response from a lot of married women who don’t really want to go there, don’t really want to pick up the rocks and look underneath it because it’s too scary. It makes sense. And I’m wondering how you think about that piece, and how that’s working for you.Is (Heterosexual) Marriage A Diet?TracyI think it’s very destabilizing for a lot of women in straight marriages and just straight relationships, period, to consider these things. I think it was over a year ago now that I wrote this piece about trying to coin this term hetero-exceptionalism in response to the backlash that I was seeing to the divorce memoir boom, where women reviewers, but also just people on Twitter or wherever, were kind of pointing at these authors and being like, well, I don’t know what’s wrong with you because my marriage is great.VirginiaThe Emily Gould piece in New York.TracyThere’s this sense of like, oh, well, either I chose a good man or I know how to conduct a healthy relationship.VirginiaI’m willing to put in the work.TracyGotta put in the work. You will love our next episode about couples therapy, because we talk about this concept of putting in the work, and the idea that marriage is work, and that if you’re not doing the work you’re lazy. You’re failing, the whole project of it.VirginiaThank you for unpacking that incredibly toxic myth! It really keeps women trapped in “I just have to keep working harder.”TracyWhich I think totally relates to this, the response to the divorce memoirs we’re getting from people and the discomfort of when women raise these issues in hetero relationships that are not individual. Like, yes, we all feel that our relationship issues are special and unique. But they all relate to these broader systemic factors.I think that is really, really, really uncomfortable to acknowledge. Because I think even if you’re reasonably happy in your hetero relationship, I think if you start to look at the way that your even more minor dissatisfactions connect to these bigger dissatisfactions that women are writing about that’s all part of this experience of love in patriarchy that it doesn’t feel good. That feels terrible. So I totally understand that.In the same way that we’re sold this idea of trying to find the one and that whole romantic fantasy, I think we’re also sold this idea of trying to achieve romantically within these patriarchal constraints. So it’s like, well, I found the good one. I found the unicorn man who checks all the boxes and I did my work and so I’m in a happy marriage.Virginia“I’m allowed to be heterosexual because I’m doing it right.” That’s feeling uncomfortably familiar, to be honest. You think you’re going to pull the thread, and you realize you’ll rip it all out.TracyThe thing is that a lot of people should be pulling the thread, and a lot of lives should be unraveling, you know? I think that’s the uncomfortable truth, right? I totally get the resistance to it. But on the other side of it, I think there are obviously, clearly, a lot of women who are wanting to look at it, and who do want to have these conversations.VirginiaIt sounds like this is what you’re trying to chart. There has to be a middle path where it’s not this defensive stance of, oh, I found the one good one. And we’re equal partners. It’s okay, but a relationship where we can both look at this, we can both acknowledge the larger systemic issues and how they’re showing up here, and we can work through it and it’s not perfect, because it is love in patriarchy, but it can still be valuable. There has to be this third option, right? Please tell me you’re living the third option, Tracy.TracyI mean, I do believe that I am but I also hesitate to put any man or any relationship on a pedestal. What I’ll say is that to me, it feels so utterly essential in my relationship to acknowledge the ways that our relationship is touched by patriarchy, because all relationships are touched by patriarchy, right? And to not fantasize about us somehow standing outside of it, but also to be having constant ongoing conversations within my relationship where we are mutually critiquing patriarchy and the way that it touches us and the way that it touches the relationships of people we know, you know? I think that’s part of why I think I’m able to do this podcast critiquing heterosexuality from within heterosexuality is because my partner showed up to the relationship with his own prior political convictions and feminist awareness. I wasn’t having to be like, here’s what feminism is and, here’s what invisible labor is, and the mental load and all that stuff. He got it, and so we’re able to have a mutual shared critique, and that feels very important.VirginiaThat’s awesome to know exists, and that you’re able to figure that out without it being such hard work. But where does that leave women who are like, oh yeah, my partner doesn’t have that shared knowledge? Like, I would be starting the education process from zero and encountering many resistances to it. And therein is the discomfort, I think.TracyI mean, and that is the discomfort of heterosexuality. It’s in this culture, because that is the reality is there are not a ton of men who have voluntarily taken women’s studies courses in college and have the basic background for this kind of stuff. It’s a really high bar and there is this feeling of what are you going to do? Are you going to hold out for the guy who did do that? Or are you going to try to work with him to get there? And I think that’s fine, but I think what’s essential is are you both working to get there, or are you pulling him along?VirginiaYeah, that’s the core of it.I think just in general, reorienting our lives to where our romantic relationships are really important, but so are our friendships. So is our community. I think that’s something that a lot of us, especially us in the post-divorce club are looking at. I think one of the great failings of heterosexual marriage is how it silos women into these little pods of the nuclear family and keeps us from the larger community.TracyTotally. I really do believe that the way that our lives are structured, this hetero monogamous, nuclear familydom, it works against these hetero unions so much. Which is so funny, because so much of this is constructed to try to protect them. But I actually think that it undermines them so deeply and drastically. And that we could have much richer and more vibrant, supportive, communal lives that made these romantic unions like less fragile and fraught.VirginiaBecause you aren’t needing one person to meet every single one of your needs, you aren’t needing this one thing to be your whole life.TracyWe put all of the pressure on the nuclear household for the cooking, the cleaning, the childcare, all of that. That is an impossible setup. It is a setup for failure. There’s I wish I could quote the writer, but I love this quote about marriage and the nuclear family being capitalism’s pressure cooker. If you think about it in those terms, it’s like, this is absurd. Of course, so many people are struggling.VirginiaIt was never going to work. It was never going to work for women anyway, for sure.Well, I’m so excited for folks to discover the new podcast. It’s amazing, and I’m just thrilled you guys are diving into all of this. It’s such an important space to be having these conversations. So thank you.TracyThank you! I’m very excited about it, and it does, unfortunately, feel very timely.ButterTracyI definitely do have Butter. And this is so on topic to what we’ve been discussing. This book of essays titled Love in Exile by Shon Faye. It is a brilliant collection of essays about love, where she really looks at the problem of love and the search for love as a collective instead of individual problem. It is so good. It’s one of my favorite books that I’ve read in the last five years.She basically argues that the heteronormative couple privatizes the love and care and intimacy that we all deserve. But that we’re deprived of in this late capitalist hellscape, and so she sees the love that so many of us are deprived of as not a personal failure, but a failure of capitalism and community and the growing cruelty of our world. It’s just such a tremendous shift of perspective, I think, when it comes to thinking about love and the search for love and that longing and lack of it that so many people experience.VirginiaOh my gosh, that sounds amazing. I can’t wait to read it. Adding to cart right now, that is a great Butter. Thank you.Well, my Butter is, I don’t know if you can see what I’m wearing, Tracy, but it is the friendship bracelet you sent me when you sent me your copy of Want Me.TracyDo you know that I literally just last night was like, oh, I’m going on the podcast tomorrow, I wonder if she still has that friendship bracelet.VirginiaI’m wearing the one you sent me, which says Utopia IRL, which I love. And then I’m wearing one that says “Fuck the Patriarchy,” which was made by one of my 11 year old’s best friends for me. So the 10 year old girls are going to be all right, because they’re doing that.TracyThat’s amazing.VirginiaI wear them frequently. They go with many outfits, so they’re just a real go-to accessory of mine. My seven year old the other day was reading them and was so delighted. And now, when she’s at her dad’s and we text, she’ll randomly text me, “fuck the patriarchy,” just as a little I love you text. And I’m like, alright, I’m doing okay here.TracyYou’re like, that’s my love language. Thank you.VirginiaSo anyway, really, my Butter is just for friendship bracelets and also mailing them to people, because that was so sweet that you did that.TracyCan I mention though? Can I admit that I literally told you that I was going to send you that friendship bracelet, and I made it, I put in an envelope, and it literally sat by my front door for a full year.VirginiaI think that makes me love it even more, because it was a year. If you had been able to get it out the door in a timely fashion, it would have made you less relatable to me.That it took a full year that feels right. And I was just as delighted to receive it a year later.TracyIt was a surprise. I was like, you probably forgot that.VirginiaI had.TracyI emailed about it and that we had an inside joke about it, because it had been a year.VirginiaI did, but then I was like, oh yeah!TracyYou know what? I think it’s a testament to you and how you come off that I like felt comfortable sending it a year later and just being like, fuck it, she’ll be fine with it.VirginiaYes, it was great. Anyway, my recommendation is send someone a friendship bracelet by which I mean put it in an envelope by your front door for the next year. Why not? It’s a great thing to do.So yes, Tracy, this was so much fun. Thank you for being here. Tell folks where we can follow you support your work, all the things.TracyYou can find the Dire Straights podcast at direstraightspod.com. And you can find my weekly newsletter about sex, feminism, pop culture at Tracyclarkflory.substack.com and you can find me on Instagram at Tracy Clark-Flory.VirginiaAmazing. We’ll link to all of that. Thank you for being here.TracyThanks so much for having me.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for… part 2 of our 200th episode!We are continuing to revisit favorite moments from the podcast archives. Coming up:🔥We have feelings about aging!🔥What’s our current take on heterosexual marriage?🔥How do you set boundaries when you’re in eating disorder recovery but your partner is…on a diet?And so much more!This newsletter contains affiliate links, which means if you buy something we suggest, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only ever recommend things we love and use ourselves!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your July Indulgence Gospel!And… it’s our 200th episode! To celebrate, we’re making today’s Indulgence Gospel free to everyone and offering a flash sale — 20% off to celebrate 200 episodes!This newsletter contains affiliate links, which means if you buy something we suggest, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only ever recommend things we love and use ourselves! One Good ThingNow that it’s summer, ice cream is a daily state of being here and I’ve been using my East Fork ice cream bowls constantly (they are also the perfect size for cherries and for many of your favorite snacks). If you are also an East Fork disciple, heads up that their annual Seconds Sale starts today! This is where they sell pots that are slightly imperfect but still 100 percent functional and food safe for 30-40% off. And yes, there are a lot of cute ice cream bowls. PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!Episode 200 TranscriptCorinne200! Can you believe it?VirginiaI can and I cannot. It’s one of those things where I feel like we’ve always been making the podcast, but also 200 feels like so many.CorinneI went back through, to look at some old episodes. And I was like, you know, I kind of remember all of them. I was like, surely there are some I have forgotten. But yeah, kind of not.VirginiaWhen I was looking back at the old episodes, it was like visiting old friends. I was like, I know you guys. We’re cool.CorinneIf you write into us with a question and we answer it, it really sticks with us!VirginiaWe continue to think about you. And would like updates, honestly. We don’t always get them, so putting that out there. We’d like to know.CorinneTo celebrate, we have a special two part episode for you. We’re picking favorite moments from the archives to revisit, to see if our feelings and opinions have changed.VirginiaAlright, I decided to look back at our many excellent guest conversations and pull out some favorites. First up, I thought I’d look back at our work ultra-processed foods since it is such an annoyingly evergreen topic. We did a great pair of episodes with Laura Thomas, PhD, who writes “Can I Have Another Snack?” which ran in July 2023. Here is a little excerpt from the first conversation.VirginiaIt feels like it’s important to say very clearly that processed is not synonymous with has no nutrition, and that actually processing foods is a good thing to do in order to eat, right?LauraYeah, well, all forms of cooking are a process, right?So unless you like want to go down some raw vegan path, you can’t really avoid processing your food to some extent.Now, advocates of NOVA, I think, would say that’s a bit of a red herring, because what we’re actually talking about is this additional level of processing, this ultra processing sort of phenomenon.But even within that category, I think there are merits to processing–even Ultra processing–our foods. One of the things that happens when we process food is we extend the shelf life of it, and that means that we are wasting less food overall, which I think we would all agree is probably a helpful thing.But industrial food processing, it reduces foodborne pathogens. It reduces microbes that would spoil food and make things like oils turn rancid faster. It also significantly cuts down on the time and labor that it requires to cook a meal. And I think that’s for me as a parent, and I know for you as well, like, that’s huge.VirginiaIt’s really everything, honestly. For me personally. Nothing should be everything for everybody, but limiting the amount of time I spend cooking dinner is the thing that enables me to eat dinner with my family at night.LauraBut it’s not just like super privileged white women that have a lot of you know nutrition knowledge, right, that benefit from ultra processed foods. I’m also thinking about kids with feeding disorders that would struggle to get all the nutrition that they need without processed foods. I’m thinking about elderly or disabled people who can maintain a level of independence because they can quickly cook some pasta and throw an ultra processed jar of pasta sauce on that and have a nourishing meal. I’m thinking about pregnant people who otherwise might not be able to stomach eating because of morning sickness and nausea, which we know lasts forever, not just morning, right?So there are so many groups of people that benefit from ultra processed foods, and they just seem to be missing entirely from the conversation around these foods.VirginiaSo often there’s this pressure of like, we have to just get poor people cooking more and get them cooking more. And it’s like, okay, but if you live in a shelter, you don’t have a kitchen. If you are crashing on a couch with family member, you know, in a house with lots of different people, and it’s not easy for you to get time in the kitchen. There’s so many different scenarios where cooking is not a practical solution, and having greater shelf stability is very important.LauraBut it also says a lot about where we place our values, right? And who is making decisions about where we cook our values? Because it’s not everyone’s value system to spend more time cooking from scratch and buying fresh ingredients and spending more time in the kitchen.VirginiaI picked this clip because I think Laura is summing up so many important pieces of this conversation that I just continue to see nowhere in the mainstream media discourse around ultra-processed foods. Like the fact that they are useful and convenient. And convenience is not a moral failing. I don’t know where we decided food should be inconvenient to be valuable and healthy? But it seems like that’s a thing that we believe.CorinneI know Maintenance Phase just did an ultra processed food episode. I listened to that.VirginiaOh, it’s excellent. CorinneAnd both they and you and Laura got into the way that “processed” is just such a moving target. It means so many different things.VirginiaIt means literally anything.CorinneAnd also nothing.VirginiaYes, when I say this is missing from the discourse, I don’t mean Maintenance Phase, who I think we’re very much in conversation with. As Mike and Aubrey kept discussing on their episode—I think Laura says some of this, too—depending whose classification system you go by, honey is ultra-processed or it’s not ultra-processed. Foods are moving categories all the time.And as Aubrey said: Really what it comes down to is they’re categorizing foods so that the ones that “people who make less money than you buy” are bad. And I was like, yep, there it is. This is really classism and racism and all the other isms to say let’s demonize these foods that people rely on. Which is not to say we shouldn’t improve the overall quality of food in the food system! But doing it through this policing of consumer habits just will never not make me furious.CorinneReally feels like this hasn’t gotten better since the episode aired two years ago? VirginiaIf anything, I think it has intensified. I think RFK and MAHA has really put this one in their crosshairs, and it’s just getting worse and worse. It’s really maddening, because we’re just not having any of the real conversations we need to have about how to improve food quality in this country or anywhere.CorinneWhat a bummer. All right, let’s listen to this next quote, which is about jeans.VirginiaOh, jeans.VirginiaSo the backstory is on recent Indulgence Gospels, we have talked about how Corinne converted me to the universal standard straight leg jeans, and I do really like them. But earlier today, I had to be in photos, and we had a plan. The three of us had a plan that I was going to wear those jeans, and at the last minute, I texted Dacy. I didn’t even text Corinne because I knew she’d yell at me. I texted Dacy, and I was like, I can’t do it. I’m in my skinny jeans for the photos. And, yeah, it was like, do I look too sloppy? Are these, like, saggy in a weird way that I have no control over?And I feel like for something like having your picture taken, like, wear the pants, you’re not going to feel like you’re only thinking about your pants. You know what I mean?CorinneOkay, so I wanted to revisit some of your feelings about jeans. You may recall that we used to open like every podcast episode by chatting about pants!VirginiaWe did. We haven’t done that!CorinneWe kind of fell off pants chat, and I don’t know why.VirginiaBring back pants chat! CorinneBut I do feel like since we started doing the podcast, your feelings about jeans have evolved? True or false?VirginiaThey have evolved. They definitely have. I mean, I still own a pair of emotional support skinny jeans. The same pair I mention in that episode. CorinneWhen is the last time you wore them?VirginiaI actually have not worn them very much at all. I did wear them two weeks ago under a shirt dress because it turned out to be colder than I thought. And I was like, “Oh, it’s not a bare leg dress day.” So I put on skinny jeans under it, but I haven’t worn them for any other reason in a really long time.And I will say: I’m wearing my Gap straight leg jeans the most, the baggier fit ones the most. So I do think I’ve evolved to embrace a more relaxed fit of jean, which does make it much easier to get jeans to fit your body.I still think the primary finding of Jean Science was correct, that jeans are designed terribly, that fashion in general is terrible at fitting people’s bodies, but particularly when it comes to fitting pants onto fat people. They’re really bad at it. And so I think all the jeans are bad.But I will say if you can embrace a wider leg or a more relaxed fit, you will have more options.CorinneYeah, I think that’s true.VirginiaI still cannot solve for the factor of, if you wear a more relaxed fit, they will still stretch out when you wear them, and they will be falling off you by the second day, if not later in the first day. And nobody has solved this.CorinneI think someone did solve it, and it’s belts.VirginiaThat is not a solution that is available to me, personally. I don’t like belts. I guess I should try belts? I don’t know about belts. Okay, that’s a whole other thing.CorinneThis is kind of neither here nor there, but I just read this post from Em Seely-Katz who writes Esque, and I think they were actually writing about something else, raw hem jeans. But they were saying that men’s jeans, the zipper goes all the way from the bottom of the crotch up to the top. Why don’t women’s jeans do that?VirginiaWait, men’s jeans have a different zipper?CorinneLike, the zipper on women’s jeans is shorter. It doesn’t go all the way down.VirginiaIs it because they don’t want men to pee on their pants?CorinneWell, I think it’s so you can open them up more to get your… whatever but, but I think women’s jeans should also have that option for access.VirginiaI just really have to pause on how uncomfortable Corinne was saying penis right there. She was like… whatever you’ve got down there.CorinneI think I was going to say dick and then I was like, is that inappropriate?VirginiaWhatever, we swear all the time. Anyway, the zipper is longer so that men can deal with their junk.CorinneI think women should have the option of being able to deal with their junk as well.VirginiaAgreed, agreed. Pro longer zipper.CorinneAlso, I feel like it would be easier to to get jeans on if they opened up more at the top.VirginiaNow that you’ve put this very important issue on my radar, I’m ready to adopt it as a primary cause.CorinneOkay, thank you.VirginiaWe will have a petition for everyone to sign shortly. You are a diehard jeans person. You always look great in jeans. You’re inspiring on the topic.CorinneThis year I have adopted drawstring jeans, which feels like it’s barely jeans.VirginiaBut also sounds like a life hack.CorinneYeah, it’s very comfortable.VirginiaI love drawstring. In the summer, I wear a lot of drawstring. I don’t wear a lot of drawstring in the winter.CorinneDrawstring would probably solve your stretching out after a couple wears problem, similar to a belt.VirginiaIt would be like a belt, but not a belt, so it wouldn’t trigger my belt concerns.I think my other struggle with jeans—that is maybe not really even about jeans—is that since I have broken up mostly with dark skinny jeans, there is sometimes a category of outfit I am trying to achieve where I’m trying to be dressed up, but not too dressed up. And I feel like the dark skinny jean really filled that need. Does that make sense?Like, you want to look like kind of polished because you’re going to your kid’s chorus concert or out to dinner with friends, but it’s not like all the way to a dress level? That might feel like too much. I feel like the dark skinny jean really threaded this needle.This stems from having been in my 20s in the early 2000s and being trained in the School of the Going Out Top. The going out top and dark jeans was a uniform. And I think I’m still like, “So what replaces the dark jeans and the going out top?” And then I realized, like… anything? That’s me trying to dress like it’s 2003 and it’s not.But that is one place I still struggle, because I don’t feel like the lighter, more relaxed denim can can do that same category?CorinneHmm, what about darker, wide leg jeans? Is that not a thing?VirginiaMaybe I just haven’t found a pair I really like that are darker. That’s a good thought.CorinneOr maybe with wide leg jeans, you need a slightly fancier top, I don’t know.VirginiaI think a lot of our dependency on the skinny jean was just because we’d really learned the outfit formulas for it. And I do feel like sometimes when I gravitate back towards it, it’s because I’m feeling at sea with how to put an outfit together without them.CorinneThis is not about jeans, but I’m really into these Old Navy shorts I have that have stripes down the side. They’re sweat shorts. And they’re so comfortable. But then sometimes when I’m going out, I am like, wait, what do I put on the top so that it doesn’t look like I’m just in sweats?VirginiaI just came here in pajamas. Yeah, don’t you feel like that’s a struggle with shorts and tank tops in general in the summer? And I feel like more of a struggle for fat folks?CorinneMaybe.VirginiaIt’s harder to look like you got dressed or something, right?CorinneLike, how do I look like I’m not just wearing a t-shirt and jeans?Lately, I’ve been experimenting with the answer to that being socks. Right now I’m wearing—am I about to try and show you my socks? Nope.I’m wearing chartreuse socks, kind of like a chartreuse dress sock. I’ll send you a pic after. But I feel like that with the tank top and shorts kind of makes it look more outfit-y.@selfiefayStay for the pitbull cameo #ootd VirginiaYou should know my 11 year old is doing the same thing this summer.CorinneOh, that’s cool.VirginiaThere are a lot of brightly colored socks with regular shorts and t-shirts. Also, she has a lot of animal print socks. So you’re blessed by Gen Alpha or whatever she is.CorinneAmazing.VirginiaGood job.All right. Well, for the final clip, I went back to another favorite guest conversation. To be clear, I love all of our guest conversations. But this was one that was just like one of my favorite ever. It was with Martinus Evans, who is the author of Slow AF Run Club: The Ultimate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Run. Martinus also runs the Slow AF Run Club, which is a running community for folks to run in the bodies they have. He is so hilarious and delightful. This episode ran in June 2023 so here’s the clip.MartinusSo what that looks like is like letting them know that obstacles and rising up in the face of adversity is a good thing. Because for a lot of people, they think it’s a bad thing. Like, oh, I face adversity. I’m slow.Or, here’s the thing I always get, is that I started running, and then I got a little tired, and I started walking, and I felt absolutely horrible that I had to walk. And then me come in and say, Well, what was wrong with that? Did you start running again? Yeah, I did. Well, fuck like, let’s celebrate that then? It’s that thing of letting people know that it’s okay to bumble and stumble and figure this thing out because you’re doing something with your body that you have not been A. celebrated to do, right? But B. You’re kind of stifled, like being a plus size person, like you may have even been stifled with movement, because you haven’t had the liberty to actually explore the things that your body might be able to do. You got to explore and figure all this stuff out.So, like, that’s where providing psychological safety is letting them know that it’s okay. It’s almost like, imagine a kid who’s like, riding a bike for the first time. They ride the bike, you let it go, they lose their balance, they fall, they scrape their knee. They’re going to cry. They’re going to be like, Oh, I don’t want to ride this bike anymore. It’s horrible. I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me do this. But as a good parent or as a good coach, you’re going to like, okay, let’s cry it out. You done crying? Okay, now let’s get your ass back on that bike. The same thing is true with physical activity. All right. You did it. You got a side stitch? Okay, cool. Let’s figure this out. Oh, you got shin splints. Okay, cool, yeah, let’s figure this out. Oh, oh, you got delay, onset, muscle soreness? Great. Let’s figure this out. But guess what? Yeah, that’s going to continue to move.That’s the approach that I take. Like we’re all going to fall off, and somewhere around us being grown start to be embedded in us, like doing something and then like failing or like not getting it right on the first time is a bad thing. I think it’s school.VirginiaI think school is a lot of it, yeah. I’m thinking, like, when a baby’s learning to walk, they fall a million times, and people aren’t like you should stop trying to walk. You know what I mean?MartinusImagine that like walking a baby trying to walk. And I said, screw you baby! Like you suck you’re not. Damn you for trying to walk.VirginiaYeah, you are a fat baby who can’t walk. And yet we have this narrative that then kicks in of somehow, if I have to stop to walk during my run, that’s like a moral failing. Like walking and running are morally equivalent activities, right? Like if you’re walking, some of it, if you’re running, some of that, as you said, like the pace of your running, if you are slow, that is still running. There’s no need to be attaching all these values to it.But it does seem like the culture of running at large is so built on that paradigm, and you are really challenging an entire paradigm here.MartinusYes, I am. Here’s why. If you’re not an elite athlete who’s like their life depends on winning prize money and like going to the Olympics, all of us are then paying for a participation medal to participate in a parade.CorinneI love this. He’s really delightful.VirginiaHe’s so good. And the reframing of running marathons as participating in a parade will just make me happy forever. It’s so correct.I mean, obviously we stand by everything Martinus said. There’s not really a lot more to say. So I thought we could also talk a little bit about how working on the podcast has changed each of our relationship with exercise. Because I think we’ve done a lot of good fitness content over the last 200 episodes, and I personally feel like I’m in a better place with exercise than I was when I started this project.CorinneHmm, that’s awesome. Well, I think I started lifting around the same time that I started doing the podcast.VirginiaThere was an early episode where you were, like, “I’m using a broomstick.”CorinneOh, that’s right! I was doing Couch to Barbell!VirginiaAnd look at you now, power lifter.CorinneI mean, one thing that is interesting about maybe starting any exercise, or maybe specifically powerlifting, is I think, in the first like year that you do it, you get better fast. Like, really consistently, almost every time you go to the gym, you’re lifting more weight. And that is so rewarding. And probably a little addictive.Now that I have been doing it for two and a half years, I’m not getting better every time. Sometimes I can’t lift weights that I have previously lifted for various reasons. Even if I’m maxing out, sometimes not hitting my previous maxes. I think it can be hard to figure out what am I doing? I took a little bit break last summer. I went to visit family, and I decided to just not go to the gym.VirginiaI remember, that seems good. I feel like it was good you took that break.CorinneYeah, it was good. And it sucked getting back. So yeah, I’m still figuring it out.VirginiaI guess that’s the tricky thing about any sport where there’s progress attached to it, which power lifting is still a sport organized around progress.CorinneI mean, there are different ways you can measure progress, too. Like how many reps, versus just straight up how much weight.VirginiaBut it’s still measuring progress. It’s still expecting there to be progress, which is both exciting, and I think progress can be very motivating. And what do you do then when you’re in a period with it where it’s not really about progress? How do you find value in that relationship? That’s a tricky question.CorinneOr when the progress is just much smaller.VirginiaAnd can you still feel good about that?. Or do you start feeling like what’s the point? I think for me, it’s so funny that I love this conversation with Martinus so much, because I am just never going to be a runner again. Running was such a bad relationship that I’m so glad to be done with.I think for me, so much of finding joy and exercise is about not having progress goals of any kind. Like just having different activities I like doing for their own sake, and kind of rotating. Like, I like weight lifting. It was exciting when I went up to larger weight, heavier weights. At some point I hope to go up to heavier weights again.But I’m not tracking it. I’m like, these still seem hard. I don’t know, it seems fine.Then the other stuff I do, like walking the dog and gardening, are really not things you would be like, wow, I weeded two more flower beds this week. It’s not progress.But I do feel good that I, in various flavors, work out much more consistently than I have at other points in my life. Because it’s more built into my lifestyle. And, I think talking to people like Martinus, Anna Maltby, obviously Lauren Leavell, Jessie Diaz-Herrera and all the folks who’ve come on and talked to us about different approaches to fitness have just really helped me claim it for myself in a way that I really was struggling to do. So that’s been cool.CorinneYeah, that is cool. That’s inspiring.ButterCorinneWell, this was fun to look back on some favorite episodes! Should we do butter?VirginiaI just came up with my Butter while I was eating lunch. And it is what I ate for lunch. And it is Sushi Salad. I invented this today. I had some leftover sushi, but it wasn’t quite enough to be lunch by itself. So I chopped up the spicy tuna roll, with the rice and everything, chopped it up into little chunks, and I put it over a bed of greens with some some chopped bell peppers, some red onion, and then I kind of made up a fake spicy mayonnaise Asian-ish salad dressing. I’m not saying this is culturally authentic in any way. I need to underscore that a lot. But it was such a good lunch. So Sushi Salad is my Butter.And in general, I’ve been a big fan of leftovers plus salad as a lunch formula. A lot of leftovers lend themselves well to being a chopped ingredient in a good salad, and then it’s like a new take. If you’re someone who gets sick of leftovers, it’s a whole new experience.CorinneI’m also going to do a food.VirginiaGreat. We love food Butter.CorinneI had some friends over for dinner earlier this week, and I made this Smitten Kitchen recipe, she calls it garlic lime steak and noodle salad.VirginiaOh, sold.CorinneIt’s a really good hot weather meal, because it’s rice vermicelli that you basically dunk in hot water for a few minutes and can serve cold or room temp. Then you chop up cucumbers and tomatoes and green beans, and then you make a marinade that also doubles as a dressing that has fish sauce, sugar, stuff like that, and and grill some steak and put that on top.VirginiaOh my gosh, I’m making this this week. I love this kind of recipe. Also, a great salad. Don’t sleep on main course salads.CorinneYes, I had the leftovers as a salad yesterday. So good.Well, coming up next week, we’re going to visit another bunch of favorite moments. Including: Feelings about aging, heterosexual marriage and what happens when your partner is on a diet.VirginiaThat episode WILL be paywalled, just like all our other Indulgence Gospels, so you should become a paid subscriber so you don’t miss it! The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Sorting fact from diet culture myth, with Cole KazdinYou’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Cole Kazdin.Cole is an Emmy Award-winning television journalist and author of What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety. Cole came on Burnt Toast about two years ago to talk about What's Eating Us when it first came out—and the way the eating disorder industrial complex leaves so many folks struggling to find durable recovery.Today, Cole is joining us again as an eating disorder expert, but also as a fellow woman in perimenopause… who is reeling right now from all the diet culture nonsense coming for us in this stage of life.Our goal today is to call out the anti-fatness, ageism and diet culture running rampant in peri/menopause-adjacent media. I know a lot of you have more specific questions about menopause (like how much protein DO we need?). Part 2 of the Burnt Toast Menopause Conversation will be coming in a few weeks with Mara Gordon, MD joining us to tackle those topics. So drop your questions in the comments for Dr. Mara! This episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!Episode 199VirginiaSo, Cole, you are back because you emailed me to say: Is all of menopause a diet? What are we doing? By which I mean menopause and perimenopause—we’re going to kind of lump them together everyone. They are distinct life stages. But in terms of the cultural discourse, they’re very much hooked together.You emailed and said:Look, I’m not a menopause expert, but I am an eating disorder expert and I’m seeing a lot of stuff that I don’t like. How do we take a skeptical but informed eye about the messaging we get as we age? How do we get through this without developing an eating disorder as we are in the full witch phase of our lives?So, let’s just start by getting a lay of the land. What are our first impressions as women newly arriving in perimenopause?ColeThere’s something that is so exciting about all the books that are out and the research that’s emerging, from actual OB/GYNs to the existence of the Menopause Society to Naomi Watts wrote a book about menopause. I think we’re the first real generation to have menopause information and conversations.When I asked my mom about her perimenopause and menopause she doesn’t really remember it. So I think I really want to preface this by saying how valuable this is. When I sat down to start looking at the available information and read these books, I was stunned by some of the symptoms that I’ve never heard of—tinnitus, joint pain, right? Things that aren’t just hot flashes, which I think are the standard menopause symptoms that we tend to hear about.VirginiaThere are a lot. It’s like, everything that could be happening to your body.ColeAnd then very quickly… there’s a sharp left turn to intermittent fasting. VirginiaYes. It’s like, wait, what? I want to know about my joint pain? What are we doing?ColeAnd it felt to me, like some sort of betrayal. Because you get on the train of “we’re going to learn about something that’s happening to our bodies that no one’s ever really talked about or paid attention to before.” And, then it’s oh wait, I have to track my protein. What just happened? I’m having so much trouble with that clash of gratitude and absolute hunger—pun intended, sorry, there’s no other word—for the information and research. And then being told, “But no hunger!”VirginiaI mean, this is always the story with women’s health, right? Women’s health is so ignored and forgotten by the mainstream—the media, the medical system—so we are left to put it together on our own.And of course, we have a proud tradition of centuries of midwives teaching women about our bodies. It’s the Our Bodies, Ourselves legacy. There’s all this wisdom that women figure out about how our bodies work, what we need to know to take care of ourselves. But because it’s being ignored by scientific research, it’s being ignored by the mainstream, and it is this sort of an underground thing—that also opens up a really clear market for diet culture.So it’s really easy to find an influencer—and they may even be a doctor or have some other credentials attached to their name—who you feel like, “Oh, she’s voicing something that I am feeling. I’m being ignored by my regular doctor and here’s this person on Tiktok who really seems to get it,” …and then also wants to sell me a supplement line. It’s so quick to go to this place of it’s just another Goop, basically.ColeAnd what if it didn’t go there? What does the world look like where it doesn’t go there? I am really hyper conscious of my own vulnerabilities—even though I feel very, very, very, very solid in my eating disorder recovery. I don’t go there anymore. I know there are vulnerabilities there, because I struggled on and off with eating disorders for decades. But, I really feel solid in my recovery. And then I wonder if I should start tracking my protein? I was shocked to even hear that in my own head, and then to hear my very sophisticated turn of “well, you’re not looking at calories, you’re not trying to get smaller, you’re done with that for real for real. But you should probably start looking at how much protein you’re getting!” Wait a minute, stop!VirginiaWhere’s that coming from?ColeI’m fortunate enough that because of my background and because I wrote a book on this, I can reach out to top eating disorder researchers in the country, and just ask a question. Isn’t this kind of funny that I did this? Isn’t that interesting? What do you think? And to be met with: Do not go near tracking apps! That is not safe for you. DO NOT track your protein. It’s not funny. I did that last night. I just reached out to one of the top eating disorder experts in the country, because this is something we don’t talk about. But I think with something like intermittent fasting, which we hear about in all aspects of wellness diet culture, we have to remember that intermittent fasting is extreme food restriction. Our bodies panic when we fast. But these can set us on roads towards very disordered relationships with food in our bodies. And the worst case is developing an eating disorder.VirginiaRight, or living with a subclinical eating disorder that makes you miserable, even if no one ever says, yes, you have a diagnosis.ColeAbsolutely. Thinking about protein every day is stressful and just being consumed with this idea of what we’re eating and how much we’re eating and what we need to be doing. And the fear of the consequences, right? If I don’t track my protein, I’m going to break a hip, right? I mean, I’m condensing the messaging. But if you follow the steps, that’s kind of where it goes.VirginiaWell, and I don’t think it’s even just “I’m going to break a hip.” I think it’s “I’m going to become old and vulnerable and undesirable.” The hip is symbolic of this cultural narrative about older women’s bodies, which is that you are going to become disposable and irrelevant. And the fear that’s stoking us, that’s making us hungry for the information—which is valid, it is a mysterious phase of life that we don’t know enough about. But there’s this fear of of irrelevancy and and not being attractive, and all of that. You can’t tease that out from “I’m worried about my bone density.” It’s all layered in there.ColeAnd my own OB/GYN told me at our last visit—she offers a separate let’s have a talk about perimenopause appointment, which I think is great. It’s essentially about hormone replacement therapy and when and if that might be part of your journey. But she told me that most people who don’t have some immediate symptom like hot flashes are coming to her in perimenopause because of weight gain or redistribution of weight, which is very normal during this phase of life. And they are asking if hormone replacement therapy could “fix” that issue.So it’s the post-baby body thing all over again. As if there’s a return to something, as opposed to a forward movement. But the fact that that’s an entry point for a lot of these menopause physicians that write books and have a presence on social media. It’s very, very connected to an audience that is looking for weight loss.VirginiaI think there is something about any mysterious health situation—whether it’s perimenopause, or I see a similar narrative happen around diabetes often—where the condition gets held out as this worst case scenario that’s so so bad that therefore any concerns you had about is it disordered to diet? Is it risky for me to count protein? All of that kind of goes out the window because we get laser focused and we have to solve this thing. You no longer get to have feelings about how pursuing weight loss can be damaging for you. This physical health thing trumps all the emotions.ColeIt’s a medical issue now.VirginiaRight! I’m at sea in this whole new complicated medical landscape of menopause. I don’t know what it is, so obviously, whatever I used to feel about needing to accept my body no longer applies. I don’t get to do that anymore. I have to just like, drill in and get serious about this.I’ve had older women say this to me. Like, “you can be body positive in your 30s or early 40s, but get over 50, sweetheart, and you’re not going to be able to do that anymore.” But why not? That should be available to us throughout our lives. So that frustrates me. Because simultaneously, we have no good information, we have no good science about what’s happening to us. And yet menopause weight loss is given this gravitas. You can’t argue with it, and you have to just be okay eating less for the rest of your life now.ColeMaybe this is where body liberation is in one of its most critical stages? To develop it here in this phase of life. Because I think what complicates it further, and I will give people the benefit of the doubt that it is not nefarious when the messaging is also married to we’re not trying to get smaller, we’re trying to get stronger. But here’s also how to get rid of belly fat. And that I find genuinely confusing, I think, oh good, you’re not talking about weight loss. Oh, wait, you are talking about weight loss. But is being stronger now a proxy for weight loss? You’re telling people not to diet.We see this in other arenas, and I even wonder, gee, now that these weight loss drugs are so ubiquitous, is menopause, the next frontier of of health and weight being conflated? And it’s such a letdown. I mean, I know that sounds so simple it’s just so disappointing. It’s so disappointing.VirginiaYou called it the Full Witch Phase. This should be a stage of our life that’s more free than ever before, right? We’re not 20-somethings trying to find a man to be a baby daddy, we’re through with that pressure.ColeNo this is the taking pottery lessons, stranger sex, no pregnancy phase! Maybe, I don’t know. For some people.VirginiaIt seems like it should be!ColeIt could be.VirginiaAnd yet, here is all this body stuff/weight stuff coming in.And women go through this at every stage of our life. I’m watching my my middle schooler in puberty, where weight gain is absolutely normal and what we want their bodies to be doing. Reproductive years, childbirth, weight gain—this is a part of having a body with a uterus is that you are going to go through phases where it is normal for your body to get bigger. And in every one of these stages, we’re told it’s terrible and you should avoid it at all costs. That said, I do feel like in some of the other arenas, like around pregnancy, there’s a lot of pressure on women to get their bodies back after they have babies. But you can find a counter-narrative that’s saying, no, I don’t have to erase the evidence that I had a child. My body can be different now, I’m going to embrace that. There are those of us out there saying that.But I don’t see that counter-narrative around menopause. I don’t see women saying, “Yep, you’re going to have a bigger stomach in menopause. It makes sense because of the estrogen drop off.” This is why bodies change in menopause. Let’s just embrace it. Instead, it feels like this, of all the weight gains, you must fight this one the most. And I don’t understand. I mean, again, I think there’s a link to ageism there. But what else do you think is going on there?ColeI mean, it’s ageism, it’s ableism, it’s beauty standards. It’s all the things. It’s how we’re valued as women. I want to dive deeper in this to see the fat menopause doctors. I would like to find some of those. I don’t know.VirginiaListeners, if you know some, drop them in the comments please. We want to talk to the fat menopuase doctors! ColeTo just see people that look different from some of these “classic doctors”e we see on Instagram and Tiktok, to just talk about what do we really have to think about during menopause? We know that the drop in estrogen affects from the brain, affects everything in our bodies, and how we don’t want to lose sight of that because we’re trying to get rid of belly fat either.VirginiaRight, right? I think of Jessica Slice, who I had the on the podcast recently, talking about differentiating between alleviating suffering and trying to “fix” your body. Or caring for your body instead of trying to force it into an ideal. We’re not saying that this isn’t a time of life where women need extra support, where our bodies need extra care. That makes sense to me. My face does this weird flushing thing now it never used to do. I just suddenly get blotchy for like, 20 minutes and feel really hot. But only in my face. It’s not even a hot flash. So there are all these wild things our bodies are doing that we deserve to have information about, and we deserve to have strategies to manage them. I mean, the face blotchy thing is not really impacting my quality of life. But there are a lot that do. The night sweats are terrible. I want strategies to alleviate that suffering. And it just seems like what a disservice we do when all of the advice is filtered through weight loss instead of actually focusing on the symptoms that are causing distress.ColeYes, yes. And is it boring to talk about weight fluctuation? Because I find it interesting that weight fluctuation is so deeply correlated with so many health problems. There has been research on this for years. That’s why I ask if it’s boring, because we know this, and we don’t talk about it nearly enough, but we know this. The research is so, so so deeply there. It’s correlated with chronic illnesses. And who among us hasn’t in their history had weight fluctuation? With our diets or whatever our behaviors are. And so what is weight fluctuation going to do in menopause? I doubt that’s being studied.I was looking at weight fluctuation and fertility when I was researching my book, and there aren’t those studies, because fertility studies are much shorter term, and weight fluctuation studies are longer term. So never do they meet.But could weight fluctuation impact negatively our menopause experience? It would make perfect sense if that if that were the case.VirginiaYes. This maybe isn’t a stage of life wher you want to be weight cycling and going up and down, and deliberately pursuing going down, because there might be cost to it. I mean, we do know that higher body weight is really protective against osteoporosis, for example. If you’re concerned about breaking a hip, pursuing weight loss, I would argue, is counter to that goal for a lot of us. Researchers call this the obesity paradox, which is an extremely anti-fat, terrible term. But we know that folks in bigger bodies have lower mortality rates, that they survive things like cancer treatments and heart surgery with better outcomes.So as we’re thinking of our aging years, where we’re all going to be dealing with some type of chronic condition or other, some type of cancer, heart stuff, like this is what’s going to happen right. Then pursuing thinness at any cost is not actually going to be the prescription for that. There’s a good reason to hold onto your body fat.ColeAnd I come back to the stress piece of this, which I don’t think can be overstated. Stress is so detrimental to our health, and this preoccupation with food, body exercise, tracking apps, all of that really does elevate our stress. And I think we’re so used to it. It’s invisible in so many ways because it’s bundled in with so many other stressors in our lives. Eliminating the stressor of what am I eating? Am I getting enough fiber? All of that is really, really can be a crucial piece of having a better experience in our bodies and of our health. It’s that Atkins echo over and over and over again, which I thought we had decided already we were done with. But it’s those two triggers, the protein, resistance training, lifting.I think it comes back to, you can control your behaviors. You can’t control your weight. And if weight is ever going to be some sort of goal, you’re really setting yourself up for stress, health problems, and again, at worst, an eating disorder.VirginiaAbsolutely. And we should caveat here: I personally love lifting weights. It’s my favorite kind of workout. If these things bring you joy, keep doing that. We’re not saying nobody should lift weights or nobody should eat protein. I just feel like I have to slip that in because people get frustrated.ColeNo, I think that’s important, and I am the same as you. I love lifting weights, and for me, it has actually been an antidote to a lot of the compulsive cardio I did when I had an eating disorder. There’s something about lifting weights that is so grounding. Every month or so, I go to this this guy—he does training in his garage—and we lift weights. And I told him before our first session, look, I’m recovering anorexic, I’m perimenopausal. I’m not here to have language like “tone up” and all of that. I do not want to do it. I want to lift something heavy and put it down. That’s what I’m here for. I was a little aggressive.VirginiaI mean, you have to put the boundary, though, you really do.ColeBut to his credit, he has respected that. And we lift heavy shit and put it down, and it is so so good for me. In repairing my relationship with exercise, which for me was one of the biggest challenges in recovery. So when someone says, lift weights, I’m here for that, because I really enjoy that. But I agree with you. I think it’s so important that we go with our ability and something we enjoy.VirginiaThe main reason I lift weights is because I do a lot of gardening, and I have to be able to lift a heavy bag of soil or a pot or dig big holes and do these things.We need to remember that these things, eating protein, lifting weight, it’s supposed to support you living the life you want to live. It’s not a gold star you need to get every day to be valuable as a person. I can tell weightlifting all winter is really helping me garden this year. That’s what I did it for. So you can recognize the value that these things have in your life—I’m less cranky if I eat protein at breakfast. I make it through my work morning better. And not be measuring our success by whether or not we’re doing those things and like, how we’re doing them and counting how much we’re doing them every day.ColeWell, that is key. I mean, first of all, I will say there are a few things more gratifying than hauling a 40 pound bag of cat litter up the stairs to my second floor apartment. I feel like I need some sort of like, are people watching me? Am I getting a medal for this? Even if no one is.VirginiaI totally agree.ColeIt is exciting, me, alone with myself, walking up the stairs with that, and it’s not that hard. I get excited. I lift weights so I can carry this bag of cat litter. I mean, it’s more complex than that, but that is a very significant percentage of why I lift weights.VirginiaBecause that impacts your daily functioning and happiness.ColeAnd I think with eating, I find I’m in a better mood when I’m carbing it out. You know what I mean? I’m sure protein is great. And I have some. I do all the things, whatever. And everyone’s body is different. Everyone responds differently. But some people will say, oh, when I have salmon, I just feel fantastic or something. I don’t know. VirginiaHave they tried pasta? Do they not know about pasta?ColeFor me, I feel better when I eat—it almost doesn’t matter what it is. And if I don’t eat, then I have low energy and brain fog and don’t feel good. VirginiaAnd again, it’s because of the fear mongering around the stage of life. It’s because of this you’re now in this murky waters where everything could go wrong with your body at any moment type of thing. I mean, this is what diet culture teaches us. Control what you can control. Okay, well, probably I can’t control what’s happening to my hip bones, but we think we should be able to control how we how we exercise and losing weight. The fact is, your day to day context is going to change. Having arbitrary standards you have to hold yourself to because of vague future health threat stuff is unhelpful when you may have a week where you don’t have time to make all the salmon and you have to just be okay with eating takeout. There’s no grace for just being a person with a lot else going on. And every woman in perimenopause and menopause is a person with a lot going on.All right, we are going chat a little bit about one of the folks that we see on the socials talking about menopause relentlessly —Dr. Mary Claire Haver.ColeShe wrote the book The New Menopause, which is a really great, significant book in many ways in terms of providing information that has never been provided before. VirginiaOh yes, this is @drmaryclaire.ColeWhen I bought her book, I saw that she has also written The Galveston Diet, and I said to myself, hmm. And then bought the book anyway. And you know now it all makes sense. Because The Galveston Diet is is very geared towards the perimenopausal, menopausal lose belly fat, but also have more energy help your menopause symptoms, right? How can you knock that? Come on.And so it's very sort of interwoven with all the diet stuff. So it's not surprising that she would bring so much of that up in her menopause book and a lot on her Instagram. She wears a weighted vest all the time. I thought, “Should I get a weighted vest?” And I again, I wasn't sure if I was doing it for menopause diet culture reasons, or I just love to lift heavy things reasons. I thought, “That could be cool. Maybe that'll be fun. I'll just wear a weighted vest around the house, like this woman, who's the menopause authority.”I guess what’s coming across in this interview is how vulnerable I am to any advertising!VirginiaNo, it's relatable. We all are vulnerable! I mean, I'm looking at her Instagram right now and I'm simultaneously exhausted at the prospect of wearing a weighted vest around my house and, like…well…ColeWouldn't that be convenient? But let me save you a minute here, because when you go to whatever your favorite website is to buy weighted vests, and you look at the reviews, it's split between people saying, “This is the best weighted vest [insert weighted vest brand here],” and other people saying, “Gee, the petroleum smell hasn't gone away after two months.”VirginiaOkay. I can't be walking around my house smelling petroleum. No, thank you.ColeBecause they're filled with sand that comes from who knows where, and the petroleum smell doesn't go away. And according to some reviews I read—because I did go down the rabbit hole with this—it actually increases if you sweat. So I thought, You know what, I can do this in other ways.VirginiaI'm sure there are folks for whom the weighted vest is a revelation. And, it's a very diet culture thing to need to be alway optimizing an activity. You can't just go for a walk. You need to be walking with a weighted vest or with weighted ankles. Why do we need to add this added layer of doing the most to everything?And I'm looking at a reel now where she talks about the supplements she's taking. Dr. Mary Claire is taking a lot of supplements.ColeSo many supplements! VirginiaVitamin D, K, omega threes, fiber, creatine, collagen, probiotic… That's a lot to be taking every day. That's a really expensive way to manage your health. Supplements are not covered by insurance. There's a lot of privilege involved in who can pursue gold standard healthy menopause lifestyle habits.ColeAnd it's always great to ask the question, who's getting rich off of the thing that I'm supposed to be doing for my health? Because it's never you.VirginiaYes. She keeps referencing the same brand — Pause.Cole It's hers. It's her brand.VirginiaOh there you go. So, yeah, taking advice from someone with a supplement line, I think, is really complicated. This is why it's so difficult to find a dermatologist as well. Any medical professional who's selling their own product line has gone into a gray area between medical ethics and capitalism that is very difficult to steer through.ColeAnd even in the most, let's say, the most noblest, pure intentions, it still creates that doubt, I think, with patients.VirginiaI'm interested to see some “body positive” rhetoric coming in. There's a reel I'm looking at from May, where she's talking about, “When you were 12, you wanted to be smaller…” The message is, as you get older, you're constantly realizing that the body you once had was the perfect body.And so she's arguing that we shouldn't this pursuit of thinness can leave us more fragile, more frail and less resilient as we age. Instead of chasing someone else's standard, celebrate the strength, power and uniqueness of you. “Because your body's worth isn't measured in dress sizes. It's measured in the life it lets you live.” Which is kind of what we've been saying. And this is from a woman who sells a diet plan, so I don't know how to square that.ColeThat's what I'm struggling with, with this whole menopause thing! Because when someone starts selling me supplements, or talking about weight loss, talking about tracking your protein, I no longer trust them. And yet, it's not so black or white, because there's a lot good information too. She's helping a lot of people, myself included, with the information about menopause symptoms and the history of research or lack thereof, on this. It's really valuable, and it is hard to square that with the other part.VirginiaIt says to me that these people are choosing profit. I mean, maybe this isn't the piece she believes the most. Maybe she cares more about getting the information about menopause out there, and cares more about correcting those imbalances—but she's also comfortable profiting off this piece. And that's something that you just have to hold together. And I mean, listeners have been asking me to do a menopause episode for like, months and months. And the reason I keep not doing it, and the reason, when you emailed, I was like, Oh, good, there's finally a way to do this, is I can't find an expert who is a menopause and perimenopause expert who is not pushing weight loss in a way that I am uncomfortable with. There certainly isn't a social media influencer person doing it. I mean, my own midwife is great and extremely weight neutral. I hope people are finding, individually, providers who are really helpful. But the discourse really is centering around “you’re in this terrifying stage of life you have to fight looking older at every turn,” and that includes pursuing thinness now more than ever.ColeAnd: Don’t worry, we’ll fix this belly fat thing.It’s so difficult to find providers who can talk about menopause, period. I have friends who went through menopause early and they were given every test in the world except a conversation about menopause, and found out after thousands of dollars and spinal taps and and really big procedures, that it was early menopause. So it’s so difficult to find a provider who is educated in menopause and can talk with you about it in a constructive way. So that’s the first step.Then to be so audacious as to hope for a provider who will then be weight inclusive. Maybe we’re not there yet.VirginiaWe’re really reaching for the stars.I hate to end on a depressing note, but I do think that’s where we are. I think it is hopefully helpful that we’re just voicing that and voicing this tension, that we’re seeing this disconnect, that we’re seeing in this conversation, that there needs to be better better information. That we need menopause voices who are not selling us things and pushing weight loss.But yeah, this is, this is where we are. So I appreciate you talking with me.ColeMe too, and the answer to menopause is not weight loss.VirginiaIt really does not seem like it should ever have to be. It really is never the answer.ColeIsn’t the whole point caftans??VirginiaCan we please get to the caftan stage? I’ve been training my whole life to be in my caftan era. It’s all I want.ButterVirginia Well, speaking of caftans and things that make us delighted, Cole, do you have any Butter for us this week?ColeI do. My Butter is very specific. It’s my friend Catherine’s swimming pool. A good friend of mine from New York is now here in Los Angeles, where I live, helping to take care of her mother. And they have a lovely house with a heated swimming pool in the midst of a garden. I’ve never had the opportunity to be a garden person because of where I have lived. I would love the chance one day.VirginiaIn your Full Witch era!ColeIn my Full Witch era. Lavender and roses around the swimming pool. It’s kind of like a three or four hour vacation. I went there the other day. I brought my son. He was absolutely delighted to be out of our two bedroom apartment. So my Butter is my goal. My summer goals is more of my friend Catherine’s pool. And whatever that is for anyone else, I wish that for them, too.VirginiaYes, I love this Butter. I am going to double your Butter, because we have a small pool that I love. It’s not a full-size swimming pool. It’s called a plunge pool, but it’s big enough for a couple of us, to get in. And it’s in my garden, which is a magical combination. And the thing about being having pool privilege—which I own. I have a pool, so I have pool privilege—the thing about pool privilege is your kids will then disgust you, because they will stop caring that the pool is there.It’s just like everyone gets a backyard swing set. It becomes window dressing. They don’t see it. They’re like, “I don’t need to go in the pool. I don’t want to go in the pool.” And you’re just like, do you not know how privileged you are? Do you not know how lucky you are that we have a pool? But I realized last night the trick to it. We were having dinner on the back patio, and I wanted them to go swimming after dinner, because I’m trying to wear out my kids. And they didn’t want to go in. And then I was like, “Well, what if you went in with your clothes on?” And they were like, oh my god, this is the best ever. I just let them jump right in. And then I went and put a swimsuit on, because that is not my journey.Then we hung out in the pool, and once I get them in there, we have the best conversations. Pools, being in any water, is such a nice way to bond with your kids, because you can’t really be on your phone. Something about the water, it just puts everyone in a good mood.But yeah, for anyone else with pool privilege and annoying children, just let them go in with their clothes on. It’s fine. You’re going to be dealing with wet clothes anyway afterwards.ColeThat is such a constructive menopause tip.VirginiaTrue. The reason I wanted to go in the pool is because I was freaking hot. And I could have gone in without them, but I was trying to be a fun mom, you know? Trying to have a magical moment, damn it.Well, Cole, this was wonderful. Tell folks where we can follow you, how we can support your work, where we send our vents about our menopause symptoms.ColeI’m on Instagram and have been kind of quiet on Instagram lately, but I’ll get loud if we talk about menopause.VirginiaAll right, all right. I’m here for it. Thank you so much for doing this. This was really delightful.ColeThank you so much. So good to talk.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Plus what to eat when you don't want to eat and another fat dating update.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your June Indulgence Gospel!It’s time for a mailbag episode, so we’ll be diving into your questions about:⭐️ Virginia’s online dating adventures 👀⭐️ What we’re cooking right now 🧑🏻‍🍳👩‍🍳⭐️ How we’re doing with the Target boycott!⭐️ Plus Corinne’s best Maine recs 🦞And so much more!Episode 198 TranscriptVirginiaIt is time for your June indulgence gospel, which I am recording while losing my voice. In addition to my voice, this is also our second take on this episode. We’re having technical difficulties, so it’s just really a banger day. So Corinne, thank you for bearing with this.CorinneOh God, it’s my fault.VirginiaYeah, but we’re going to do this. We’re going to answer these listener questions. I’m going to make Corinne read them all so I can save my voice for responding, and we’re going to muddle through. It’s going to be great.CorinneIt’s going to be great.All right. Are you ready for the first question?VirginiaHit me.CorinneMy daughter wanted me to bake the red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for her birthday instead of buying them, and I used a box mix for the cupcakes. And I feel that this, in and of itself, was a rejection of mommy perfectionism, which is a rejection of diet culture. Yes?EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Divesting from aggro fitness motivation with weight neutral trainer Lauren Leavell.You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my conversation is with Lauren Leavell. Lauren is a weight neutral fitness professional and content creator. She focuses on creating inclusive environments for movement and exercise to help clients feel strong and confident, and previously joined us on the podcast back in 2023. Lauren is an oasis in a sea of toxic online fitness and wellness culture. And it has been super toxic lately! So I asked Lauren to come on and chat with us about the recent dramas happening on Tiktok and Instagram.Yes, we get into the girl who said nobody over 200 pounds should take Pilates.We also talk about how to stay grounded when this noise is happening online, and how to seek out inclusive movement spaces—whatever that looks like for you. Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show! Episode 197VirginiaLauren, it’s so great to have you back on the podcast! It was one of my favorite conversations. It was two years ago that you were here before, I think.LaurenI know! Honestly, we could have a conversation once a month about toxic fitness stuff. VirginiaThere’s always something. For anyone who missed your first appearance and has missed the 72,000 times I say “I love Lauren’s workouts,” can you introduce yourself?LaurenI am Lauren Leavell. I am a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor. I’ve been doing that for almost a decade at this point, which is so wild. I’m not tired of it yet, which is amazing for me. I have a virtual program online, and Virginia is a member of tat community.VirginiaA groupie.LaurenHonestly, yes. Love that. I teach live classes and on demand classes. All of them are body neutral, and most of them are lower impact, because we’re here for a good time and a long time. And I also have private training clients who I program Stronger Together workouts for.When I’m not doing that, I’m apparently complaining on the Internet. Well, I try not to complain too much on the Internet. And stalking cats in my neighborhood.VirginiaYou are my favorite Internet cat lady.LaurenHuge, huge accolades here.VirginiaFavorite Internet cat lady. That should be in your bio. And you are talking to us from France right now! Do you want to talk about that?LaurenI’m really leaning into my Sagittarius lifestyle. I just picked up my life in Philadelphia and decided to move to France. People keep asking me, why? And my answer is, why not? My partner and I are child-free except for our two beautiful cat daughters. But they’re pretty easy to move. So we packed up our lives and moved to France. We are still really new here, really getting into it. And I’m genuinely just so excited for all the new stimuli. VirginiaOf course for folks listening to this episode, it is now mid-June, so we’re going to talk about something that happened a month ago, and it is forgotten in the attention span of the Internet. But I still think it’s very important to record for posterity that this happened. So Lauren, can you walk us through what I’m going to call Pilatesgate.LaurenPilatesgate occurred when a woman decided to come on TikTok, and really just rant. You can tell that she was a little bit amped up. She was talking about how she did not believe that people in larger bodies—specifically, if you are over 200 pounds—you should not be in a Pilates level two class. She was really insistent, and talked about how you should be doing cardio or just going to the gym. And then she followed up with: “You also shouldn’t be a fitness instructor if you have a gut.” Like, what’s going on? The overall tone of it was she was extremely agitated. VirginiaShe felt this deeply.LaurenShe was very bothered. Mind you, the person saying this, obviously, is not in a fat body. She’s not in a larger body. I think the tone of her video and how agitated she was is what really sparked the conversation around size inclusivity and fitness and blatant fatphobia and anti-fat bias. But it all started with someone having a very agitated car rant that I’m sure she didn’t think would go the way that it went.VirginiaI think she thought people were going to be like, Hell yeah! Thanks for saying the truth. I think she thought there was going to be this moment of recognition that she had spoken something. But I would love to even just know the backstory. I assume she just walked into a Pilates class and saw a fat person and lost her mind? I can’t quite understand what series of events triggered the car rant, because I can’t imagine having really any experience in my daily life that I would be like, “That was so terrible I need to take to the internet and say my piece about it,” and to have the experience be…I observed another human being.LaurenRight? I think that from from her follow up video it seems like she’s been doing Pilates for a while, and maybe was agitated that someone was either getting more attention or she just maybe felt some type of way in general.VirginiaI wonder if the fat person was better at Pilates than her, and that made her feel bad.LaurenIt could be anything. Just like you said, like the presence of being there, maybe even having a conversation with a teacher—something triggered her. It could have even be been seeing something online of like a fat person doing Pilates as an instructor. I know plenty of fat Pilates instructors.And the apology videos were really like, “I need to work on myself.” And also, you know…you could have worked on yourself before releasing that rant into the internet space.VirginiaI give her one tiny point for how it is a very full apology video. So often an apology video is like, “I’m sorry people were upset,” you know? Like, “I’m sorry that this bothered you.” And she is like, I truly apologize. I have to work on myself. This is bad. She does own it to a certain degree.LaurenI think it’s also because she experienced consequences. Her membership was revoked and she either lost her job, or at least is on punishment from her job.VirginiaWhich is correct! She should experience consequences. Plus there was a tidal wave of of videos coming out in response to her first one being like, what is wrong with you? This is a terrible thing. The backlash was quick and universal. I didn’t see a lot of support content for her. I saw just a tidal wave of people being like, what the fuck?LaurenI think the people who would have maybe supported that kept their mouths shut because they saw what was happening. There are people who support that message and feel exactly the same. It was almost like she was like, channeling that type of rage. And I think, again, the agitation is what sets this video apart from every other video that’s released 500 times a day on my FYP somewhere about people expressing anti-fat bias in fitness spaces, right?VirginiaShe said the thing that is often implied, and she said it very loudly. She also said it so righteously. It was a righteous anger in the first video. That, I think, was what was startling about it, I was glad to see the backlash—although, yes, as you’re saying, there is so much more out there. And really she looks like she is 12 years old. I think she’s like 23 or something. So this is a literal child who has had a tantrum. That happens every day, that some young 20 somethings says a fatphobic thing, right?LaurenI mean, actually, I was, at one point, a young 20 something saying fatphobic things to myself and out in the ether.VirginiaFrom my esteemed wisdom as a 44 year old, I try to be like, Thank God Tiktok didn’t exist when I was 23! Thank God there’s no record of the things I said and thought as a 23 year old. So, okay, babygirl, you did this and we hope you really do do the work. But as you’re saying, she said something that is frequently echoed and reinforced by fitness influencers all over Al Gore’s internet.You sent me a Tiktok by a fitness influencer Melania Antuchas, who posts as FitByMa. We see her leaning into the camera at a very uncomfortable-looking angle, saying, “If you don’t like the way I train or instruct, don’t come to my class because I’m going to push you to be your best self and you just need to take it,” basically. Can we unpack the toxicity of this kind of messaging? Because I do think this kind of messaging is what begets the angsty 23-year-old being appalled that there’s a fat person in her Pilates class.LaurenYes, totally. I think that that person may actually be like an Internet predecessor to the rant, if I’m going to be honest. This person’s content, against my own will, has been showing up frequently.VirginiaThank you for your service, by the way, that you have to consume all this fitness content, and see all of this.LaurenI’ve been seeing a lot of this person’s videos, and a lot of Pilates instructors have actually had a lot to say about it, because what she’s pitching as Pilates is not traditional Pilates, either mat or reformer. It’s inspired by, but we really shouldn’t be calling it that. And some people were like, “It seems like more of a barre class.” And I’m like, get my name out of your mouth. What are you talking about?VirginiaYou’re like, don’t you make me take her! I don’t want her!LaurenYes, please don’t come over here with this. So I think it’s a combination of the fact that maybe her workouts feel a little mislabeled to a lot of people who are professionals in the field, and then her teaching style is extremely intense. And that’s really what I would love to get into. Because I think if you’ve been a casual fitness person, you have experienced these type of intense motivational instructors and and maybe when we rewind to when we were the age of the ranter, that would have worked. That does work on a lot of people. What this person is saying is if you don’t like it, don’t come to my class. There are always going to be people who love a punishing, intense type of motivation because they never experienced anything else. They don’t know how to find motivation or how to exercise without the presence of punishment.VirginiaThis is certainly endemic of a lot of CrossFit culture, a lot of boot camp culture. There are a lot of fitness spaces that are really built around this. Like, “no pain, no gain.” You’ve got to leave it all on the mat. You’ve got to always show up and give 200% no matter what. And I guess that is, as you’re saying, motivating to some people.LaurenTell me about your childhood, if that’s what you like. You know? And it’s also a result of the United States culture in general, it is extremely punishing. And if we really stop and interrogate why we enjoy this, and why we only feel motivated by this intensity and someone getting up in our face, then we might have to slowly chip away at all the other places where softness has been denied and love and openness and acceptance have been denied. But it’s to make you stronger. It’s to make you better.VirginiaIt’s like capitalism as a workout. LaurenIt’s definitely a reflection of that type of culture, because some people maybe won’t be motivated by anything softer, because they’ve never experienced softness.VirginiaAnd they’ve never been given permission to exist in a more multifaceted way, like you’re either successful or you’re not. You can either take it or you can’t.LaurenAnd pain leads to success, right? Like, even though we all know—well, many of us know that—a lot of successful people have done no no suffering to get there. Other people have done the suffering for them.VirginiaExactly. It’s just where you’re born, which family you’re born into, that lead to the success. The idea that there are no excuses, which was a recurring theme of her videos. Like, you’re going to push yourself to be your best self or I’m going to push you to be your best self. That whole thing was so interesting to me because it was like, so you’re not allowed to just have a headache one day? You’re not allowed to be a neurodivergent person who has different needs and bandwidth? You’re not allowed to be human, really, in this in this context.LaurenNo, not at all. And it really shows. I mean, I get it. And I have seen it over and over. But the ableism that exists in fitness spaces is almost like you’re almost unable to, untangle them in so many spaces. And that’s part of my job. It’s been really, really, really interesting to be someone who’s attempting to untangle those because how can I be motivational to people who have never experienced motivation outside of the intensity and the ableism and the pushing past. That’s why I’m always talking about how unserious it is. Because this woman is telling me I have no excuses, and I have to go 100%. Like, girl, this is literally a 45 minute class. What are you talking about? This is 45 minutes of my life. Like, yes, with consistency you’ll get results from fitness. And those don’t have to be aesthetic! You will get your results from fitness if you are consistently doing a 45 minute workout. But consistently doing it doesn’t mean doing it 100% every time.VirginiaRight? And let’s not forget, we’re just rolling around on a floor. LaurenWe’re rolling around on the floor! Hopefully in a good class, we’re mimicking movements that we would like do in our lives that would cause our bodies to meet those muscles. So if I’m moving furniture, it’s usually not intensely at a speed run, I just need to be able to pick up my side of the couch! VirginiaAnd move it three feet and put it back down again.LaurenI think the the intensity of fitness is often overblown. And of course, this is hard to say as a fitness instructor who’s not thin, because they’ll be like, well, that’s why you’re fat.I think it’s really deeply psychologically baked into fitness for a lot of people, that it has to be horrible. And that’s my first experience with working out. Like, I thought it had to be horrible. Because I grew up in a family of women who only worked out when they needed to change their bodies. So it was like, oh my gosh. Remember when I was like, seriously working out for six months? It was always a sprint,VirginiaYou can’t sustain the Mean Girl workout. Like, that’s not a way to live. Or if you can, it’s a warning sign that you can live with that much punishment for that long. LaurenYeah, definitely. Growing up, I thought that that’s what all workouts were going to be. I did a lot of Stairmaster in my early 20s.VirginiaThe most Mean Girl of all cardio equipment.LaurenYes, I mean, that should have been a warning sign. But, I do think about this now, you know, I’m walking up a ton of stairs every day. I’m like, okay, well, do I need to go on a stairmaster, or am I able to just live my life and have to carry my groceries upstairs?VirginiaRight? I mean, being able to climb stairs is useful. And it’s always really hard.LaurenA number one goal of people when I talk to folks, they’re like, “I just want to be not winded when I go up and down stairs.” I’m like, I have horrible news for you.VirginiaIt’s never going to happen.LaurenIt’s a situational thing. You’re dressed in regular clothes, carrying up three bags of groceries after carrying them in from your car, or not being warmed up, or carrying, a baby in a baby carrier, those baby carriers that are 400 pounds. Yeah, you’re going to be winded.VirginiaI’ve lived in a fifth floor walk up in a sixth floor walk up, and I never got better at the stairs in the years I lived in those apartments. And I was a skinny 20 something when I was doing that. It never got easier, not one day.LaurenLiterally being out of breath is a sign that we’re working those cardiovascular muscles. Just let them be out of breath real quick.VirginiaThat’s a really helpful reframing. We jumped so aggressively into chatting about all of this that we should probably spend another beat for anyone who’s confused, explaining that people who weigh over 200 pounds are allowed to do Pilates! Can you just explain why what she was saying was total bullshit? LaurenTotally. I think that people, at any weight, can do whatever workout they want or don’t want to do. And I think particularly if you’re a woman or socialized as a woman there are always these imaginary limitations on what your weight should be. And I think that that’s really where the 200 pound conversation came in, right? Because for a not-fat woman, anything over that weight is really unfathomable to them. I definitely remember conversations around that within my own household of like, oh, we can’t possibly weigh over this number. And I’m sitting there, like…VirginiaCan you not? Because I’m doing it. Here I am.LaurenSo I think that that’s really where that number came from. She pulled out a number that she thought was just like, beyond anything. And I think it’s also important to remember that so often, when people are asked to assess what people weigh, they have absolutely zero idea.It’s really hard for people to tell other people’s weight based on how they look. So I think that that was why that number was picked.VirginiaIt sounds so scary.LaurenIn her head, 200 pounds is really, really big and really scary. And going back to weighing whatever anybody weighs, I think Pilates is a great workout for people who are in, all different types of bodies and diverse bodies. Pilates is super low impact in a lot of ways, and really good for folks who have chronic illnesses, particularly like reformer, because it could be recumbent and you’re not putting a lot of stress on your joints in the same way. So the idea that this workout that’s really almost like super in line with disability and rehabilitation, to say that there’s like a weight limit—again, fatphobia, joining in with ableism—is like, so so off base. So deeply off base.VirginiaFat people can do any workout, but Pilates in particular happens to be a workout that can be extremely body inclusive when it’s taught well.LaurenExactly. I think that that maybe also added to some of the outrage and and honestly, some of me thinking it was very funny. I’m not someone who regularly weighs myself, but I’ve always been someone who was extremely heavy, as a person. Even as a child, there were stories about me versus my cousin who was three years older than me and a boy, and how he weighed less than me for most of our childhood. I have always been so solid. And I think growing up, many of us heard like, oh, that person has the body of a swimmer. That person should play volleyball or basketball or whatever. I’m like, what is this body type meant for? Like, shotput? And then I’m teaching Barre, you know? I think it’s just so made up. And yes, maybe it’s good for people who swim to have long limbs, great. But when we close ourselves off to types of movement based on body types and weight limits, then people have a harder time finding things that they enjoy, because maybe they don’t enjoy something that they “look like they should.”VirginiaJust because you don’t have long limbs doesn’t mean swimming can’t bring you a lot of joy.LaurenRight? Just because I don’t have long lean muscles doesn’t mean I can’t teach Barre. The language around Barre and Pilates is always “long and lean.” And I just feel that’s so funny as someone who’s not long and lean. I love not being long and lean and and enjoying my classes. Some of the outrage did come from that number being named, because it’s a misunderstanding of what real people in the real world weigh when you are not around those types of people. But I also think that there are a lot of limitations put on bodies, particularly larger bodies, and what you can and can’t do. I have another video that’s actually making a resurgence right now, probably because of this conversation that fat people should only do cardio, because if you lift weights, then you might gain more muscle mass, which would increase your scale weight. So you should only do cardio, because that’s how you’re going to lose weight, which is inaccurate and very boring.VirginiaAnd it’s just really drilling into and this was the core of what she was saying. It’s the core of that Melania video, that exercise is only a tool for weight management. That you would only exercise to avoid or minimize fatness, and right?LaurenAnd because Pilates “isn’t actually good for burning fat,” you definitely shouldn’t be doing it if you’re fat.VirginiaYeah, you should be at the gym running. And it’s completely ignoring the many other reasons we would exercise, the benefits you can actually achieve. Because, as you’re saying, weight loss through exercise is a very murky thing for most people. And it’s just ignoring all the other reasons you would do it that are more fun.LaurenYeah, like “I like it.” You’re allowed to like things! But again, if you’re socialized to only know shame and punishment, then the idea that people do things out of pleasure is hard to wrap your mind around.VirginiaSpeaking of shame and punishment, I wrote recently about Andy Elliott, who is actually a sales trainer, but he’s also a bodybuilder. He’s always cold plunging. He’s always recording from a cold thing of water.LaurenAgain, pleasure, right? We can’t have warm water. We made this technology, use it.VirginiaNo, no. He’s like in Dubai, sitting in a barrel of cold water, posting his rants. And he posted this video showing off his twelve and nine year old daughters and how he had challenged them to get a six pack in less than two months. And they got shredded in two months. Then in this room full of his male sales trainees, he had them take off their sweatshirts and show off their six packs to a room full of men. It’s revolting, on so many levels. But one thing I’ve been thinking about as I had to look at the Andy Elliot crap and then looking at this other crap, these extreme examples of toxic diet culture in some ways, I think, are unhelpful. Because they make us more dismissive of stuff that’s not that. It’s like, well, it’s not that bad. Do you know what I mean?LaurenIt’s moving the the spectrum of what’s normal and what’s not normal.VirginiaSo it’s like, “Well, I didn’t say 200 pound people can’t come to Pilates, so I’m not being fatphobic.” Or “I’m not showing you a nine year old with a six pack, so I’m not being fatphobic.” But it shouldn’t have to be that bad!LaurenIt also somewhat negates the fact that most of us are not exposed to the extreme. We’re exposed to the more insidious anyway.VirginiaRight? Because the insidious is what your coworker is saying in the break room at lunch about how she’s only eating a salad.LaurenIt’s the stuff that we get daily exposure to, as opposed to these extremes where most people can point out, like, oh that’s wild.VirginiaMaybe don’t force your children to get six packs? It’s pretty clear cut. On the other hand, I kind of feel like the needle is moving on what is extreme because of the rise of MAGA and MAHA wellness culture. We’re unfortunately normalizing a lot of this really intense and harmful rhetoric.LaurenI’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think number one, yes. Also the anti-intellectualism. That also helps push these things, because if someone’s shouting confidently enough, they could sell anything. You said that person is in a sales job. Like, that’s part of that thing. It’s psychological. It’s not even based in facts. But I think that it’s on the rise, for sure, because it’s not being checked. And I also think that in that more insidious way, it’s on the rise because people are seeking to fly under the radar, and they’re seeking safety in their bodies being read as safe.In this super conservative and rise of fascism, falling in line is a way that some people will seek safety, right? But it obviously, when we get into ranking bodies as good and bad and purity testing bodies. Like, if that even exists, that means someone has to be at the bottom. It’s very clear that when we’re saying take control. Hyper individual. Yeah, I did it, and you could do it, too, applying your situation to other people’s. Like, that’s not how science works. Number one, that’s not how genetics work. And I think that people of all like races, ages, and abilities, you know, will seek safety in flying under the radar in a regime that’s getting scarier and more intense. So I think that bodies and fitness is definitely a way that people will get there.VirginiaYeah, it’s a logical survival strategy in a really dark time, for sure.LaurenSo I think that that’s part of the reason why even people who wouldn’t identify as like MAHA are on their health and wellness, and they don’t realize how quickly it gets there, but it does pretty instantly. But as someone who is has multiple marginalized identities myself, I often see people who are in similar situations, and I look at them with a lot of compassion because, yeah. Like, if you’re disabled, if you’re Black, if you’re poor, being fat on top of that, you just checked another box for people. And I feel like that is where this intensity comes from all sides. And that’s why we’re seeing even more diverse voices echoing this type of message, because people are seeking safety, and they might not even know that that’s what they’re seeking. But I can see it because I get it.VirginiaYes. That breaks my heart, but it is logical when you have those multiple marginalizations. Fatness is the one that you’ve been conditioned to think you can and should change.LaurenIt’s supposed to be fully within your control. And then that’s when we dip into disability being within your control. And the idea that you could just take vitamins or do red light or coffee enemas or something, and you’re going to cure your your chronic conditions. Like if you haven’t tried it, then you know you’re not trying hard enough. So I think it’s a really slippery slope, and it gets there very quickly.VirginiaYou’ve mentioned ableism a few times, obviously, because it’s really core to this conversation. I’d love to hear a little more about how you think about ability in your classes. Anyone who’s taken your class knows how completely different they feel from the Melania version. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into how to be inclusive of ability.LaurenI appreciate that. I work really hard, and I try to advertise myself as someone whose classes are many levels or most levels, because I think even saying that something is all levels is not being fully like aware of the scope of people’s ability. So I try to be very clear in my communication. I don’t know how I got here, personally. Again, the pendulum definitely swung with me. I was someone who I would consider was Orthorexic and all on my organic everything, blah, blah, blah. Particularly when it like was coming down to my PCOS and how much of that was in my control.VirginiaPCOS triggers a lot of rabbit holes.LaurenRight? And, like the fatphobia in my own family mixed with that. But I think at some point it just clicked, like we all have the ability to become disabled if we’re not already, you know? We could. And disability is a spectrum. We usually like start checking off more and more boxes towards that. But because ableism is so rampant, most people would never identify something going on as a disability. Wearing glasses, wearing hearing aids, needing captions, needing accommodations. They wouldn’t identify those as a disability because it’s horrible to be disabled in this world, so we try to avoid saying that.I think realizing I had so many folks coming to me who were burnt out by all the stuff we just spent all this time talking about—and I was burnt out in that world. And that’s how I got spit out the other side. I was like, I’m going to do things differently. And more and more and more people started really identifying with that. And I got to know people individually within my memberships, and they shared about what they had going on, and oh my gosh, your classes have been so great because I have POTS, or I have EDS, or I have chronic pain, or I also have PCOS, I have PMDD—all these things.And because I am who I am, and I’m someone who is neurodivergent and I’m a nerd and I want to know what’s good for people who have POTS? What’s good for people who have blood pressure issues? What would be like a good modification or variation to throw out there to people who might not even know that that’s going on with them, because again, our medical system. Like, oh yeah, I get dizzy sometimes. Like, okay, girl, can we elaborate? But I think that just realizing, no matter who it was, every single person in my membership can contribute to my ability to teach better, because if one person says it, 10 people are probably experiencing it. That’s why I love the feedback. I love that! That hurt? I have no idea. I have one body. I literally have only this body, right? You have to tell me if something hurts, right? I don’t know, that doesn’t hurt me. Or that does hurt me, and I don’t do it, but that works for you. So you have to tell me. So I think that that’s really where it resulted from people being comfortable feeling honest and sharing, and my desire to continue making things feel good and challenging. Because I think that people think you have to sacrifice movement being challenging. Like it can’t it can still be challenging and not horrendous and punishing.VirginiaYes, this is what’s hard to articulate when I tell people how much I love your classes. This is the needle you’re threading. We think of it as so black and white. Either you’re someone who wants to go so hard, like the Melania video, or you’re someone who’s like, exercise needs to feel like a warm bath, or I’m not going to do it. And there is a middle space. There’s a huge middle space.LaurenYes. And that’s the neutrality of it all, which is yeah, I’m allowed to do this hard thing and and really invest when we’re talking about the consistency and no excuses. But if we’re talking about a 45 minute workout that you’re doing maybe two times a week, and investing in 30 seconds of challenge or discomfort, and investigating how that feels in your body and doing it. And then after six weeks, suddenly, wow, that thing that was uncomfortable six weeks ago is no longer uncomfortable. This new thing was uncomfortable. And that’s why I love movement so much. Because I feel like you can not solve, but get to the bottom of, investigate, interrogate and get to know parts of your body. And and I really do feel like the work that we do in 45 minute classes empowers people enough to go out and tell people at their jobs to eff off, you know? Like, it gives people the ability to get to know themselves well enough to know what they’re willing to tolerate.VirginiaI feel like when I do your videos, there’s always a point where honestly, I might be watering my plants or just lying on the floor, and then there’s always a point where I’m actually so in it and pushing really hard. Do you know what I mean? And it’s like, it can be both things. I get to choose which is the part that I’m going to be like, yeah, I’m holding this 20 second plank the whole time. I’m going to go for my heavier weights. We’re going to do that.LaurenBecause it doesn’t need to add up or count for anything, but it always does, even if you’re like, I’m just doing this to do something. That just just doing something will still add up and it’ll still come up later. And I think it doesn’t need to be that serious. It’s never that serious.VirginiaAny other fitness trends that are making you especially grumpy right now, or anything good you want to highlight?LaurenI mean, honestly, the backlash to that rant was good, right? There were so many good responses, I actually followed a couple people. I do think people being able to recognize that as blatant anti-fatness was good. It was a good gut check for a lot of people. And I think that that, yeah, it was good for me. That that made me feel, oh, there are seeds of hope.VirginiaNo, we haven’t fallen as low as I fear sometimes.LaurenNo, and it’s really hard. I’ve heard Jessamyn Stanley say, like, “Sometimes I don’t remember that people act this way.”VirginiaOh God, yeah. You’re really still out there being like this?LaurenYes, yes, yes, yes. So I think there was a lot of silly, goofy and and very good responses to that. I love that push and pull that we can hopefully sometimes see and still have this dialog about. I feel like it’s really important. And with so many people intentionally losing weight right now, I think it’s really important to see people who are not necessarily in traditional fit bodies doing fitness.VirginiaGod, it’s so important. ButterLaurenI was going to be funny and say that my Butter is actually butter, now that I’m living in France.VirginiaYou’re living in butter country.LaurenI have been trying different butters all the time. Hopefully people who are listening, maybe their weather is getting better. So this is a, this is like a freebie recommendation, but just a little photosynthesis. Now is a really good time to give yourself space, to open up your body again after a winter. Just a little bit of fresh air and a little bit of sunshine and a little bit of phone getting thrown across the room. Which is what I have been trying to do every single day. It really makes a huge difference. So, phone down, photosynthesis up. That is what’s getting me through right now. And I hope that other people can enjoy that. Doesn’t mean you even have to go outside! Crack a window, allow yourself to be a human being. And it’s free. You don’t need a discount code for it. You don’t need someone to sell it to you on Tiktok shop. You were allowed to be a person existing for completely free.VirginiaYes, so true. That’s really good. My Butter, in honor of you, my favorite Internet cat lady is going to be my cats. I’m going to give them a shout out. Licorice and Cheese. We adopted these kittens last year after my kids begged and begged. I mean, I’ve always been a cat person, but our old man cats had passed away. We had no cats for a while. And they make me so happy. They just are such love bugs. Because the weather is better, I think Cheese has taken your notes about photosynthesis, and so he’s regularly trying to jailbreak, to get outside. He’s trying to get outside all the time. So we are having a little cat drama in my house where the kids go outside, forget to close the door. Cheese is on it. He’s trying to get out there, and we get him back inside. But we have a screen porch, so they do get to go out and live their best life on the screen porch, which makes them really happy.LaurenOh my gosh, I love when they photosynthesize. My new place has lots of big windows and lots and lots of sunshine, and my girls have just been absorbing the sun. And they’re both trying to go out on balconies, which we’re doing the same thing you’re doing, because one pigeon goes by, and my cat’s diving.VirginiaAnd I live in the woods where there are a lot of predators. We did have an old man cat who in the final years of his life, we did let outside, because we were like, you’ve had a good run. And we’re thinking quality of life at that point. But these two babies, I want them for many, many years. We can’t risk the coyotes. And I think one of them really gets that. Licorice is like the boss of the house, but he’s terrified of the outside. I think he recognizes he’s a big fish in a little pond, and he needs to stay that way. But Cheese is like, oh, that’s my world. I want to get back there?LaurenYes, maybe a harness? Maybe that can be what the kids do this this summer is harness train Cheese.VirginiaWe’ve never tried the harness with them.LaurenHe’s still young. My girls are full grown, and when I put a harness on them, they fall over. They’re like, it’s the last day they’re ever going to live. They’re like my bones don’t work anymore. What did you do to me? We’ve been trying to harness train them so that they can go back outside, because we did have a yard before, but I think if he’s young and eager to go outside, he might put that harness on. And that’s also a good summer project.VirginiaOh, I feel like my 11 year old’s going to get really into this. Okay, I’m going to give it a go. I’m going to report back. Well, Lauren, thank you so much. Tell folks where they can find you. How can we support your work?LaurenYou can find me at Lauren Leavell Fitness and I have a membership—the level up fitness membership, where you can join live classes. You can take on demand classes. Again, it’s a silly, goofy mood over here. There are classes of different lengths. You don’t need a ton of space or equipment. I currently don’t have, really any equipment. I have. I have two pound weights.VirginiaI’ve been enjoying the recent videos where you’re like, well, I’m doing this move that I’d normally have a 20 pound weight with a 2 pound weight.LaurenPretend these are 20 pounds! So we really are accepting of all scenarios that you have going on fitness-wise here. And like I said, the replays are there if you’re not someone who gets catches live classes, totally get it. Or you just don’t want to come to a live class. And then, if you are looking for more, I do have some workout videos on YouTube, which are kind of a sample of my teaching. They’re a little less weird than I normally teach. I’m a little bit more polished on YouTube. And then, of course, Lauren Leavell Fitness on Instagram, and Lauren Leavell Fit on TiktokFay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Thank you so much to everyone who donated to the Me Little Me Virtual Food Pantry! We raised $13,991 with your help — more than double our original goal of $6,000!! These funds, plus the Burnt Toast match, will cover over 3,600 home-cooked meals for multiply marginalized folks in need.Learn more about this project here. You can continue to support Me Little Me by becoming a recurring donor and following their work on Instagram. Thanks so much! So proud of how this community shows up and does the work! xxWelcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark. This month we asked our favorite question—IS IT A DIET?— about…⭐️ Electrolytes! (Corinne is mad)⭐️ Journaling!⭐️ That viral sweet potato/ground beef/cottage cheese bowl!⭐️ Living without furniture (yes really)!⭐️ And so much more…To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.Extra Butter costs just $99 per year. (Regular paid subscribers, the remaining value of your subscription will be deducted from that total!)Extra Butter subscribers also get access to posts like:Dating While FatWhat to do when you miss your smaller bodyAnd did Virginia really get divorced over butter?And Extra Butters also get DM access and other perks. Plus Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism.Episode 196 TranscriptCorinneToday we’re doing a mailbag episode, and today’s episode has a theme: “Is this a diet?” That is a framing that we use a lot on Burnt Toast. So we asked listeners to tell us which food, fitness, and lifestyle trends you wanted us to analyze and decide “diet or not a diet?”VirginiaWe should disclaim before we get started: This is a hot takes episode. We have not done extensive reporting. We haven’t done serious research on any of these. We’re going to look at them, and we’re going to give you our immediate assessments, and you might agree or totally disagree, and that is great. We are here for that.CorinneBefore we dive into the individual topics, should we talk a little bit more about the whole “Is it a diet” thing?Is Everything a Diet? What walking pads, breast reductions, and native plants have in common — and why it makes people mad. Read full storyVirginiaYes, because this is one of the most common “annoyed reader” comments we get: Virginia, you think everything is a diet. So I wrote an essay about this, where I sketched out why I use this framing so often. Because I think a lot of us have this sense that we are the problem. Like, “I just get really obsessive if I do step counting.” Or “I am such an overachiever," and it was so hard for me to not get straight As in school.” Or “I have to compulsively people please,” like all these ways that we like, try to be perfect.We think it’s us, that somehow we are wired to want to be that way. And, I mean, you might come from a family of people who’ve done this. There is all of that backstory. But we also live in a culture that is telling us, especially women, that we have to live that way in order to be valuable.So that is what I am always trying to push back against, both for myself and as a culture critic.CorinneI think that makes sense. And we have discussed in the past how some people have the ability to do diet-y things without it feeling like a diet for them.VirginiaAbsolutely. If we say something is a diet, we’re not saying you were on a diet for doing it. We’re saying this is a concept that has the potential to be executed in a diet-y manner.CorinneAnd we’re not saying if you like any of these things that you’re bad or wrong. There are some things we’re going to discuss which, personally, I like.VirginiaCorinne is on all the diets.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Celebrating a decade of DIETLAND with author Sarai WalkerBefore we start the show today…Have you donated to the Me Little Me Virtual Food Pantry? This amazing organization works to get low-income folks (many of whom are in eating disorder recovery) fed — and with the food of their choosing. Meaning yes, ultra processed foods that bring comfort and convenience, and yes to beloved cultural foods…and yes to trusting folks in need to know what they need.We’re trying to raise $12,000 and add 50 recurring donors to their rosters by June 1 AND WE ARE SO CLOSE TO OUR GOAL. But we need your help to crush it! Thank you!--You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my conversation is with the iconic Sarai Walker. Sarai is the author of The Cherry Robbers and Dietland, which came out in May 2015—and is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.Dietland is one of those books that means so much to me, it’s hard to put into words. I consider it a foundational text of the body liberation movement of the past decade. It was adapted as a television series starring Joy Nash for AMC in 2018. It’s just one of those books—that inducted so many of us into conversations about fatness, feminism, radical social action. Sarai has also lectured on feminism and body image internationally. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and elsewhere, and she worked as a writer and editor on an updated version of Our Bodies, Ourselves.I asked Sarai to join me today to reflect on what 10 years of Dietland has meant to her. We also talk a lot about the very mixed experience of being a public fat person, as well as being a woman, and a writer, in midlife. You will love this conversation.And! If you order Dietland and Fat Talk together from Split Rock Books, you can take 20% off the combo with the code FATLAND. If you’ve already bought fat talk from Split Rock, you can still take 10% off Dietland or any book we talk about on the podcast, using the code FATTALK. Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.Episode 195 TranscriptVirginiaThis is really a big thrill for me. Dietland came out in 2015, we’re here to celebrate its 10th anniversary. I read it pretty soon after it came out, and I remember reading about Plum and Calliope House and the Jennifer vigilantes who were killing all the evil men, and just thinking, how is she in my brain? How is she writing my whole heart in this story? So to start us off with what is probably an impossible question: How does that feel, to have contributed something that is so important to the canon? And by canon, I mean the fat feminist literary canon.SaraiIt’s funny, as an author, I don’t know if I feel it the way you’re describing it. Man, I hope that that’s the case! I guess it’s for other people to decide what a book’s legacy is, whether it’s important or not. What I can say—you know, the book turns 10 this month, and it has really meant a lot to me over the years that people have just connected with it in such a positive way.People related to Plum’s story, they really felt that I put into words something that only they had felt, which was one of the things that I really had to work hard on in the book, because I had all these feelings about my own experience with my own body. And I was like, how do I put that into words? So that was the struggle of writing the book and being able to do that. I was so happy when people really felt that the book could speak for them in certain ways, that it gave them a voice.I still hear from people! I heard from somebody just yesterday who said the book changed their life. We live in an age where so many things just seem disposable, and people forget about things and move on really quickly. Dietland, whatever its legacy may be, it has had a long life.VirginiaWe should say, for folks who don’t know publishing: For a book to still be in print 10 years later is incredible. The vast majority of books have a year, two years, and then they’re done. It is a huge accomplishment, and a huge contribution.SaraiIt means a lot to me. It’s getting a new French publication and a new translation over there. So, you know, my girl keeps on going. And it’s funny, because I think one of the things that people enjoyed about the book was the anger and the rage in it, and the revenge fantasy narrative about Jennifer.At the same time, some people were like, oh, well, things aren’t that bad. You’re exaggerating. Fast forward from 2015 to 2025, and things are worse than I could have ever imagined back then.VirginiaYou downplayed it a little bit.SaraiExactly. So I feel in this weird way, kind of vindicated? That’s not a great feeling. But it’s just so weird that the 10th anniversary is coming at a time when there’s this huge backlash against feminism, against fat. Even something as watered down as body positivity is under attack, you know? It just tells you how bad things are. So in that sense, it’s sort of bittersweet to have the anniversary at this time, because things are really just heartbreaking and scary right now.VirginiaBut also: We need the book more than ever. We need the Dietland story more than ever, because things are so scary right now. It gives us a way of articulating that. It gives us a place to put those feelings.SaraiI hope that new readers find the book now in this new climate that we’re in and people who read it before might revisit it. I’ve actually thought of writing some new Jennifer stories. I feel like they would have to be so, so violent and so filled with rage, I don’t know if they would be healthy for me, but I’ve thought about unleashing Jennifer on MAGA.VirginiaI personally am very here for this and yery, very supportive of this idea. I think there would be an audience. I would really love to see Jennifer take on MAGA and MAHA and RFK Jr. in particular.SaraiIf I end up in prison, though, I don’t know.VirginiaI’m hearing that concern, as we’re saying it out loud. Fictionalized versions of these things, perhaps.SaraiNames changed.VirginiaI mean, you’re busy, you’re doing lots of things, but it would be a public service.Many more folks discovered Dietland after it became a TV show, which aired in 2018. It was created by Marti Noxon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. And it starred the incredible Joy Nash. And we only got 10 magic episodes. It’s a really great season, but we only got the one season. I would love to hear how you felt about the show? I’ve always wondered what that feels like, to have a novel go into on the screen. It’s got to be such a strange experience.SaraiIt is strange and surreal. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that it happened. I think so many writers do get their book optioned, but to actually have it not just optioned, but then go into production and become a television series is pretty rare. So I feel lucky that I had that.The show premiered three years after the book was published, which is so fast, but that was kind of the golden age of TV, I think.It was a great experience. Marti really welcomed me in. I went out to the writer’s room, and I worked as a consultant. I got to visit the set in New York. And basically the the 10 episodes that we got were the whole book. So, I’m really sad that it didn’t go on, that we didn’t get at least a season two, preferably five seasons would have been great. But AMC just kind of bailed out on it. There was a lot of drama there going on behind the scenes that had nothing to do with the show that contributed to that.When the show was canceled, one of the cast members posted something on social media saying, “I’m so tired of shows about women that try and do interesting and groundbreaking things just being canceled and not given a chance to grow.” It’s very hard to build an audience in one ten episode season. So I just felt like the show wasn’t given that chance. And so that makes it a little bit bittersweet. But I treasure the ten episodes that we did get. It’s an incredible privilege that we got that.Amd the show was pretty faithful to the book, actually, I thought. When I got there to the writer’s room, they were already at work and they were using it as their Bible and I was this kind of like goddess of this world. It was really weird.VirginiaThat’s amazing.SaraiAll these people working on something that came from my head. It was surreal.VirginiaAnd Joy as Plum—she’s amazing and really embodies the character.SaraiShe is so great. I just love Joy. When I was living out in LA we used to go out to lunch, and she’s so fun and just so sweet. And, yeah, I really loved working with her, and having her play Plum.VirginiaSo you mentioned feeling like a goddess in the writers room. But putting this out there did launch you as a Public Facing Fat Person, which I put in capital letters. It’s an experience that that I’ve had, a little bit as well. And it is a real mixed bag. It’s just really a weird experience to be professionally fat, especially because, in your case, your subsequent work has had nothing to do with fatness. And yet, I’m sure this is still something that comes up.SaraiYeah, I mean, you know what it’s like to be publicly fat. Everyone reacts to it differently. I’m a novelist, so I’m very introverted. The book was published in 2015 and then the paperback in 2016 and the British edition, which was a whole wild ride with the media over there.VirginiaOh god, I am sorry. I know and I’m sorry.SaraiYeah. It made our media look okay!VirginiaNo, it’s terrible. The British media is so awful in general, and it’s so specifically fatphobic. Anytime I’ve done anything with the British media, it’s been a deeply scarring experience.SaraiIt was awful. I had a big newspaper over there wanted me to write this big article for them, and they’re like, “You have to put your weight in the article.”VirginiaI mean, what?SaraiAnd then another website, this feminist website, was like “We want pictures of you to use as stock photos for other articles on body positivity.”VirginiaI’m sorry, can you not find other fat people??SaraiI’m the only one that exists. I don’t know if you know that, but I’m the only one.And so, I had years of this. I was on NPR, talking about being fat. I was on MSNBC. I was on other radio shows. I mean, that’s the game, right? And at that time, “obesity epidemic” rhetoric was a really big thing. So my book had this hook, which isn’t common for novels, but I got all these interviews and so I had to go along with it, and go out there.On the one hand, it’s really radical to be like, “Yeah, I’m fat,” and to speak about it in a neutral or positive way. It’s radical. It’s a taboo. And there aren’t a lot of taboos left. But it also just was hard to constantly have my body mentioned all the time. I remember Julianna Margulies, who was on the TV show, did an interview on a podcast talking about me and said something like, “Oh, Sarai’s a big girl.” Which is fine. I mean, that’s the thing, that’s what I wrote about. And that’s what it was like, actors, radio hosts, journalists, all referring to me as big or fat. And I’m not blaming them at all, but it was just the effect it had on me over time, was like, I started to kind of feel like a fat lady in like a circus or something. But I was reduced to the it was always about my bodyVirginiaAnd you’re like, “I’m actually a writer. I have this whole incredible ability to invent a world. Not many people can do that. Could we maybe talk about that?” Just a thought.SaraiIt was really hard for me. I thought I would love being in the spotlight, and it was harder than I thought it would be.VirginiaI appreciate you saying that. I think it is really hard. I’ve had a smaller experience with it, and that was enough. I don’t want more than I’ve had. I have a friend who says, “You don’t really know how you feel about a book until three years after the book came out. You need that time to survive.” The whole experience of launching a book—especially if a book does well—is like you’re basically disassociating a lot of the time to get through all the interviews and the press and the backlash and the trolls and whatever it creates. And then your nervous system needs time to slowly absorb what you just experienced. For me, one piece of it is like, okay, that was enough. I don’t need more scrutiny on my body or my life. We don’t owe the world that. And there’s a weird expectation that because you made a thing or wrote a thing that people are connecting with, you somehow owe them more of yourself.SaraiAnd it’s like you’re saying, if you kind of step back, it’s like, am I disappointing people? And I don’t want to do that.VirginiaBut I’m still a person with a life and my own needs.SaraiI’ve always been fat. When I was a kid and growing up as a young adult, I was deeply ashamed of being fat. And I had the kind of the experience of Plum in Dietland, where I eventually experienced liberation about my body. But that trauma doesn’t go away. So having everybody talk about me being fat all the time, it kind of triggers off things that you thought you had dealt with, or were at peace with. Then all of a sudden, it’s like picking in a scab all the time.Even in the writers room for Dietland, I was the only fat woman in there. So that was my role. I’m the fat person. I have to tell you what it’s like to be fat. And it was just always focusing on that. And that’s what happens when you put out a book about that subject. I’m not really complaining about it. It was just harder than I thought it would be and it took a toll on me.VirginiaIt’s a weird experience, and it’s weird that it’s a necessary part of getting this conversation into the mainstream.When Fat Talk came out, Aubrey Gordon texted me and was like, “I’m checking in to see how you’re doing, because the book’s doing well” Because, obviously, she’s had lots of experience as a public fat person. And she was like, “Thanks for taking your turn in the trenches.” And that is kind of how it feels. In order to keep this conversation going around fat liberation and body liberation, we do need to keep putting this work out there. Somebody has to go to the front of the line and take all the hits for a while. And you did it at a time when not many people were getting a big stage to do that. And without a network of other people who had done it, maybe. So thank you.SaraiOh, well, you’re welcome. And thank you for everything you do. Because I remember after your New York Times interview, I DMed you. I was like, “Are you okay?” Because I know what it’s like to write something and the New York Times people go nuts when it’s about fat. I’m like, are you all right? Because we have to look out for each other, you know?VirginiaI really appreciated it when you did that. It wasn’t the most fun experience in my life. When we were talking about doing this episode, you were also saying how, as a writer you have gone on to write things that don’t have anything to do with fatness. It’s not like being a journalist on a beat. So I’m sure that’s also challenging, that you’re like, this can’t always be the most interesting thing about me. That’s not fair.SaraiYeah. I mean, my second novel, The Cherry Robbers—VirginiaWhich I loved!SaraiOh, thank you. That was historical. The novel took place mostly in the 1950s. I wanted something totally different. I didn’t want to be in the contemporary culture. When the book came out, it got a glowing review in The New York Times, and great reviews, but people just weren’t interested in talking to me anymore.I mean, part of that’s is the publishing world thing, where your debut is like a debutante ball, and everybody wants to talk to you. And then once it’s your second or third book, it’s like, oh, yeah, we moved on from you. Sorry, I sound really jaded right now! But without that kind of a newsy hook, people just weren’t interested really in talking to me anymore about the book. I think you could be tempted to say, “Okay, well, I’m going to write another book about fatness so I can get back in the media attention.” But no. As you say, other people have stepped up in their writing about it, and they’re doing the work on it now. I had my time, I had my voice. I’m not saying I’ll never write about being fat again. I’m sure I’ll write an essay or who knows what, but I am just doing other things now. I’ve tried to carve out my space as a writer who is fat and who writes about all different kinds of things.VirginiaNo one needs a thin writer to keep writing about thinness. No one needs a male writer to keep writing about the experience of being a man. It’s only when you have some kind of marginalization that people then expect that to be everything you write and think about. As opposed to saying, this is a person who writes and thinks about lots of different things. And happens to be this identity, and cares a lot about that identity and has thoughts about it. But every piece of work doesn’t need to be defined by that.SaraiYeah. I mean, I live as a fat person. That’s my reality. I’m not running away from it. It is who I am. It’s inextricably linked to who I am. But I as a as a writer, as a person, I get bored easily. I want new challenges. I want to write new types of stories.In my next novel, the narrator is fat. But I only mention it once in the novel, so it’s sort of like playing around with, yeah, this character is fat, but that’s not really that relevant to the story that I’m telling. It’s there, and it kind of comes up in other ways, but it’s not the whole story. So kind of an evolution, I guess, too, of how I’m writing about fat, at least in fiction.VirginiaThat’s where we need to get with representation—where every story about a fat character should not be just about their experience of fatness. That’s so reductive. We need more characters that happen to be fat, that are doing other things. SaraiYeah, I think that that’s the ultimate goal. I don’t think we’re there yet in any kind of medium. But, yeah, that would be the dream.VirginiaWe’re working towards it.You were also saying that you feel like just a very different kind of writer now than when you wrote Dietland, which is a book with so much anger and fire in it. It’s a gauntlet thrown. You described yourself as feeling “less fiery and more muted now,” but I also wonder if this is just being older and wiser and maybe a little more jaded— but also clearer about which mountains you’re willing to die on now.SaraiI wrote Dietland in my 30s. But it was published when I was 42 because it took forever to find an agent. Then when we sold it, it took forever to come out. Publishing is quite slow. But that was the novel of my 30s. And I look back now at this anniversary, and I was so fired up. I was so passionate. I was bold and fierce and brave.Some of the things I wrote, I don’t know if I would write now, if I’d be brave enough. So I look at that person who wrote Dietland, and I’m not exactly that person anymore. And it’s something that’s been bothering me for a while.And recently, I listened to an interview with Zadie Smith on the NPR Wildcard podcast. She and I are about the same age, 50-ish, going through all the hormonal changes of this time of life. And she was talking about her earlier books and how she thinks about herself when she was younger versus how she is now. She was talking about how now, at midlife, she feels kind of quieter inside. Her big personality has sort of retracted a little bit. And when I heard her say that, I just was blown away, because that’s what I’ve been experiencing too. And I haven’t really heard a lot of other people talking about it, and I hadn’t really put it into words or myself. I think because it was upsetting to feel a bit more low key, a bit more apathetic.I’m not really an apathetic person. I’ve never thought of myself that way. But I kind of feel that way now, so it’s a weird time in my life. And I’ve had women who are older say it gets better. Like, just wait, ride this out, and you’re going to come out on the other side of this older and wiser and happier. But right now, I’m just kind of in this weird space where I just feel different. I’m a different person in some ways. I have the same values, but I’m a different kind of a writer, different kind of a person. I’m settling. That’s where I am right now. I’m kind of in the thick of it. VirginiaI think we don’t often hear this nuance from people after they do something that has the kind of impact and success that Dietland has. We often think, well that person just continues to soar and it’s all the next peak and the next peak. And that’s not every experience. Probably that’s not most people’s experiences after having a big success. It’s okay that there are valleys and different paths and different twists and turns to it.My other thought is: How could you not be feeling that way right now, given what the world is? Given what it means to be a woman right now? And everything that we’re up against. I think there’s a some universal—maybe it’s apathy, maybe it’s… I don’t know what it is, exactly. But this feels deeply relatable to me on a lot of levels.SaraiI think going through midlife and perimenopause, at a time when the whole world seems to be a disaster makes it a lot worse. Everybody is coming off the pandemic and Roe v Wade being overturned, and now Trump in office again. Our baseline is just really bad, you know? It’s just kind of everything piled on at once.But it is true, I talked to some other women I know my age, who who’ve written novels in the past and have success and then can’t get published anymore once they get into their 50s. You expect you’re going to go on forever like you do at the beginning. And you have to deal with the publishing industry. It’s a corporate industry. And there are lots of things at play that have nothing to do with whether books are good or not, or whether readers want certain books, or whatever.You start out having these expectations about how your career will go, and then you don’t realize that it’s, it’s always a struggle. Unless you’re some massive superstar writer who could have their grocery list published. But for the rest of us, it’s a struggle that just kind of peaks and valleys, and that has been a kind of wake up call ten years into being a novelist, for sure.VirginiaThe industry is so complicated. I think the ageism is very real in our industry. I mean, and everywhere. I just turned 44 so I’m kind of getting into this zone that you’re talking about. Perimenopause is definitely with me. It has begun. And I think a lot there is an invisibility that’s starting to kick in, compared to what I experienced as a woman in my 20s or 30s being out in the world. I can, sort of slip by unnoticed a little more sometimes. And sometimes I really like that, and sometimes it makes me angry. Kind of depends on the day. And I don’t even just mean male attention. I just mean the way people interact with you. I’m starting to notice some of those shifts.SaraiI think that’s one of the things that’s so strange about this time of life. There are a lot more adults who are younger than you all of a sudden. So all of a sudden, you’ve got 20 or 30 years worth of adults that are younger than you that start to see you as not important anymore.VirginiaMy kids like to remind me that Taylor Swift is 35. as if that’s an entire different generation from me. That’s not that much younger, guys! Okay, anyway.SaraiI mean, yeah, 35, she’s getting up there. But it’s kind of like you don’t matter as much anymore, in a way. Like that’s what society wants you to believe. That you’re kind of fading. I think that’s one of the things that you kind of have to push back against.And, you know, I’m Gen X. VirginiaI’m elder millennial, but I’m one year off of Gen X or something.SaraiI do think Gen X, despite all of our problems and flaws, are writing more about menopause and perimenopause and aging. And your generation will pick up that mantle and do even more with it. So I feel like, we’re trying to change things at least and make it so that we’re not fading away. I’m in my 50s now. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m still going to write. You’re not going to silence me. It’s kind of like just insisting that we’re still here, we still have a voice. But, yeah, it’s hard.VirginiaIt’s hard, and when you’re feeling that kind of personal, muted thing you were talking about and then it’s getting reinforced by the cultural perceptions of being a midlife woman. Then it’s like, am I going to summon up all the energy I need to push back against that? Or am I going to take some of that as, like, it’s a little bit liberating. I don’t have to be the young, shiny superstar reaching for the brass ring right now. It’s kind of a mixed thing, I think.SaraiWith Dietland, I was idealistic and passionate and fiery. And I’m different now, but I’m not putting as much pressure on myself either. I’m not saying everything I write, I have to change the world. That’s what I wanted before. And now I’m older, and I realize you’re not really going to change the world. You might change a few people, and that’s great. But one novel is not going to change the world. And I don’t need to aim for that anymore. I want to write different things. I want to not put that kind of pressure on myself. So yeah, there’s a kind of liberating part to it as well. I think when I’m not so taking myself as seriously and putting so much pressure on myself, I kind of loosened up a little bit. So that’s kind of the flip side of the more negative stuff I was talking about a minute ago.VirginiaI appreciate how honest you’re being about the struggle, because I just think it is deeply relatable. And then to this end of what you’re working on now, we want to hear all about the next book. You have an announcement for us?SaraiYes, so last year, I sold my third novel. But we didn’t want to announce it till I had all the edits done and we had the manuscript ready to go. So summer 2026, my third novel is going to be published. It’s called Furious Violet, and it’s a suspense novel, which is something I always wanted to do. Like a detective story.It’s different from what I’ve written, but I do think there’s a little bit of the spirit of Dietland in it, just in the voice, maybe. I guess, because The Cherry Robbers was in the 50s mostly, whereas I’m back and writing about contemporary culture.So I’m really excited about it. I’ve always wanted to write a book like this, and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had writing a novel.VirginiaI love that.SaraiMy main character, is 49 almost 50, going through perimenopause. I got to write about that experience in a sort of darkly comedic way, which is a medium that I really like, like that dark comedy that Dietland had. She’s a true crime writer. She’s writing a book about a serial killer, but she’s also the daughter of this very famous poet who is deceased, but like a giant of American poetry. This woman who has this cult following, and sort of is always a shadow over my my character’s life.So she has that, but she’s a true crime writer, and she kind of embraces her mediocrity. She’s not a genius like her mom. She’s just a true crime writer. And when the book begins, somebody starts stalking her and telling her, “You’re my mother.” And she doesn’t understand what’s going on, because she doesn’t have kids. And so it’s this mystery about what does this mean, who is this person, and what do they mean? And it’s all entangling all of that and all of the other aspects of her life, and how they all intersect. VirginiaI can’t wait to read it. I’m riveted just hearing you talk about it.SaraiI had so much fun working on it. It was a wild ride. So thank you. I’m excited.VirginiaI hope you’ll come back next summer when it comes out and talk to us about it some more. And I just have to say, I am filled with so much admiration for how you’ve evolved as a writer and how you like are going in. This book feels so different from Cherry Robbers feels so different from Dietland.SaraiThank you. I don’t like to get bored. I want to do new things.SaraiI think publishing kind of wants to put you in a box, and I don’t want to be in that box. I wanted to do something different.VirginiaIt’s awesome. I can’t wait to read it. I’m so excited.SaraiOh, thanks, thank you.ButterVirginiaSarai, do you have any Butter for us right now?SaraiI just came off months and months of edits, and when I’m doing that, I can’t read. I can’t read other people’s stuff. So I don’t have any book recommendations. But I’m really excited to start reading again. But I was listening to a lot of music. I often listen to music while I’m writing, but it can’t have lyrics, has to be instrumental.I discovered this Canadian classical violinist named Angèle Dubeau. She plays the work of a lot of contemporary composers. And I don’t know a lot about classical music. I’m not plugged into the contemporary classical music scene. But through her, I’ve discovered all these different composers. And she has one piece in particular called Experience. So if you’re on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever, I would recommend looking this up. This piece I just absolutely love it. It’s so beautiful, and I listen to it so many times. As I was editing, and then I keep listening to her work, and I don’t know it just meant a lot to me during this time. So yeah, it was really exciting to discover that.VirginiaThat’s incredible. It’s so fun to discover an artist and realize there’s more and more of their work, and you can go down the rabbit hole of everything they’ve done. I find that so satisfying.SaraiShe’s introduced me to so many different composers, and I really love it.VirginiaThat’s so cool. I’ll do a music rec as well, although it’s not nearly as sophisticated as that. But my seven year old and I are currently on a big kick with the Hamilton soundtrack. Obviously Hamilton, the musical, had its moment a minute ago. Like, it’s been around for a while. But it stands the test of time, and it’s very fun to listen to with kids. I end up having to answer a lot of strange questions, because for a seven year old, it’s just a lot of things that she doesn’t know, that she needs translated. So we have some very funny conversations. It’s still a banger of a show and really great and fun to listen to a kid. It’s our little bedtime ritual. Before we read, she’s a kid who needs to really get her energy out. And we have a swing that she likes to swing on, and we play the Hamilton soundtrack and do three or four songs, and it’s just like a fun end of day ritual that I’m really enjoying right now.SaraiI love that. I’m still listening to the Xanadu soundtrack or something for my childhood.VirginiaThese things, they’re classics for a reason.Obviously, we want everyone to go pick up a 10th anniversary copy of Dietland!Get it if you haven’t read it, or if you read it and loved it, but you’ve lost your original copy, you probably need another one. It’s a great gift for someone else, some friend, mom, sister, whoever. Tell folks anything else about where we can find you, how we can support your work.SaraiSo I have a website, and, you know, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Blue Sky, and I do have a Facebook page I don’t update very much. I do have a TikTok account that I don’t really know what to do with, but I’ve done a few videos. So I’m out there, pretty easy to find. My next novel coming out next summer, but that’s got a ways to go on that.VirginiaWell, we will keep people posted about that for sure. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.SaraiThanks. It was so much fun. So thank you, Virginia.--The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Assessing the current state of public health with Jessica Wilson, MS, RDBefore we start the show today… Have you donated to the Me Little Me Virtual Food Pantry? No, it won’t prevent any of the MAHA shenanigans we’re about to discuss. But it will get low-income folks (many of whom are in eating disorder recovery) fed — and with the food of their choosing. Meaning yes, ultra processed foods that bring comfort and convenience, and yes to beloved cultural foods…and yes to trusting folks in need to know what they need.We’re trying to raise $12,000 and add 50 recurring donors to their rosters by June 1. And we can only do that with your help! Thank you!--You are listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Jessica Wilson, MS, RD.Jessica is a clinical dietitian and host of the podcast Making It Awkward. Her critiques of American food hysteria have been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets, and Jessica’s ultra processed food experiment received coverage in Time Magazine last fall. Jessica was last on the podcast to celebrate the release of her book, It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies, which explores how marginalized bodies, especially black women’s bodies, are policed by society in ways that impact body autonomy and health.Jessica is one of the most incisive thinkers I know about wellness and diet culture, as well as food policy and nutrition. So I asked her to come back on the podcast today just to help us make sense of what is happening right now in public health. We’re going to get into RFK. We’re going to get into MAHA, we’re going to get into processed foods. I know you will find this conversation both hilarious and helpful.Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.And don’t forget, you can take 10 percent off It’s Always Been Ours, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you’ve previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Episode 194 TranscriptVirginiaYou were on the podcast back in 2023 to talk about your fantastic book, which I continue to recommend to folks all the time, called It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies. And since then, you have been very busy. So tell us what you’re working on these days. What are you up to?Jessica2023 was a blur!In 2024 I started doing a lot more listening to people in places of influence and power. I ended up at a few conferences, and noticed that I really enjoyed having people say the quiet part out loud. I was like, maybe this could be a podcast where I get people just to say the things that they were thinking on the inside. So that’s been great! The debut of Making It Awkward just happened to coincide with Dr. Chris van Tulleken’s book release Ultra-Processed People which released a hysteria about ultra-processed foods. I thought it was very dramatic and silly. I was like, what can I do to have this conversation be less chaotic? And actually include more truth telling? And what are we actually supposed to learn from this?So I decided to repeat his 30 day experiment, where he ate ultra-processed foods for 30 days. Which, from the photos and pictures, it looked like he was eating at McDonald’s for 30 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that’s not how people live.VirginiaThat’s not how people live.JessicaNo Trader Joe’s?VirginiaAlso, we already have Super Size Me.JessicaI know.VirginiaNow we’re watching the rise of Make America Healthy Again. There’s a lot going on right now that is fairly terrible. And it’s a little bit of a chicken and egg thing, trying to track it all. Do you think MAHA fed into the ultra-processed food phobia? Or did the fear mongering around processed foods help beget us this current moment Because they’re very intertwined, right?JessicaI think separating them is impossible. What I think made all of these things connect is that we had women baking bread at the beginning of COVID. Like we were just going to explore all these lovely domestic things And then somehow that tipped over into trad wife territory.VirginiaAh yes, people were home in lockdown doing all the domestic things. And the communities that were already sort of entrenched in homeschooling—Jessica—were like, look at us on Tiktok! So tradwives became trending, and people became obsessed. I too was looking at the milkmaid mom of it all.That was happening at the same time vaccines were being required to get back into spaces and for the world to open up again. So we have bread-baking tradwives and moms who were really concerned about vaccines. And I honestly think it was also just a power play at the time and performative existence to say, “We don’t want our kids vaccinated.” So all of these things: We have food, we have moms, we have vaccines, and then we have somebody who was speaking to all of these things, and that just happens to be RFK, Jr. VirginiaHe sort of threads all these things together, even though his position on these things is quite squishy.JessicaRight! He really pulls on his family legacy, which is fully Democrat. But then all of a sudden, he’s not. He was running for president on very squishy, unclear statements, about food, but always very clear he was anti-vaccine. And then, with the suspension of his presidential campaign, the Make America Healthy Again super PAC folks were like, “We can’t let this energy that went to RFK go to waste.” And aparently the Harris campaign didn’t take his call. So that implies, you know, he could have gone either way.VirginiaHe was like, “I’m open to whoever.”Jessica“I’m looking to be an important person.”VirginiaFirm moral compass there.JessicaI do give some credit to getting Trump elected from the people who were like, “I guess if this is the way we’ll get RFK, we’ll vote in this election.”VirginiaLet’s talk about what’s happening right now. We are recording this at the end of April. Folks are going to be listening to this in a couple of weeks. Who knows what else will happen in the month of May!Post-recording note: So many things, mostly terrible! For example, RFK’s Surgeon General pick, wellness grifter Casey Means. But at the moment, we’re really grappling with two issues. So I thought we could take them one at a time. The first one is this war on food dyes, which is obviously coming out of the processed food fear-mongering, right? RFK is specifically going after food dyes. Well, and sugar—he kind of always lumps them together.JessicaIsn’t that interesting?So back in January, Red Dye #3 was on the chopping block for the FDA. I think it was kind of viewed as a test case for how engaged the public will be about banning food dyes. It got a lot of support influencers—Jillian Michaels, Mark Hyman, Vani Hari and all of the people who have their fully unregulated supplement lines—who are very invested in this red dye conversation. I think it’s because it’s so easy, it’s so simple for people to understand “Red Dye #3.”Then last week as of this recording, RFK has his news conference where he’s talking about artificial dyes. And you know, “these are bad because they’re petroleum-based dyes.” So almost every news outlet that was covering the conference came away saying “RFK and the FDA is banning artificial food dyes.”Rewind to that actual conversation: He was just saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if these food companies would just get on board and do this?” It’s voluntary. There is no ban. But everybody’s covering it as “banned.” How are we not putting together the pieces that RFK is just saying things and hoping they’ll happen?VirginiaHe’s hoping he can manifest it. It’s like a vision board for food dyes.Can we back up for a second, too, and say what is his concern about food dyes and how valid that is?JessicaSo I actually don’t have a clear vision for what he thinks the problem is—other than it’s just a literally shiny, bright light. If we were worried about petroleum, we could talk about asthma, we can talk about the oil and gas industry. There are so many things that we could actually talk about, if we were concerned about petroleum.VirginiaBut for that to be the one petrochemical we focus on…JessicaAnd how much of it are we eating? Especially with Red Dye No 3, when they were looking at its cancer-causing potential—it was in rat models where rats were fed a giant amount of red dye. There have also been some connections, especially from parents, between behavioral problems and certain dyes. The research out there, per the FDA, has said that there is some science, but it’s not clear, so let’s continue to monitor.I definitely will not discount anybody’s personal experience with those food dyes. And does that mean we should ban it? Or does it mean that people could look at food labels? To pick up on that as the primary thing that is causing cancer for kids and making them unhealthy is wild.VirginiaYeah, it’s a big leap, from a little bit of data that’s pretty unclear to “let’s ban this,” and celebrate this as RFK getting the job done.And then he went on the whole “sugar is poison” rant. Both these focuses of his feel very anti-fat to me. There’s definitely a lot of diet culture coding throughout that.JessicaI was noting in a lot of the MAHA rhetoric, and even in those confirmation hearings, the phrase “childhood obesity” isn’t invoked as often as I feel like it was in the Obama administration, or even by Biden, and by grants and nonprofits. That was always their scary thing that we want to protect kids from. And now it’s “chronic disease,” which of course includes obesity [in their minds], but its different words. I’m wondering if it just sounds better.VirginiaI’m interested that they’re talking less directly about a “war on obesity” than previous administrations. I think part of it is the focus on autism—that’s the “epidemic” that Kennedy is fixated on.I’m also wondering if he’s trying to avoid the Ozempic conversation, because his position on Ozempic has been complicated. He was like, “We need to lose weight the old fashioned way.” Americans just need healthy food, three meals a day, and that’s all it’ll take. Which, you know, that’s not exactly how that works. But the drug manufacturers are extremely powerful, and he can’t actually, in his position now, say that he doesn’t think Ozempic is a good idea. And he’s not going to say Americans shouldn’t be losing weight. He’s not going to criticize the goal of losing weight. Obviously, he’s pro-weight loss. But I don’t think he wants to be as pro-Ozempic as others in the administration probably are, and want him to be. So I’m wondering if he’s stepping back there. I don’t know. This is speculation.JessicaRight, which is often all we have, because who actually knows what’s going on in the brain that formerly had a worm in it?VirginiaIt is very unclear what is in the brain of a man known for carrying dead animal carcasses weird distances.Post-recording note from Virginia: I appreciate this piece by Kate Summers noting how unhelpful the “brain worm” jokes are. It’s eugenics!The autism stuff, I have to say personally, makes my blood boil. It’s so offensive. And he’s framing it again out of this concern for children, right? “The moms are so concerned about the kids.” As a mom, I’m like, wow, you don’t represent me at all. Please stop talking.JessicaHe talks about autism as a preventative disease, and it’s got to be caused by something in the environment, is what he has said over and over again. So we’re going to figure out what that thing is in the environment. He’ll talk about how nobody had autism when he was a child.VirginiaHe just never met anyone. He also didn’t know any fat people.JessicaOh, right. And nobody with chronic diseases. And nobody with mental health concerns. Especially not in his family.VirginiaNo, not in his own family! I mean, I do believe that there was never a fat Kennedy. Because I don’t think they let you be a fat Kennedy between the drug issues and the eating disorders there.JessicaMany people have pointed out the increase in screenings among folks of color, among women, awareness and how all of these things contributed to the improved awareness of autism, which is great. And yes, his understanding of statistics is…unsmart. And the need to find an environmental concern harkens back to his initial environmental justice work, which has just gone by the wayside.But yes, the most recent statements—all while Love on the Spectrum is trending on Netflix.VirginiaInteresting!JessicaHis take is that folks with autism will not fall in love. They don’t pay taxes. One that people have not been repeating is that they won’t get to play baseball, basically creating an underclass of folks with autism and otherwise. And I’m like, sir. Do you know how many neurodivergent people are athletes, and that’s what makes them good? But anyway.Even in the conversations about how wrong he is, we lose that every individual, regardless of level of support needs with autism, is deserving. All of the arguments that were like, “People with autism pay taxes.”VirginiaBut let’s not value people purely by their economic contributions. That’s a weird way of determining our humanity. It’s really depressing.JessicaRight? I feel like his draw to autism started with the vaccines of it all. I feel like maybe that was his intro, because the convergence of both his anti-vax and anti-science and pro-Jenny McCarthy, autism is caused by vaccines, has taken on a life of its own. Because it has transcended vaccine to now something in our environment. Is it something in our food? So that’s where he gets the ball rolling, and how things snowball is a mystery.VirginiaWell, I think it’s not just him. I think that’s the wellness culture, diet culture lens of all of this. Because that’s what we’re trained to do, right? There are so many health conditions where you’re like, well, if I just cut out gluten. It didn’t fix it, so probably it’s the dairy. So probably it’s the… Well, maybe I just need to cut it all out, you know? He is elimination dieting always, with every issue he works on. That’s how it feels to me.And I think that is a pattern we know really well, because we’ve all done it. We’ve been trained as good little foot soldiers of the diet industrial complex to do that. And so people are like, oh yeah, yeah, okay, so maybe it’s not the vaccines, but....Plus, we never quite let go of the first conspiracy theory either. Even though as a journalist, I have been writing pieces to debunk that autism vaccine myth since my career began over 20 years ago. But okay! There are still people clinging to that one. And then adding on: Well, it’s probably the food dyes. It’s probably the gluten. It’s probably some other chemical in the environment. And I just think that’s the mindset we all have, and have been trained to have, about health.JessicaThat’s a great point. Mark Hyman is one of the people who says gluten causes autism.VirginiaYes. He’s been selling this stuff forever.I think what I find really enraging about it is how it preys on parents. And creates this divisiveness among parents too. Of course, you’re worried for your autistic or otherwise struggling kid. You’re trying to advocate for your kid. And you can waste so much time down these RFK rabbit holes. I see this all the time. Moms who are like, “Oh, well, they can’t have the snack foods because we’re managing this behavioral issue.” So much effort and energy is expended on controlling exposure to something that has nothing to do with what your child is struggling with. It isn’t going to make a difference.The Food Sensitivity Test to MAHA Mom Pipeline Read full storyJessicaI’m on Facebook point .001% of the time, and every time I open it, it’ll be like, “I healed my child’s autism this way.” It’ll be, you know, “1 billion food things that I did differently.” And by the way, I also provided structure and sleep, which is very important. So hmm, was it the diet, or was it the sleep and structure?VirginiaI both feel frustrated with these parents, and I feel for these parents, because they’re navigating something really difficult without support. But just the ableism of this whole idea that you need to “cure” autism is revolting to me.JessicaOr prevent it! We have not prevented it, and people have been okay. Like, what? What is happening? This is not new, friend. You just used to treat it with corporal punishment and abuse, and that’s not happening now.VirginiaWhich is progress, which is why we can stop hearkening back to this beautiful, mythical past that he wants us all to live in.JessicaRight? Yes, when things were great.VirginiaThe other piece that keeps enraging me is—and again, I realize I’m really going for the moms here—but the MAHA moms wjp keep saying things like, “I feel so much safer now. My child will be safe now.” Zen Honeycutt told her followers, “Pretty soon we won’t even need healthcare,” because of having RFK on this job.I mean, the disconnect of these privileged white moms is disgusting. They feel like their child is so much safer now, under an administration that is making everybody else’s child so much less safe and deporting four year olds.JessicaThe idea that we won’t have healthcare or need healthcare anymore is something that I don’t understand, because in the past, people needed healthcare. You know what they needed it for? Hmm, measles.Now that everybody is going to have infectious diseases, we are going to need some healthcare that’s not vitamin A and cod liver oil for measles/ You’re making us need health care probably more.VirginiaAnd the the narrow world view of “this feels better for my child, so therefore it must be better for everyone.”JessicaAnd how are you convinced that this is better for your kid? It is wild. I don’t know.VirginiaI know, it’s dark.What else is on your mind right now as you’re watching all this? What else do we need to hit on?JessicaSpeaking of moms, I will always talk about pronatalism. There has been the headline that Elon wants us to have more babies. Like that is a proper headline.VirginiaMy ovaries shriveled up and died when I read that. I can imagine nothing less sexy than Elon wanting more babies. No. Done. Out.JessicaAnd at the same time, the administration is cutting so many services and support and ways to feed children. It’s about eugenics and having more white babies.I don’t understand where the obsession is with creating these beautiful, white, brilliant children. They will say, because the economy is crashing, or the environment or something. But I’m like, no, you are deporting Black and brown people but you need people to uphold your economy. So what you’re doing is trying to fill in those gaps. You’ve deported every farm worker. So, do you want to create more babies in order to do the labor of folks? It’s confusing to me.VirginiaIt’s very confusing. This is the same political party and political system that fear-mongered about welfare queens for decades. Women having babies was the worst idea when it was poor, Black women having babies. And the fear was that some women have babies just to abuse the system—which didn’t ever exist, right? There are not enough resources in the system to make that remotely profitable. But the idea was that some women are just gaming the system, having all these babies. But now we want to create these super-powered white embryos and we want white women to have as many babies as possible.JessicaAbsolutely, there has been mention of academic scholarships that will only go to women who are mothers or who will have babies. I’ve heard suggestions that we have better sex education.VirginiaYes! Menstrual cycle tracking. That is not at all creepy in an administration that also wants to take away abortion rights. That really blew me away, because it’s this panel of men being like, “Women need classes on how to track their menstrual cycles.” And I think we all learned it at like 11, sir? Women are not confused about what our menstrual cycles are doing.JessicaSo maybe you want me to know where my ovulation is in my cycle. And in these apps that you’re already trying to steal our data from?VirginiaI mean, men are deeply confused by menstruation, for sure. They don’t understand the cycle. But women have had this knowledge for centuries. We’ve got midwives, we’ve figured this out.JessicaI just keep trying to put together all of these things. More babies, more unvaccinated babies. People being able to buy their way into this ideal version of health, which again, is healthy, organic, whole foods. And then poor kids who need school lunches getting funding cut.VirginiaWell, it is a terrifying time in so many ways. I’m grateful to you for helping walk us through some of it and bring a little clarity and humor to very dark moments.ButterJessicaSewing has come back into my life. I can’t recommend it to everyone, but it has fully detached me from social media and everything, because my hands are busy all the time. I’m not picking up a phone. I can’t even hear it because my sewing machine is going . I 10/10 regret buying an overalls pattern because of the one billion pieces, but it’s actually doing what I need it to do.VirginiaOh, overalls seem very challenging!Jessica10/10 do not recommend. But I am fully distracted from the state of the world. So, that is great.VirginiaI mean, that’s how I feel about my garden. It gets me outside, off my phone, and yes, I would rather wrestle weeds and dig holes in very rocky soil and do all of that then be in the world often. So that’s a great Butter.I figured in honor of you being here, I should shout out one of my favorite ultra-processed foods that makes my life so great right now. We’re on a real kick with frozen chicken tenders. I just feel like they’re a real unsung staple of eating that more people need to be talking about. I make them, because I have one kid who, that is their food. So I make them a bunch. But I’ve realized they are so versatile. Tacos, I can put them on salad. They are good in a pasta with a creamy sauce. They add the right crunch. There’s a lot you can do with frozen chicken tenders. And they are so fast and delicious.JessicaWalk around the house eating one, which, you know, I’ve done many a time, because, they are a few bites, and you can make a full circle around your house.VirginiaTotally. Where would dinner be at my house without chicken tenders? So, yeah, that’s my butter this week.Well, Jessica, thank you again for being here. Tell folks where we can find you, how we can support your work.JessicaThank you. I’m on Instagram. My podcast is Making It Awkward. It comes out weekly. And let me tell you, it does get fun sometimes. I did have Jeff Hutt, the Make America Healthy Again spokesperson on, before he knew he wasn’t supposed to say things out loud. So that’s always good. You could find me in my garden. You can find me at JessicaWilsonmsrd.com. You can find me in the clinic—that’s something else I’ve been up to lately. I’m working at a queer and trans health clinic in a teeny, tiny private practice. So yeah, that’s where I am.VirginiaAwesome. Well, thank you for being here with us!--The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark. This month we are talking about… seasonal color analysis!We’ll be getting into:⭐️ The complicated legacy of Color Me Beautiful⭐️ Is color analysis a little bit racist?⭐️ Is color analysis…a diet?⭐️ What colors can Virginia wear, and why are there so many shades of taupe?To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.Extra Butter costs just $99 per year. (Regular paid subscribers, the remaining value of your subscription will be deducted from that total!)Extra Butter subscribers also get access to posts like:Dating While FatWhat to do when you miss your smaller bodyAnd did Virginia really get divorced over butter?And Extra Butters also get DM access and other perks. Plus Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism.PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription.Episode 193 TranscriptCorinneI have been waiting for this episode! I’ve been waiting months!VirginiaYou really have been waiting for months.CorinneListeners, I am really excited to announce that we are finally going to talk about seasonal color analysis. Some of you probably know that I got mine done a while back. And then I had to drag Virginia kicking and screaming.VirginiaNot even! I just kept forgetting about it.CorinneI had to scroll back years and years through her Instagram to find pictures that were suitable for submission.VirginiaI was so lukewarm on this topic. It was also a complicated process. There were a lot of photos you had to find. And I just kept being like, “I’m sorry, Corinne, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.” And then you finally were like, “I will find all your photos.” So Corinne did my homework for me for this episode.CorinneIt was maybe slightly overbearing.VirginiaNo, no, no, no. I mean, here we are. It’s going to be an amazing episode. I’m very excited.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

That supports marginalized folks in eating disorder recovery. Elizabeth Ayiku is getting groceries and needs Burnt Toast's help.You are listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Elizabeth Ayiku. Elizabeth is a food justice organizer and founder of the Me Little Me Foundation, a nonprofit committed to advancing food equity and providing free, culturally competent support services for marginalized communities. Based in Los Angeles, Elizabeth works to dismantle the systemic barriers that affect mental health and wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of meeting basic needs first. Elizabeth’s foundation draws its name from her debut feature film Me Little Me. The Me Little Me Foundation offers a free virtual food pantry for folks in need—with a focus on helping people with multiple marginalized identities, folks of color and folks in eating disorder recovery.And Burnt Toast, we have a challenge for you! We want to raise $6,000 to support the Me Little Me Foundation.Burnt Toast will match every dollar we raise, up to another $6000, by June 1. You’re going to hear more from Elizabeth in this episode about why this work is so important. Please share this episode widely, and donate if you can! Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you.Episode 192 TranscriptElizabethSo I was born in the prairies of Canada to a Caribbean mother and West African father. I’m currently Los Angeles based. And I’m a filmmaker, a food justice organizer and a nonprofit founder.VirginiaThat is a lot of very hard jobs that you have! You sound extremely busy.ElizabethI am. It’s a lot.VirginiaWell, we’ll start with the film, because that’s how we first got connected, when you were looking for sponsors for your really incredible film called Me Little Me. It came out in 2022, and it is available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. You were working on this for quite a long time. It was a the labor of love project for sure.ElizabethOh my goodness, 100 percent. It’s based on my own lived experience. So, in 2009 I went to treatment for eating disorder recovery. I went to IOP—an intensive outpatient program—and I was also working full time while I did it.Being in eating disorder treatment became this kind of double life, and this big secret I had to hide. Because life couldn’t stop, you know? And I guess that’s something that I just never saw portrayed in any mainstream media, film, TV. It was always the person checked into inpatient. They had unlimited resources.VirginiaThousands and thousands of dollars per day for treatment.ElizabethAnd no mention of where this money was coming from. It was just this really nicely packaged perception of what recovery is. And I was just waiting and waiting to see something that had any semblance of what I’d gone through. And I just couldn’t wait anymore! One day, I was like, “Okay, they’re not doing it. I’m going to have to be the one to make it.” And that’s what I did.Like you said, it was a labor of love. This is an indie film, 100 percent. We didn’t have a studio backing us or anything like that. I just literally went to as many organizations as I could, and was like, “Look, I’m trying to make this. Can we have some money?” And it took a long time. We started shooting maybe the end of 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic. We started shooting principal photography, just getting the shots in. We ran out of money multiple times. There were so many challenges. So when I reached out to you, I was looking for finishing funds.I took a shot and submitted to South by Southwest as my work in progress. That means the sound wasn’t done, the color wasn’t finalized. It was 2021, by this time. And I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to shoot my shot and say I did it.” I was 100 percent sure nothing was going to come of it. But just to say that I did it. So end of 2021 I submitted and January 2022 is when they told me we were accepted. Still, I have to remind myself—I’m like, Oh my gosh, that happened.VirginiaYeah, you did it! You did the thing.ElizabethI did the thing! And then there were a whole bunch of other expenses that came with that. They needed a digital cinema package as a way to show the movie professionally, which was like a minimum $1500+. Plus, it still wasn’t finished. So I just needed someone to do a quick color and sound pass. Because, my God, I couldn’t just show the the work in progress. So we just did a quick, rough color and sound pass. And I had to hire someone to do that.I was grasping at straws. So when I reached out to you, I was just like, “This is what’s happening. This is what the my need is. Any help would be so so appreciated,” and you were like, absolutely, let’s do this.VirginiaThe story really resonated with me. As a journalist who’s written about eating disorder recovery for two decades now, I’m very aware of that mainstream narrative that you were talking about and just how many people it doesn’t represent. There is this whole eating disorder industrial complex that’s built to sell a certain kind of recovery and center a certain thin, white girl narrative. And it just perpetually frustrates me, because everybody I know, whether personally in my own life, or people I’ve interviewed for work who has gone through recovery, is like, “Yeah, it doesn’t look anything like that.”ElizabethNope. Not even a little bit.VirginiaAnd we’re doing such a disservice to people! So the fact that you were going to tell this much more complex story, centering a Black woman—I was like, yes, thank you so much. ElizabethWhat you described is what I was up against, just this, all of those things. Trying to sell that story to the public, and if that’s all people are offered, that’s that’s what they think the reality is.VirginiaAnd then that just pushes recovery so much further out of reach for people who wouldn’t have access to that kind of treatment. Meaning the expensive inpatient treatment options, which also aren’t even necessarily the best treatment! It doesn’t work for everybody! Okay. We could have a whole other show about that.ElizabethWe really could. VirginiaThe point is, the film’s incredible. It’s out. I want everyone to go stream it now that they can. And what we really want to talk about today is how working on that film then led you to launch the Me Little Me Foundation.ElizabethWhile I was working on finishing the film, it was the middle of the pandemic. It was a hard time. The racial uprisings were happening all around us, and almost everyone I knew was traumatized by the world they were witnessing. And that combination — There was so much need, and people in my community and people I didn’t know, people online were like. “I need resources, I need assistance, but I don’t know where to turn.” It was too much to just ignore, you know? So that the subject matter of the film, plus the world that was happening at the time—I just knew there needed to be something in place that was different than the current resources out there.So I came up with the idea for a virtual food pantry where folks are approved up to a certain amount. They make a list of what they need. I shop for them online from a local grocery store that offers delivery, and the groceries are shipped to them for free. So you don’t need to have a vehicle, you don’t need to live in the correct zip code to get to the food pantry—because that’s a thing. And you also get to choose how you want to nourish yourself, because that was important to me, too. Because there’s dignity in being able to choose.VirginiaYes, and not just being handed a bag of food like, “This is what you get.”ElizabethYeah. “Be grateful, now move along.”So I wanted to help with the trauma, and the lack of resources. Cultural needs aren’t taken into account at any food pantry I’ve ever used. I’ve been to so many pantries in my life, and it’s a lot of white foods. Like, I don’t know how else to describe them. And when you’re having mental health issues because of trauma, because of the world around us, for whatever reason, just because you’re struggling to make it, your cultural foods can be so comforting. They can just be so so comforting, and just what you need. And I just wanted to take that into consideration. So that’s why I set it up the way I did, where folks tell me what they need, and that’s what they get.VirginiaThere’s such dignity in that, and empowerment for people. I think about the power of choice all the time, even just at the level of feeding my own kids. The idea that I would know what someone else needs to eat on any given day seems wild? I don’t know what you’re hungry for! I don’t know what what you need right now. You know what you need right now. The fact that so many of our aid systems are not set up to honor that is a huge problem. So I love that you built that into into how you’re doing this.You’re focusing on folks of color who need assistance, and you’re also focusing on folks in eating disorder recovery.ElizabethYeah, so basically folks who hold multiple marginalized identities are really who we serve the most. That’s just how it honestly just started happening because of the people I’m connected with onlin,e and the places I was advertising this pantry. So many folks in recovery struggle with food security. Because the recovery models we were talking about earlier really emphasize “You need to always have food available.” You need to have snacks. So Recovery has been hard for them because that. Recovery has been hard for me because of that. I don’t always have a cupboard full of snacks and multiple choices even though that’s something in recovery that we’re told to do. I’m laughing because they say, “Just make sure you fill your pantry.” Like everyone has a pantry! They’re like, “fill your pantry with all the food you can.”VirginiaFirst, we need to get a pantry.ElizabethNumber one.VirginiaWhen does that get delivered?ElizabethExactly! So there are so many people in the recovery community telling us, “Oh my goodness, this is what I needed. Like, thank you so much. It’s impossible to keep myself nourished without this assistance, this has been amazing.”Coming from that world, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. It’s beyond hard to recover in this world we’re living in without assistance. So maybe 65 percent of who we serve are actively in recovery or currently have an eating disorder.And there is also a large population of folks with disabilities. People who are mobility impaired, or even young people and youth who don’t have a car to get somewhere. There are so many folks with multiple marginalized identities who rely on us. It’s beyond what I even thought.VirginiaAre you focusing on a particular geographic area?ElizabethGood question. It’s nationwide. Because it’s virtual—that’s another thing I wanted to not be a barrier. If you can apply online, if you have access to computer at work—I’m trying for accessibility purposes to have another way to apply as well, but as of now, you apply online, and you can be anywhere. As long as you live somewhere that has a local grocery store that delivers, then you can use our services.VirginiaThat’s really, really great. So as you’re working in this food justice space… what you’re doing is meeting an immediate critical need. People need to eat today. People are working on their recovery, they need access to food. And the reason this need is so dire is because of many larger structural failings in our systems. So how do you think about like, “Okay, I’m trying to put out this immediate fire. But we need so much larger change as well.” How do you kind of hold that together?ElizabethSometimes it does make me sad, because I’m like, “Oh, is this just a band aid for something systemic.” But I believe that what we’re doing can eventually be just the way folks are given the resources they need. It doesn’t need to be what we’ve always had. Why can’t you just pick? Why does it have to be food that might not be good anymore? Expiring, not fresh, food that’s offered? Why is that the only thing that we’re saying is acceptable? So I’m really trying to get the word out that, hey, we’re doing something that’s working. And yes, it’s for folks who are facing food insecurity now but you know, all these organizations that have these elaborate setups where they’re pre-boxing things, you can do it a different way.VirginiaSo you’re creating a new model that hopefully other organizations will replicate.ElizabethAbsolutely.VirginiaAs your organization continues to grow, this is something you can scale up, because of the way you’ve designed it. You’re helping connect people to their local grocery store. This isn’t you needing to build some whole infrastructure of warehouses, right?ElizabethExactly. That’s eliminated. We don’t have to pay rents to store a bunch of boxed items. I don’t think people are looking at things like that with the current systems that are in place.VirginiaAnd obviously, it would be amazing if programs like SNAP and welfare were providing more resources for folks. But given the current political climate, we’re going to be lucky to hold onto any social safety net we have left. ElizabethLike, any. And that’s the same how I was saying earlier. Like, middle of pandemic, people were just so traumatized. People were just kind of numb. And like, “I don’t know what to do, I need food to eat, though.” I’m seeing it now again, like this year the same. I’m like, whoa. This is history repeating.VirginiaI think people are feeling a lot of the same panic, embarrassment, and uncertainty about what’s happening next. Everything is feeling extremely unstable.ElizabethAbsolutely.VirginiaSo making sure people have a way to feed themselves today—it’s something we can do. There is all this bigger change that needs to happen, and we can contribute to that however we can. But this kind of direct aid to people getting fed today is something that we can do, and really is crucial right now. We can’t do the rest if people aren’t eating. This is the starting point.I mean, I’ve worked on pieces about childhood hunger over the years, and I know you’re focusing more on adults, but it blows my mind how often organizations that work on hunger have to show research to convince people that kids can’t learn if they’re hungry. And it’s just like, why did we need to have to do a study? Why did you need data?ElizabethYes, they need to see the numbers. It’s fascinating to me. When I tell folks stuff based on my lived experience of going to pantries, not having enough, or not having access in the area. They’re like, “Oh, okay, we just need you to type that all up, and we need to see where you got that data.” And I’m just like…where I got that data? From my life! And so many people I know! That blows my mind, the amount of data folks are requesting when it comes to food insecurity.VirginiaWe shouldn’t have to explain it or justify it. It should just be obvious that people need enough food to eat. That’s the baseline.So Burnt Toast, we have a mission!Our goal is to raise $6,000 by June 1 for the Me Little Me Foundation to support the virtual free food pantry project. When we reach that $6,000 goal, Burnt Toast (the newsletter and podcast) will match that with another $6,000. So we have a chance to raise $12,000 for Me Little Me to help them make a big push on this work.Elizabeth, tell us a little bit about what those funds will mean for your organization. What are we going to help you do? And then, of course, what do folks need to do to donate?ElizabethOh, my goodness. It would just help us so immensely. Just to break it down: $100 worth of groceries means folks can make a minimum of 20 home cooked meals. So if we raise $6,000 that’s literally 1200 home cooked meals that we could provide.VirginiaThat’s awesome.ElizabethIt would help us so much, because we always have more applications than the resources. It’s crushing. Applications will be open for 24 hours and we have to shut them down because we’re just so overwhelmed. And say, “I’m so sorry. Please try back next quarter.” I’m trying to raise more money. I’m not going to let you all down. So it would help us immensely. I’m trying to play it cool. This is my cool and collected voice, but I’m sort of squealing inside.VirginiaWell, I think what you’re doing is so important. And we have over 65,000 people on the Burnt Toast list! This is not a big ask for anyone. A few bucks will cover one of these meals that we’re trying to raise money for. If you have 100 bucks, great! That’s 20 meals you’ve covered. This is the kind of community effort that is giving me hope right now, that’s making me feel like the entire world’s not falling off a cliff. We can get this done. And I think actually, we can exceed this goal.The second piece of our challenge is: If you’re able, please become a monthly donor! Whether that’s $5 a month or $100 a month—which would buy 20 meals a month! Do it! We are setting a goal to add 25 new recurring donors to the Me Little Me rosters. Burnt Toast is already a recurring donor, but we want 25 of you to sign up to be a recurring donors, too. So take whatever gift you were going to give and divide it by 12; break it up monthly and donate that. Because recurring donations are really critical to organizations like this. Elizabeth, you can speak a little bit to why that matters so much.ElizabethBecause the need is ongoing. We’re inundated every time we open the pantry, and the recurring donations will help us reach our ultimate goal of being able to see real systemic change and have this just be something that’s in place. So of course, yes, please if you’re able to just give a few dollars we would love that. But if you can support us on a monthly basis in any capacity, it’ll just be such a big weight off of the shoulders of so many folks who rely on these services.VirginiaRecurring donations help nonprofits plan. It’s money they can rely on and actually look ahead and not just be scrambling. ElizabethScramble—that’s the perfect word. I get a little stressed every time we open the pantry.VirginiaWell, I am really excited. I really appreciate you reaching out and giving us this opportunity to support what you’re doing. I think it’s so meaningful and so important. And, Burnt Toast, let’s get it done. This section contains affiliate links. Thanks for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links! ButterElizabethSomething I discovered, I think by accident, is painting on burlap—like the material that they make sacks out of. It’s so random. They sell it at craft stores. And there was just some on sale. So I have just regular paints at home from ages ago that I just didn’t want to throw away. And, yeah, I just started. I stuck some burlap on a piece of wood, and just started painting it. And it just was so soothing. Just the surface of it, the texture, just painting over the burlap. And I was like, oh my gosh. Do people know about this?VirginiaI did not! This is amazing.ElizabethSo not painting on canvas, but on burlap material. Even if you make a mistake, it still looks nice. VirginiaWhat kind of paint are you using?ElizabethIt was literally paint that you would get at a hardware store, like if you were painting a wall in your house. They have specific fabric paint—because I’m going down a rabbit hole with it now—but that works just fine. Like, if you go to a hardware store and get a sample size, that’s what I had. I had a bunch of little samples. so I just started painting words on the burlap and making little gift things. And it was just so soothing. So that’s just a really random activity.VirginiaThat’s a great Butter. Thank you. I’ve been noticing a little trend with guests lately, where a lot of the Butters are people are really drawn to something that gets them off their phone, off the computer, kind of like an absorbing project. Absorbing projects have been a trend in butters, and I am a big fan. I’m a big jigsaw puzzle person and gardener. Like these tactile things that get us out of our heads a little bit are just great.ElizabethOh, wonderful. Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.VirginiaMy Butter is going to be somewhat related, and it’s a repeat Butter. I’ve recommended it before, but we have this great bird feeder. It’s called the Bird Buddy, and it has a camera in it, so it takes pictures of the birds for you and sends them to your phone. It’s not cheap, but they do go on sale from time to time. I will link to it. But anyway, we moved the feeders to a new part of the garden, and we hung up our hummingbird feeder and another type of feeder—and just all of the birds that are coming now are making me so happy.ElizabethI can imagine!VirginiaI’m That Mom now. I’m like, “Guys, there are more goldfinches! Have you seen the goldfinches??” And one of my kids loves birds, and one of them doesn’t care. So I’m being a little excessive, and they’re like, okay, yes, we see. But I think it’s the same thing of — I’m needing beauty that’s not in the Internet. That’s taking me away. And they’re so soothing to watch. So bird feeders, specifically, the camera one is really fun, but bird feeders in general, is my Butter today.ElizabethOh, now I want to see the photos of the birds.VirginiaOh, I’ll send you some. It’s pretty exciting. Elizabeth, thank you so much. Let’s just remind everyone again, how to support you, how to donate to Me Little Me. ElizabethYou can go to MeLittleMeFoundation.org and there’s a donate page where you can make a one time donation or become a recurring donor. You can get updates on our Instagram. You can also get updates about my film at Me Little Me Film on Instagram.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

A deep dive into positions, props, and misconceptions, with body image coach Bri Campos.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your May Indulgence Gospel!Today, fan favorite Brianna Campos joins us again to talk more about… fat dating and sex!We’re answering your questions, like:⭐️ How do you navigate certain positions in bigger bodies?⭐️ How do you talk to new partners about what your body needs?⭐️ Are “oral sex skills” a myth?⭐️ And…who is Virginia dating now?To hear the full story, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!This transcript contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 191 TranscriptVirginiaOkay, for anyone who missed her last visit: Bri is a licensed professional counselor and body image coach who works with folks recovering from eating disorders and finding body acceptance through grief. She joined me on the podcast back in February to talk about her work and her experiences dating in a superfat body, and you all loved that conversation so much.We have asked Bri to join us again, this time to help Corinne and I answer your questions. So welcome Bri!BriThank you so much for having me back. What an honor.VirginiaWell we have some very spicy questions to discuss today. I hope you’re feeling ready.BriI’m so ready.CorinneIn today’s episode, we’re going to talk very practically about the mechanics of fat sex. Some of the questions are pretty graphic, so you might not want to listen to this one with kids around. You may not even want to listen with friends around!!!! And if you’re related to anyone who is on the podcast today, you may not want to listen to this episode!!!VirginiaI would say, you are strongly encouraged to skip this one, actually.CorinneMoms, siblings.VirginiaDads, brothers, whatever. More content for you is coming. This one isn’t it.BriWe appreciate the support.CorinneOkay, here’s question number one:My cis male partner and I (a cis female) have been together eight years. We have both gained belly weight in that time, and now missionary is tricky, especially if I need to use a hand to stimulate my clit. Plus, it’s harder for him to get as deep with bellies in the way. We’ve tried, him standing/me on the edge of the bed, him kneeling, and my hips up and other variations. I’ve been thinking about a wedge pillow, but that definitely takes the spontaneity out of it. Any tips?BriI mean, I’ll dive right in.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

What RFK gets wrong and why "being healthy for our kids' sake" shouldn't be the goal, with author Jessica Slice.You are listening to Burnt Toast!Today, my guest is Jessica Slice, a disabled mom and author of the brilliant new book, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World.Jessica is also the co-author of Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down While Chronically Ill and Disabled, and This Is How We Play: A Celebration of Disability and Adaptation, as well as the forthcoming This Is How We Talk and We Belong. She has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility and more.As Jessica puts it, she originally wrote this book for disabled parents because their stories are not told or centered. But Jessica soon realized she was writing a book for all parents, because becoming a parent is its own kind of experience with disability.There are so many important intersections between disability, justice and fat liberation. One that I think about a lot is how both groups come up against the question: Don’t we owe it to our kids to be healthy? Jessica’s perspective on these issues is expansive, inclusive and enlightening. I know you will get so much out of this conversation and from reading unfit parent.You can take 10 percent off Unfit Parent, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you’ve previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)PS. If you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!Follow Jessica: Jessicaslice.com. I’m on Instagram @JessicaSlice, I have a Substack where I send monthly notes about Disabled Parenting, and then usually try to get people to read whatever poem I’m fixated on that month.Episode 190 TranscriptJessicaI am an author and a mom, and Unfit Parent, which is the book we’re here to talk about, is my third book. But it’s really the book that has my whole heart. And it talks about disabled parenting, which is the thing I care very much about.VirginiaI tore through this book. My copy is dog-eared every three pages, I think. It’s such a rich book. There’s so much in here. There’s so much for parents of all abilities—it just resonates in so many ways.Let’s start by having you talk a little bit about how you define disability. You have a very expansive definition, and I think more listeners may identify with it than they even realize.JessicaSo I have really thought a lot about the best definition for disability. And ultimately, I think everyone is better off if we don’t commit to a super firm delineation between disabled and not disabled. Because I think that delineation like ends up othering disabled people and further perpetuating stigma. And then I also think it puts a really inappropriate amount of pressure on non-disabled people that they should be sort of limitless and all powerful and show no weakness and hyper independent.My definition is, if you benefit from the disability rights or the disability justice movement, then you are disabled.It’s pretty easy to take that and say, “Well, everyone does.” Because anyone who pushes a stroller benefits from a curb cut or ramps, and additional time on testing is used for a lot of kids. So if you expand it too much, then everyone’s included. But I think that’s kind of fine! Having gone from someone who was not disabled to pretty disabled, I don’t feel threatened by having an inclusive and broad definition.VirginiaMore people in the club would not be a bad thing. It would actually make it easier to advocate for the changes we need.JessicaExactly, exactly.VirginiaThat’s super helpful, and I just want to encourage listeners who are new to conversations about disability rights to keep that broad framing in mind as we go, because so often, we do really silo off into “able-bodied” vs “disabled.” So I appreciate you grounding us there.JessicaEspecially for parents! When there’s this assumption that they’re not disabled and then therefore parenting shouldn’t be hard, or you shouldn’t be exhausted, or you shouldn’t need help, or you should be able to find the strength within yourself and the willpower to do all you need to do. I think that really particularly hurts parents.VirginiaI underlined this part of the book, where you wrote about your own journey towards claiming “disabled” as an identity:When my body shifted at 28 from one that could run work long hours and travel internationally to one that must mostly rest, I believed that I would go back to my old life once I solved the puzzle of my body. Until the hike in Greece during which I became disabled, I had the false belief that the life I wanted was a matter of sufficient effort and prudent decision making.I read that and thought, well, this is also really describing diet culture. Because an experience a lot of us have had around gaining weight is that if we just work hard enough and have healthy habits and make the right choices, we’ll lose it. We’ll get back to that level of thin privilege we once enjoyed.I’m just curious if that parallel resonates with you? Maybe it doesn’t at all! But wondering if you see this kind of diet culture driven mindset, does that show up elsewhere in our cultural attitudes around disability?JessicaYes, I very much relate to that. And have been following your work and Aubrey Gordon’s work for a while and other anti-diet activists.I think so much of the conversation overlaps. It’s a myth that there’s an ideal body, and pursuing this ideal body ends up hurting especially fat people and especially disabled people, but it hurts everyone to have this one type of body that we’re all trying to get, whether that’s based on size or ability.VirginiaIt just seems like it’s a mindset we apply to so many aspects of our life, too. We think, “Well, if I just do everything right, then I’m going to have this outcome and I’m going to achieve this goal or this ideal.” And so much of life is learning how often that’s just not the case.JessicaSo I became disabled, as you know, very suddenly in one day. But it was the onset of a genetic condition. In the years prior to being disabled, I exercised every day, or five to seven days a week. I was always trying to optimize my eating. I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ll have oatmeal, but then I also need to add chia seeds and then walnuts, and then blueberries, and then almond butter. Like, how can this be the very best bowl of oatmeal? And then should I add protein powder, too?” And then lunch, it was like, “Okay, well, definitely fish. Like, I need omega three, and then fruit and vegetables, and then some complex carbs.” I was just considering every meal I ate. And then I became disabled—so obviously, eating and exercising that way didn’t insulate me from that, right?VirginiaYeah, so fascinating. Because people think they’re making their bodies bulletproof.JessicaExactly that. Someone who ate like that should have been able to do anything.So after I became disabled it took a while to get a diagnosis. And then it took me years to accept that I was disabled and that I would always be sick. And during that time, I tried any sort of therapeutic diet that was recommended to me, like cutting out gluten and then dairy, or much more protein, or no sugar, or suddenly nightshades were the enemy, and all these iterations.As a hyper-achiever, I fully committed to each of these things. And then nothing helped. I mean, it’s not going to fix the makeup of my body to do those things. And I’ve now accepted the way my body is.But it’s funny now that I have a real acceptance of my body and a much more distant relationship with the food I eat, I would say I eat probably below average. I have a bowl of fiber cereal in the morning, and then I need a lot of food each day. My second breakfast is usually a bagel with butter, cream cheese, bacon on it. I also add cucumber as a nod to health.VirginiaA little cooling crunch. I get it.JessicaAnd then I have on my to do list every day “eat a vegetable,” which, if I compare that to the way I was before disabled, is hilarious. But I don’t know, this actually feels like a much healthier way to be, if you sort of shift the definition of health into humane. And without the delusion that my diet will solve everything, or really solve anything. Like I kind of just see it as like, all right, I eat as much as I need to, to give me energy. I mean, I also eat for pleasure. But my diet has shifted totally since becoming disabled, and I like it much better this way.VirginiaIt sounds like becoming disabled—I don’t want to oversimplify this—sort of gave you permission to prioritize pleasure with food more. And take up more space with that.JessicaYeah, and also not think about eating as, like, “I better not mess this up.”VirginiaYou talked a lot in the book about your struggles with perfectionism. There was a line I loved: “Becoming disabled dismantled something corrosive about my perfectionism.” That one resonates.JessicaRight? Exactly, exactly. And I think diet culture, as you talk about, has so much overlap with health culture, like wellness culture. That idea that you can do one last thing to optimize your life or your mornings or your days or your body.And you know, wellness culture wasn’t in full force—because I came I became disabled in 2011 and it was pre-Instagram, or very early Instagram. Something culturally was a little different then. But, oh my goodness, if I weren’t disabled now, I can only imagine how much I’d be cold plunging.VirginiaThat was the early days of Goop and Michael Pollan, and that sort of diet culture. Now we’re just like, “All of that times a million, please.”JessicaYes, right, right.VirginiaA major arc of the book is your own story of becoming a mom. One piece that I really want to talk about is how your experience of the early weeks of parenting was so much more joyful and less panicked than what many able-bodied parents experience—myself very much included.My first daughter was born with a congenital heart condition, so I was plunged into new parenting and into parenting a child with a disability, right off the bat in a pretty intense way. And when I was reading your experience, I was thinking, wow, there could have been so many moments of less struggle and less panic if I’d had the kind of preparation you’d had.JessicaI’m sorry, that sounds like a really hard way to be introduced to parenting.VirginiaIt was a cold plunge, for sure. She’s amazing. But it was a cold plunge.JessicaThat chapter really surprised me. I decided to interview a few disabled and a few non-disabled parents to try to see if there were different trends about the struggles of the first week. I expected disabled parents to describe more complicated recoveries from giving birth and that the difficulties would be maybe heightened, because there’s just a much greater chance of having the gestational parent hospitalized after birth, or to experience complications. And what I discovered in the first interviews is that every non-disabled person I interviewed talked about how becoming a parent was the time they went to war. I mean, it was just so much agony, even from friends I hadn’t realized how much agony they had been in. I thought so much about this, about why this is and, but it seems to be that almost across the board a uniquely challenging time is when you become a parent.But then, when I talked to the disabled people the first few interviews, they all said, “oh, it’s fine. It was fine.” And then I was like, well, how was your recovery? And one person said, well, I had preeclampsia after giving birth and I had really bad side effects and had to keep going to the hospital. Oh, and I had given birth to twins. Oh, and Child Protective Services visited—and they were describing all this stuff, but saying, “and that happened, but it was fine.”Disabled parents were like, no, it was fine. I knew we’d figure it out. And then the another disabled person I talked to, she was like, “Well, I do everything with only my mouth because of my disability, and I had someone coming to help me the first week, but they ended up backing out, so I had to recover from a c-section while caring for a child alone with only the use of my like mouth and neck muscles.” And she was like, “But we figured it out! It was a good bonding time!”VirginiaI mean that story! I was like, okay, okay.JessicaYes. I was like, what is happening here? But the thing is, it was true for me, too. I became a parent, and I remember talking to my therapist at the time, and I was like, “I think something’s wrong with me, because this is only good. I was like, where’s the anxiety? Should I have anxiety? Why don’t I have it?” Because I’m not a laid back person. And I just felt so preternaturally peaceful.So then I interviewed more non-disabled people and more disabled people and the trend continued with one exception. And at this point, I’ve interviewed about two dozen in each group, and it’s held steady.VirginiaWow.JessicaAnd I’ve thought a lot about it. The answer can’t be that everyone should just become disabled before having a kid. And it’s not like disabled people are better in some core way. So I’ve ended up coming down to these three explanations.One, becoming disabled or being disabled has so much overlap with becoming a parent. There’s a skill set that you develop as a disabled person in response to what it’s like to live day to day with a very, very needy body. What is it like to live day in, day out, with body-based problems that present themselves completely unpredictably, and with limited social resources to deal with them? There’s this problem solving and comfort that’s inherent with disability. And so when it comes to parenting the Venn diagram of skills is overlapped.VirginiaYou talked about sitting on the floor to make your bottles, or the woman who only used her mouth talked about the system she had in place to be able to make the bottles by the bed. There is so much creative problem solving.JessicaDr. Jessi Elana Aaron, who you were talking about, she had gotten her PhD and become a tenured professor, all with her disability. And so she had been practicing these incredible creative innovations for decades. So when it came to parenting, she wasn’t like, “Oh no, how do I use this body for the first time?” She’d been doing it for a long time in many contexts. So that’s one part.But then the other part is that I think becoming a parent, especially if you’re the one who is pregnant, is becoming disabled temporarily. And I think that is very, very challenging, if you live in a society, which we all do, where being disabled is a worst case scenario for a body. We are told that it is better to be dead than disabled. It’s understandable that someone might want to be dead instead of disabled. We’re reminded constantly that health is the ideal, and falling away from health is is to be avoided at all costs.Recovering from giving birth, I think, is a lot like becoming disabled. So suddenly you are living in a body that’s not safe in our world. And that that touches on something so primal. It’s like, How can I possibly survive with this new kind of body?And then I think babies are the ultimate disabled person. Because they’re so erratic and so needy. You know, we had a baby about a year ago, and I was noticing his breathing at the beginning. It was just like, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, and then sometimes he would not breathe for a bit, and I was having to pay attention to every sip of his bottle he took. It’s like you have this heightened attention to the to the way a body is working and the fragility of that tiny little body. It’s like, oh, my god, we’re all just fragile bodies and we could die.And I think if you are not disabled and aren’t having to confront our shared fragility on a regular basis, then that introduction to it is absolutely terrifying and destabilizing and harrowing.VirginiaAnd not only is an able-bodied parent experiencing disability for the first time—they’re experiencing this disability with the expectation that it has to be as temporary as possible, and that they have to get back to “normal” as fast as possible. There is so much pressure on us to get back to work as quickly as possible, to lose the baby weight, to start having sex with your husband again as soon as possible. This expectation of return to previous levels of whatever is just bananas, given what you’re actually going through.Whereas it sounds like, for you and for the folks who are interviewing, there is this understanding of Yes, it’s chaos. We’re just going to roll with this. We’re not trying to claw our way back to something.JessicaRight, and you know, for those of us who’ve been able to accept being disabled—which isn’t everyone, but it’s a lot of people—not returning to normal or having a changed physical experience, I think isn’t as scary. Like, we’ve done it. We were more acquainted with physical suffering and chronic physical suffering.There are these two studies that are relevant to this conversation. One of them I only learned about after finishing the book when I interviewed a UCLA doctor who works with a lot of disabled pregnant people. She was doing a study on recovery, and she had a disabled population and a non-disabled population. In recovery from labor and delivery, and she found that the rates of postpartum depression were much higher in the non-disabled group.So my interviews and my system are obviously not remotely scientific. I had no IRB approval. It was all snowball method of interviewing. But her study does reflect the same findings. And then there’s a Harvard study by Dr Lisa Iazzoni, who found that disabled people are checked for cancer less than non-disabled people, because it’s assumed that why bother treating us if we’re already disabled. But disabled people actually handle cancer better than non-disabled people. We navigate the medical system and handle the emotional fallout from cancer better. So she’s done this study, I guess, to try to convince doctors to treat disabled people for cancer, which is obviously depressing, but!VirginiaThey’ll do a good job with it! You should treat them. Also, it’s literally your job to do that.JessicaThey deserve to know.VirginiaCould you just do your job? Thanks!Okay, there is one more layer to this conversation that I want us to dig into: Something I frequently hear from parents, especially moms, who are struggling with whether to pursue intentional weight loss—maybe a doctor has told them they need to lose weight or again it’s that get your pre-baby body back pressure— is rhetoric like, “Well, I owe it to my kids to be healthy.” Or, “I just want to be able to run and play with my kids.” And I often struggle to explain why maybe that shouldn’t be the goal.It feels to me very much in line “all that matters is a healthy baby!” which is that thing that people will often say to pregnant folks. And as the parent of a kid who was not healthy when she was born, that fills me with a lot of rage.So, I would love us to talk about this idea of owing health, or “just” wanting to be healthy. Both are framed as so understandable, like everybody should feel that way—but they are actually quite problematic.JessicaBefore I answer, and maybe you’ve talked about this and I’ve missed it, but: Do you feel like a fear of fatness is a fear of mortality? Do you think those are bound up together?VirginiaI do, yes. Especially because of the way we pathologize fatness in our medical system. People experience a lot of fear-mongering around that from doctors, for sure.JessicaI think if you focus on thinness as the goal, you’re kind of secretly acting like if you can get thin, then you will never die. I think people kind of convince themselves that. But the fact is, there’s nothing we can do about our bodies being mortal.So this thing, “all that matters is the baby’s health.” One, it’s a lot of pressure on a parent and on a baby, because 20 percent of people are disabled. So it kind of sounds like they’ve all fucked up.And two, no physical body is ideal. No one actually measures up! Everybody has lots of needs, and lots of limitations.Our first kid had some asynchronous development and we found that milestone tracking brought us some heartache or some worry. So one thing that we have done with our second kid is we’ve actually totally, totally ignored milestones. We don’t have anything tracking milestones. And I think because we’re older and very tired, we don’t remember when anything should happen.VirginiaThat is such a gift of second child parenting!JessicaBut it’s been so funny, because we think our baby is hilarious now. Because we don’t know when anything’s supposed to happen. So one example is he started to take things out of a container, like any container, with a lot of intensity, and then he would put things back in the container with the same intensity. And so we started calling him like “our little businessman” or say, “he has to go to work!” And we were like, wow, he’s so organized. I guess he’ll be organized forever. And then we went to our one year old checkup, and the doctor said, “Now has he taken things out of a container and put things back?” We’re like, oh, this is just a milestone.VirginiaOh, this is just a thing babies do, okay. We thought it was a weird personality quirk.JessicaI think this is kind of wrapped up in the question, because I feel like in this one way, we’ve let go of “all that matters is his health.” We’re just like, who are you, little guy? And maybe it makes us slightly delusional, but it’s also much more fun to live this way. And he’s going to do what he’s gonna do. I think if he needs additional support, we’ll know. We are paying attention. We’re with him and we’ll get it.So I kind of wish we collectively could do that with more parts of our bodies. We could accept our bodies for how they are, and seek support to alleviate suffering. So not give up on ourselves, but not try to shoehorn our bodies into these completely unattainable ideals.Another thing I’ve been thinking about with this is before I knew that I had Ehlers Danlos Syndrome—I have a connective tissue disorder that causes a great deal of chronic pain, and it caused a secondary neurological condition in 2011. But before that point, I was in daily pain from the time I can remember knowing my body. Like my back and my neck and my arms and my legs and my hips, and I thought everyone else lived like that, and they were just a lot more chill than I was about it. I also thought I could do something to make my body stop hurting. I thought I just bought the wrong car. So I kept switching cars. I thought I needed a new mattress. I kept switching mattresses. I tried acupuncture, I did massage therapy. I thought I was like, one decision or one action away from not living in a body that hurts.And then when I found out I have this genetic condition that will cause pain the rest of my life, I first grieved. But it is much better to give up on thinking I can escape this pain. It doesn’t mean I don’t try to ease my own suffering. Like I have a heat pack on my back right now as we talk, and I have ice packs on my back as we talk. And I did switch mattresses last year because my old one was causing pain, and I could afford to switch mattresses, and the new one is better. So I still care for my body, but I’m not trying to fix it. I’m trying to just care for my body that will hurt every day of my life.VirginiaThat is such a helpful distinction—caring for your body versus fixing it. And also this idea of alleviating sufferingversus having a moral obligation, or a responsibility to others, to achieve health.I mean, when people say, well, I owe it to my kids to be healthy, it’s this idea that somehow “I’ll be a less capable mother or a less capable parent if I can’t get my cholesterol down, or if my diabetes isn’t managed,” or whatever it is.JessicaI mean, I think we’re kind of bad at knowing what will make us a good parent, right? I’m a very good parent, and I do almost nothing. Like I’m in bed or my wheelchair all of the time, but I’m a very involved parent. I’m a really patient parent. I’m able to be with my kids and tolerate the boredom of children, because I tolerate the boredom of a disabled life. I’ve been practicing being bored for so long.VirginiaThat sounds useful.JessicaYeah, and kids are so supremely boring. I’m really good at that now, and I don’t know, I just think we’re kind of bad at knowing what will make a good parent. People are like, well, I just need to run with my children. They always use that example. And I’m like, I don’t know. I mean, do you? I ride with my children on my lap, in my wheelchair and they really like that, too.VirginiaMoms will often say, like, “I can’t use the playground equipment.” It’s like, well, why aren’t we building playground equipment better? Also, it’s maybe fine you can’t sit on a child’s swing. Like, do you need to? I don’t want to.Manu Vega, Getty ImagesJessicaAnd what a narrow view of “good parenting,” if you have to be able to sit on a swing to be a good parent?VirginiaYes, yes, yes.I think again, it just ties back to everything we’ve been talking about. This pressure that’s on us, this way that health is a performance. And you’ve touched on this a little bit, but we’ll just maybe take it one beat further to help people distill it more. Like, okay, I want to unpack my ableism, but I’m still going to vaccinate my kids. Or, like you said yourself, you still have a daily goal to eat a vegetable.So there are still things we do that are health-oriented or health-promoting behaviors, even if we’re trying to let go of the idea that we are obligated to be healthy or that healthy is “better.”JessicaYeah. And what will it achieve us? I think keeping a steady stream of produce in my body is probably going to ease my suffering. I think it is a thing I want to do and I think it’s a really kind of achievable goal.VirginiaMost days.JessicaWell the cucumber on the bagel, I’ve done it actually.VirginiaYou’ve achieved it!JessicaI think if we keep our expectations reasonable about what we will get from those choices, that’s caring for ourselves and that’s more sustainable and kinder and healthier, too.VirginiaAnd something like vaccines obviously alleviate suffering.JessicaAnd it’s social responsibility! We’re very pro-vaccine because it alleviates our suffering and the suffering of other people.VirginiaI really loved the scene at your daughter’s birthday party, where you talked about when she needed a break from the party, and she had the little finger signal, and that you could just roll away with her on your chair and give her this break. That level of attuned, present parenting is something that I think a lot of us are striving for on our best days. So it’s really inspiring and fun to read about the way you are able to create those moments of connection.JessicaThank you. That means a lot.VirginiaAnything else about the book we didn’t touch on that you want to make sure we get to before we wrap up?JessicaI wrote this book primarily for or initially for disabled parents, because we’re so excluded from conversations, and I wanted there to be a place where we’re talked about and celebrated. But in writing it, I became convinced that I think it’s a book that all parents would really get something from. Disabled experiences and disabled wisdom is worth talking about, even if you’re not disabled. Not just, “you should buy my book,” but I really think we shouldn’t have this assumption that we should ignore disabled things. One, the line between disabled and not is pretty thin. And two, as long as you don’t die very suddenly, at some point everyone does become disabled. It’s a topic worth considering for all bodies and minds.VirginiaI’ll also add, for anyone who’s parenting kids with disabilities or neurodivergent kids, or just, in any way a part of a family that does not match the ideal health performance, perfect nuclear family myth that we’re sold—There is so much to learn from folks who have had these different experiences and found different ways through and I think the disability piece of it is just a huge, huge part of the conversation.---ButterJessicaSo you had told me that ahead of time, and I was positive that I was going to say these new Birkenstocks I bought.VirginiaI love that.JessicaThey’re called Reykjavik, and the thing I love about them is they have so much rubber on the sole. And it makes absolutely no sense, because the top of them has like normal holes and is suede.VirginiaOh, they’re cute.JessicaThank you for saying they’re cute. My whole family thinks they’re horrifying.VirginiaThey’re ugly cute the way Birkenstocks are ugly cute. I will admit they’ve leveled up from the basic Birkenstock, but I think they’re pretty cool. I mean, I like an ugly clunky shoe.JessicaWe were trying to discuss what situation you would need that much rubber on the bottom, but really no protection on the top.VirginiaDecorative rubber at best.JessicaAnd then my husband was like, “And you’re in a wheelchair, there’s zero situation that you would need that.”But then I actually, can I say one more? My husband grew up in Manhattan, then lived in Brooklyn, then we met in San Francisco. He’s this, like erudite philosophy major. Literally, while he was cooking dinner yesterday, he was reading a history of Western philosophy. He’s just this man. And then inexplicably, he has become completely obsessed with the 2021 Matilda musical.VirginiaOh, it’s so good!!JessicaOkay, he’s obsessed. He listens to it on his headphones nonstop. Last night, before we did anything else, he was like, can we just sit together and watch a YouTube video of the song “Naughty?” And then he’s like, tearing up watching it.VirginiaIt’s so good. This is the one with Emma Thompson as The Trunchbull, right?JessicaYes. Okay, I’ll tell him you said that. And so I just am delighted. My Butter is my husband liking Matilda very, very, very much.VirginiaIt’s such a good production, and it has been very popular in my house with my kids. We actually saw the theater version of it when we were in London last summer, which was delightful. Because, I mean, man, those little British kids can dance. It was such a good performance. We’re obsessed with the soundtrack. We play it all the time.And I will also say, because on Burnt Toast, we do track for examples of fat stereotypes: I do think that the way the Miss Trunchbull character is written in the book is not great. There’s a lot of fatphobia in Roald Dahl books in general. I mean, he was not a great person.But I loved Emma Thompson’s performance of it. They did pad her, but I wouldn’t say it’s a fat suit. I would say it’s more like they’re making her cartoonishly big and muscular. And then the scene where Bruce has to eat the chocolate cake—all the kids are cheering for him. And you can read it as very empowering. Like, look at this kid who can eat a whole cake to stand up to the bully! I found it a very pro-cake scene. It is not always played that way, but in the movie, I think it is.JessicaWell, even better.VirginiaMy kids and I had a whole conversation about it. We decided that it’s a cake positive, body positive interpretation of the text.JessicaI’m so glad.VirginiaOh, this was so much fun. Thank you, Jessica, for taking the time with us. I really appreciate it. Tell folks where they can find you and how we can support your work.JessicaSo you can buy Unfit Parent anywhere you buy books. And there are also links on my website, Jessicaslice.com. I’m on Instagram @JessicaSlice, I have a Substack where I send monthly notes about Disabled Parenting, and then usually try to get people to read whatever poem I’m fixated on that month.---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

When fat influencers get...even thinner.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your April Extra Butter.Today we’re talking about plus size influencers getting weight loss surgery. We’ll get into:⭐️ Is this the start of the Ozempic backlash?⭐️ How much do public figures owe their audiences?⭐️ How to hold space for body autonomy with weight loss journeys.This is a complicated conversation! To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.Extra Butters also get exclusive weekly chats, DM access, and a monthly bonus essay or thread. And Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism. Join us here!PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription.PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!Episode 189 TranscriptEPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

On writing for the female gaze, with Jasmine GuilloryYou are listening to Burnt Toast!Today, my guest is the brilliant Jasmine Guillory.Jasmine is a New York Times-bestselling author of nine novels, including The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and her brand new book Flirting Lessons.This is an absolutely delightful conversation. Jasmine and I get into why she is publishing her first queer romance. We talk a lot about fat rep in romance novels, and we also talk about gardening. It’s so much fun!You can order Flirting Lessons through the Burnt Toast Bookshop. Don’t forget, you can always take 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk from Split Rock Books! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Episode 188 TranscriptVirginiaWe are here to talk about Flirting Lessons. I completely inhaled it on vacation last month. It is such a treat. I was already a Noble Vineyards fan, so getting to follow these characters was really fun. But this book is also exciting because it is your first queer romance!JasmineIt is. I’m very excited about it! I hope people like it.VirginiaTell us how this came to be.JasmineI have been wanting to write a queer romance for a while. But my publishing schedule was kind of set. I had other books planned, so I didn’t quite get to this one as soon as I wanted to. But Avery and Taylor were both characters in my last book, Drunk On Love, and as soon as I wrote them, I was like, oh yeah, these two. So it was really fun to get to write their book.I also took a little break in between books because I was just very burnt out. During the pandemic, I wrote three books back-to-back-to-back, and then had the idea for this book and tried to start writing it, and was like, oh, no, I can’t. I have no ideas. I am empty.Once I got excited about writing again, it was really fun to come back to Avery and Taylor. I was really excited about them, and to get to write a fun, happy story of them out in the world, exploring each other and learning new things. We had a lot of fun with it.VirginiaYou have a job that I think most people would think sounds like the most fun job in the world. But as a fellow writer—although I don’t get to write romance—writing burnout is real. So I’m glad you were able to take time and take care of that, because it becomes really not fun really fast.JasmineIt was really helpful that I have a very supportive publishing team. Many years ago, actually, I was talking to my editor, I asked her a question about one of her other writers and when her next book was coming out. And she was like, “Oh, it’s not coming for a while. She needs to take a break. She was really burnt out.” And then she said to me, “If this ever happens to you, don’t worry. Just let me know. You take your break whenever you need to.” And she told me this five or six years before it happened to me. But it was so nice that I didn’t have to really worry, “will my editor be mad at me?” I’m blowing my deadlines, whatever.It was funny, because right before I realized I needed a break, I had a conversation with my agent, and I don’t even remember what I said exactly. And I said something about publishing or trying to write. And she was like, “Pkay, that’s it. You need a break. You’re not allowed to try anything, like write anything, for at least another month. And then we’ll talk.” And I was like, oh, okay. I think I needed someone to just tell me.And it was great, because once I started getting excited about writing again, then it was fun again. When it wasn’t fun was when I was trying to push through it.VirginiaI love that. I’m so glad you have people you’re working with who see that and get that. We need more of that.It sounds like you’d been thinking about this book for a while. Was there any pushback or questions, or anything from your team when you were like, “It’s going to be Taylor and Avery? We’re doing a queer romance this time.”JasmineNo, not at all. They were really excited. They were like, okay, great. What’s their story? What are we going to do? So that was really good. It helped I think that I’ve had a number of the people on my publishing team have been the same people for a long time, so I wasn’t really worried about that. But it was nice that nobody blinked.VirginiaI think it speaks to how romance in general has just—and you’ve been a huge part of this—as a genre, it has exploded in so many wonderful, inclusive directions in the last decade. There was always an audience for queer romance, but now the the industry knows there’s an audience for queer romance.JasmineExactly right. As with so many of the other kinds of diversity that have gotten good sales over the past 10 years: There was always an audience for those things. It took publishers a while to figure that out.VirginiaThey had to keep seeing the math.Of course, I want to talk about Taylor Cameron. She stood out to me in Drunk On Love, as such a fun, fantastic character. And I just love how you write her. She is introduced to us as this insanely hot person. She’s an incredible flirt. Everybody in Napa Valley wants to sleep with her. And she’s fat.You kind of casually work that in. There’s a moment where they’re at a spa and she’s like, “Oh, yeah, I can’t ever wear the women’s robes. I’ve got to go walk around naked till they realize they need to get me a better robe.” And it’s unapologetic. It’s just part of who she is. It’s not a plot point. It’s not something that needs defending. I’d just love to hear you talk about how you think about that, as you’re thinking of characters.JasmineI think there were a few things. I mean, first of all, I love reading books where there are fat women who don’t care about being fat, right? Too often, it’s like, oh, I have to worry about this or I’m trying to lose weight, or whatever. And that’s not everybody. That’s not who I see out in the world. I see so many unapologetic fat women who have great relationships and everybody likes them and everybody cares about them and I wanted to represent people like that in fiction.I think Taylor very much knows herself, knows her body, knows how she is attractive to other people. And I also think that the queer community tends to be—well, women in general tend to be much—I don’t want to say better, but that’s part of it—about accepting other kinds of body sizes and shapes and finding them exciting and attractive. And so that was another fun thing to explore.VirginiaI think that’s so needed. There are a lot of examples, as you said, of the apologetic fat character. Who is often written by straight sized folks who just haven’t lived this experience. They can’t imagine it not being something that people would feel the need to define themselves by or apologize for and all of that. It’s just always a delight to get a book and be like, okay, it’s going to be a different version of that here. It’s a safer reading experience, I think, for a lot of folks.JasmineIn so many books there’s a moment where you’re like, oh, I didn’t expect that little hit to the ego. And I never want people to have that experience when reading my books. I mean, I don’t want me to have that experience when reading any books! And so I try to think about that and pay attention to that.VirginiaIt’s always disappointing.Obviously, across romance, I think we’re making some pretty good progress on fat rep. I think again, you were a real trailblazer on this, and there are a lot of other wonderful authors doing it now. But it’s still by no means a given. Where do you think the industry is on this? Where are you still running into brick walls?JasmineI think some of the brick walls just come from, at least for me, not my editor, my publisher, like my agent, they’re all great. Sometimes it’s retailers, right? If there’s a book with a fat woman on the cover, will they want to put it front and center? Or will, will they want to stock it at all? Sometimes it’s in the right cover design. Sometimes retailers will come back when there’s a cover and be like, we don’t love it. And if it’s a big enough retailer, you have to fix the cover or change the cover. And so sometimes it’s that they don’t want a woman who looks like that on the cover or they don’t want someone with too dark of skin on the cover, or anything like that.And then some of it is readers, sometimes. It’s retailers thinking that readers will think this, and sometimes it’s readers actually thinking this. You’ll see it in reviews, which I tried to avoid reading. But yeah, sometimes they get slapped in your face. Like, “well, would someone with a body like that really think about that though? Like, I don’t know if someone would really find her attractive.” That happens all the time. That’s some of the pushback that you get.VirginiaYeah, the reader response is really interesting. I had Nisha Sharma on the podcast last year. And she was talking about how sometimes at book events, readers will say, like, I didn’t think this book was for me, because, either because they’re thin or because they’re white. And she’s like, well, you read books about serial killers, but you’re not a serial killer.JasmineRight? You read books about dukes in 19th century England, but you’re not a duke.VirginiaLike, you managed to make those leaps, why is this a hard? It’s fascinating that this comes up.JasmineI think it’s fascinating, but also so anti-my experience, because I grew up reading all sorts of books that had nothing to do with me. I don’t think about having to relate to the main character.VirginiaYou’re not reading in front of the mirror when you read a book.JasmineI guess, if you grow up reading books where the characters look like you, and have specific experiences that you do, you think about books in that way. It has never been anything that I had have ever thought about.VirginiaYeah, and it’s limiting. I mean, it just is. Of course, it’s powerful to see ourselves reflected in books. That’s why representation matters. But it shouldn’t be just this one default experience all the time.JasmineYeah, some people have very strong preferences for point of view in books, which I just don’t care about at all. But I’ve seen people say that they prefer first person because they like to envision themselves as the character, which is never anything that I would have thought of. But I think so many people are just used to reading books where they can do that.VirginiaWhat do you hear from readers for whom your books are offering them representation for the first time?JasmineThat has been one of the most rewarding things. I’m going on book tour next month. And in many cases, book tours are exhausting because it’s like so much travel and going from place to place and airplanes and events and stuff. But the actual events just fill me up because I have so many readers who say, “I see myself represented here, I see my relationships, I see my family in ways that I haven’t seen in other books or that I didn’t expect to see.” Things like that from readers really just keep me going. It just does feel really wonderful to hear that and to and also to feel like something that I have written resonates with other people in that way. It really just makes such a big difference to me to hear that.VirginiaYou’re showing people different possibilities sometimes. Another thing Nisha mentioned was hearing from fat readers saying, “I didn’t know a fat person could have sex that way.” And like, it devastates me that someone would become a fully formed adult, not have had that get clear to them that that’s possible. But that’s why the power of fat bodies in positive, joyful sex scenes, is really important.JasmineAbsolutely, I totally agree. And being able to think, “there are people who find that kind of a body attractive, maybe they will find me attractive, too,” I think is really incredible, especially for maybe younger readers. I’m not talking about teenagers, well maybe teenagers, but people in their 20s maybe who have only ever seen a certain body type reflected in this is who is attractive. And I think one of the delightful things about romance novels and especially queer romance novels about women, is that I am writing to the female gaze here. It’s women appreciating women, which is very fun to write and it’s very fun to read.VirginiaWas it different writing the sex scenes for this book, compared to past novels?JasmineYes and no. I think the most fun part of writing sex scenes, for me, is always writing about female pleasure. So it was just like a lot more of that.VirginiaIt’s now doubled, literally, twice as much female pleasure. I mean, that is what is so wonderful about your work is how much it centers female pleasure.JasmineThank you so much. I really appreciate that.VirginiaI checked in with podcast listeners to see if folks had questions for you, and one that actually came up more than once was okay, the book is called Flirting Lessons. Can Jasmine give us a flirting lesson?JasmineThere are a few things that Taylor tells Avery early on. But I think one of the things that I had her keep emphasizing is: You want this to be fun for you, too. Only flirt with people who you find attractive, who you want to flirt with. And if it’s not fun for you, then you can stop. This isn’t something that you have to do. One of the things about flirting is that it should be fun and exciting. And if you’re not getting that back, then you move on to the next person. There are lots of people who you can flirt with, and that’s okay. And I think that’s something that people think too much about. Like, is the other person enjoying this and not am I enjoying this?VirginiaYes! Because as women, that’s what we’re conditioned to think: Am I doing what he wants (or they want) as opposed to centering our own pleasure?JasmineYes. One of the things about flirting is you have to be willing to put yourself out there. You want people to know that you are flirting with them, and that feels scary because you’re setting yourself up for rejection. Like, what if this person is like, oh, I don’t want to flirt with her. Okay, then you move on. But I think that is kind of one of the barriers to get over is like, you you have to let yourself be open to that, and then if it’s not good, then you just move on.VirginiaYeah, because if it’s not good, it won’t be fun for you.For folks who haven’t read the book yet, Taylor has many excellent flirting tips. Like, the whole book is her taking Avery on these flirting lessons where they go out in the world. Especially in this era of mostly online dating, I was just so nervous for Avery.I should say, Jasmine, I am divorced after an almost-25-year relationship. So my experience of dating in my 40s has been mostly really great—but I really felt for Avery in that panic of, I’m really going to go out there? I have to talk to people. What?JasmineYeah, because it is scary, right? I think that was one of the fun things about writing this book as we are coming out of a period where we were all shut in and not really talking, not encountering people out in the world, was to think about where would they go? What would they do? What are situations where you’re just meeting new people? And I think one of the things is having things already built in to talk about. Like the first flirting lesson that they go on—minor spoiler—is at a bookstore for a book event. And like, you have something to talk about. You’re there at a bookstore, you can talk about books. You can talk about the author that you’re there to see. You could talk about what other books have you read? And so that helps us, we already have a built in topic that I can talk to a stranger about and then maybe it’ll go from there. And thinking about things like that was really fun for me. How it’s a slightly safe setup for for them to start with that and then kind of keep going.VirginiaA lot of the advice was about making friends as well. It’s not just, would I want to sleep with this person? It’s about being open to all kinds of relationships. And that was really beautiful. I really enjoyed that theme.JasmineYeah, absolutely. I hear a lot of people ask you the questions, like, how do you make friends as an adult? And I think the the answers are the same, right? You have to be willing to put yourself out there. You have to be willing to say to someone who is basically a stranger, like, do you want to get coffee sometime? Or, we talked about that cool bar, do you want to meet there for a drink sometime? And I think that’s hard and scary for people, but that’s how I’ve made some of my closest friendships.ButterJasmineIt is springtime or getting close to and I’m getting slightly obsessed with planning my garden. I, as Avery does in the book, like, learned to garden. And I have been lightly obsessed with planting for years. And then a few years ago, I bought a house. And then now have a very small amount of things to plant, and have started planting as much as possible in all of that. So I have six new rose bushes ready to be planted in space that I don’t have. And I have been planting lots of herbs and some sugar snap peas. There’s a great book that came out last year, I think it just came out in paperback called Soil. It’s by a Black woman and it’s about planting and gardening and the history of doing that. And it was very fun to read, and it’s very fun to like think about at a time like this.VirginiaI am a hardcore gardener as well, and also regularly have more plants than I have space for. That’s a deeply relatable problem.JasmineI’ve been inspired by you, actually, because was it last year that you only planted flowers? And I planted a bunch of roses, but not a lot of other flowers, and this year I want to plant more flowers.VirginiaI strongly encourag that. We really underestimate the absolute necessity of growing beautiful flowers. Like, it’s an essential in my mind.Interestingly, now there’s some pushback in my household that we should maybe get back to doing some more food, and I’m like, should we? Where’s that going to go? Because I really need all the space for the dahlias. I don’t know what to tell you. We’re trying to carve out different areas so it can be a little more of a mix. But it’s so satisfying and fun. That’s a great Butter.Anything else you want to recommend?JasmineI have read a few great books recently. I read the upcoming novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere. It’s about two women in the space program in the 80s. It is so good. I loved it. It was one of those I read in a day. I mean, I was on vacation, so I could do that. But I loved it so much.I’m reading. Alexis Daria’s newest one right now, It’s called, Along Came Amor, it’s so good. It’s about the oldest cousin in the family—which, I am from a big family and a lot of the family stuff in it I really related to, and also I am the oldest sister and my mom is also the oldest sister. So, a lot of that kind of stuff, I related to and I loved the characters. So those are two of the most recent books that I’ve read that I really loved.I’m in the midst of Kennedy Ryan’s upcoming book, which is just lovely. It’s called, Can’t Get Enough. I’m in the middle of that and it’s, I mean, her writing is just so beautiful all the time. It’s great to kind of linger in.VirginiaThose are such good recs. I’m adding all of them to my to be read pile, which is, of course, a never ending list.I’m going to do two book recs as well. One is Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London.JasmineOh, I love Kate. I haven’t read this one yet, but I need to get to it, because everybody’s told me it’s so good.VirginiaIt’s so delightful, especially if you are a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan or a Twilight fan, or were ever in the vampire genre. It’s a romance, but it’s a whole, delightful experience. It’s someone who’s a fan of vampire novels who ends up inside a vampire novel, etc. It’s great. It was really, really fun read.And then the other one I just finished, actually, on audiobook. My podcast cohostCorinne Fayrecommended this a few weeks ago, but I’m just going to second Corinne’s endorsement ofThe Safekeepby Yael van der Wouden. I’m probably mispronouncing that. I’m so sorry. It is an erotic story of love and obsession in 1960s Amsterdam.JasmineSomeone else told me about this book. I’ve heard about this book from a few other writers, and I need to really read it.VirginiaCorinne didn’t want to say too much about it, and now I understand why. There’s a lot of twists, so I don’t want to say too much, but it does center a queer romance, which is really fascinating in that time and place. It also has a lot to do with post World War II Europe. I was totally absorbed in it. I had a long road trip this weekend and just kept being like, when am I back in my car so I can listen to that book some more?JasmineOkay. I need to get to it.VirginiaWell, Jasmine, this was so much fun. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with us. I am such a fan of your work. All of your novels are must reads. And I want folks to check out Flirting Lessons. So tell us where to find you, how we support your work, all those things.JasmineI’m on Instagram at JasminePics. My website is Jasmineguillory.com and on the events page, you can find links to all of my upcoming book tour events and doing a bunch on the Eastern seaboard and then in the Midwest, and then the West coast. So hopefully I will be coming to a city near you, and you’ll be able to come out.---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

All the feelings about a work-in-progress relationship with social media and screens.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your April Indulgence Gospel! These episodes are usually only for paid subscribers but we’re releasing this one for free! If you like it, you can get even more Virginia by becoming a paid Burnt Toast subscriber.There has been so much conversation in online spaces over the past few months about divesting from social media. Folks are dropping X, Facebook, Instagram as a form of protest against billionaire tech bros like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And a lot of us are also feeling the need to doom scroll less as a form of self care. Plus, when Tiktok drops a new Chubby filter, it doesn’t really make us want to be there. So today we’re chatting about how we’re both feeling about social media. What are we divesting from? How’s it going? And does any of this feel like a diet?PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! This transcript does contain affiliate links; shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 187 TranscriptCorinneWell, you’ve really been a leader in this field.VirginiaA pioneer, would we say?CorinneYou’ve been a pioneer in the field of quitting Instagram.VirginiaSince December? I feel I cannot really claim pioneer status for something I’ve been doing for three months! But let’s start at the beginning.What was your starting point in feeling like you wanted to start reevaluating your relationship with social media?CorinneWell, to be honest, I don’t know. I still feel mixed about it. We maybe should start by acknowledging that the “quitting Instagram” conversation just feels like it’s been going on forever.VirginiaForever!CorinneIt feels like it has been years of people being like, “I’m so tired of Instagram blah, blah, blah.” And I’m someone who has always sort of felt like, “whatever, it’s fine.” I don’t necessarily feel like I go down an Instagram rabbit hole and then feel terrible about myself. Maybe in some specific circumstances.So maybe for me, it started with our screen time episode.VirginiaWhere we looked at how much time we were spending on our phones. That was a hard day for both of us.CorinneI saw some stat recently that was like, if you spend two hours a day on Instagram, at the end of your life, you will have spent 10 years on Instagram. And that felt a little bleak.VirginiaOkay, I don’t love that.CorinneYeah, I didn’t love it. But there are also things I enjoy about Instagram. I do have a lot of friends and community there. SoI thought, well, why don’t I just delete it for the weekend?VirginiaAnd that’s what you’ve started with.CorinneAnd that’s what I’ve started with.What about you? What was your starting point?VirginiaMine was a little bit of a whim. I’ve been trying different things for a few years now to manage my relationship with Instagram specifically and with my phone more generally. And some of that was realizing that as a business strategy, it was not serving me to keep putting a lot of time into making reels and elaborate content for Instagram. Instagram is so siloed. It wasn’t translating to people coming over and finding Burnt Toast and the podcast. Maybe a handful of people do every week. But it’s not our main driver, and never has been.So once I connected those dotes, I had to ask: Why am I spending an hour+ per day making content, for free, for this evil billionaire-led corporation? It didn’t feel right to me. So I’ve been scaling back and scaling back. But then it was really a total whim that in December, right as my kids’ winter break was starting, I was just like, you know what? I’m going to just fully delete it while my kids are off school. It’s the holidays, and I want to be able to focus on that.And I will say, that was the first time I’d ever deleted it. I’ve often, in the past, on vacation, logged out or taken it off my home screen or taken a two week break, or a one week break, just by hiding it in my phone somewhere. But I always knew the tricks to find it again. So if I wanted to get back on I could. And this time, I was like, nope, it is not on my phone anymore. And that felt really huge.And then. I really did not miss it at all. I really loved not having it in my space over the holidays in particular. And while I would agree with you that I’m also not someone who was spending a lot of time looking at beauty influencers and feeling bad about my skin or whatever, it turns out that I was getting locked into a comparison trap I didn’t even recognize. Especially around the holidays when a lot of people are posting their perfect family photos—I realized I enjoyed my own Christmas much more when I wasn’t comparing the messy reality of my family navigating the holidays with what people are curating for social media.CorinneTotally. That makes a lot of sense.VirginiaI hadn’t even realized how much that bummed me out! But I was like, oh, I don’t want to see people’s Happy Family photos! Which makes me feel like a jerk, but it’s where I was.CorinneI think that’s very honest, and good to be aware of.VirginiaSo that was an interesting data point. And then after the holidays, I really was not dying to get it back on my phone, but I felt like I needed to bring it back for work. So here’s what I’m doing now: A couple of times a week, when we have a new podcast episode or new newsletter to promote, I’m logging on. I’m putting some stuff in stories. I’m spending a little bit of time responding to DMs. And then I delete it again until the next time I need to do that. So I’m really only downloading it like three or four times a week for an hour or two at a time.CorinneWow, that’s awesome.VirginiaYeah, it’s a big change.What have you noticed about not having it during the weekends?CorinneI think I’ve done it for three weekends, so hasn’t been super long. The first weekend, I was still looking for Instagram on my phone all the time. And then the second weekend, I think I actually forgot to delete it and just didn’t look at it.VirginiaInteresting.CorinneOne thing I’ve noticed is, I think we’re in a day and age where a lot of useful information is on Instagram. I was trying to look up whether something was open.VirginiaOh, like local businesses.CorinneAnd the only thing I actually trust would be Instagram. But you can still kind of use it in the web browser app.VirginiaYes, and it’s not at all addictive there because it’s so bad. You can quickly look something up if you need to. That’s how I’ve been using it for podcast episode research or story research is strictly web browser. Yeah, the local business thing. I definitely hear you on that.CorinneI’ve also noticed how quickly I can just use something else the same way. Like Substack notes have kind of turned into a similar thing. Or I also used to be really into playing Candy Crush, and so I’ve gotten a little bit back into Candy Crush as a zone out phone thing.VirginiaBecause you still need the dopamine hit and the “I’m going to just check out for a minute and do something mindless on my phone” break.So when I went on vacation in February, I deleted Instagram, I deleted Substack, which felt terrifying because that’s my lifeline to my whole business, and I deleted my email off my phone, which felt even more terrifying. But was actually great. And I had the privilege of saying to Corinne, “If something explodes with Burnt Toast while I’m away, please text me.” And I would do the same for you. So it’s nice we have that option.But now on the weekends, I’m trying to remember to delete all three of them to cut down a little bit on that mindlessly-looking-at-my-phone thing. I would so much rather be reading a book if I’m going do something where I just need a brain break. I would rather be reading a feminist romance novel than scrolling an app! It’s going to be more relaxing for me. I know this—but I have not yet broken the pickup phone check. I have not broken the muscle memory of that and I don’t know how we do that.see the shape of my phone out of the corner of my eye sometimes it’s distracting, you know?VirginiaI’m also such a power texter. And I do love texting for the connections it brings me. I don’t live with another adult and my kids are amazing, but I need adult conversation. Texting helps me feel like a part of my community. So that means I’m looking at my phone more for texting. And then once you’re texting, it’s like, oh, let me just check… And so I’m really on top of my New York Times word games. I’ll often find myself mindlessly doodling around my phone being like, wait, I’m not doing anything because there’s nothing here.So I don’t know if that just fades eventually, or if I need, we need to do something more concrete to break that cycle.Have you ever tried the brick?CorinneNo, but I’ve been hearing about that. I’ve been hearing a lot about the brick, and also this app Opal, that similarly blocks certain stuff on your phone.VirginiaI bought a brick maybe a year ago, and I did use it for a little bit. I was totally like, “This is going to be my Butter on the next podcast episode because it’s changing my life!” And then I put it down and never used it again.CorinneThat’s so funny.VirginiaBut as we’re talking I’m like, should I try it again? Maybe it would turn my phone into a texting only vehicle.CorinneI’ve heard about people using it so as you go out the door on the way to work, you tap it and then it blocks stuff while you’re at work. But as a person who works from home, it doesn’t feel like that makes as much sense for me.VirginiaYou would just get up and go get the brick when you wanted to break into your phone, right? That’s what was happening to me.CorinneAnd I feel like it’s more like, I want to block stuff on my phone when I’m at home.VirginiaI’m like, should I brick everything except text messages over the weekend? It’s something to play around with, maybe. Except, like, Google Maps or something, the essential things. Like, can you make your phone as unfun as possible?CorinneThere are also now all those smartphone alternatives. I think there’s one called, Wisephone where they have the basics, but they just try to make it not fun. I think they’re black and white and don’t have social media apps, but still have phone calls, maps, texting stuff.VirginiaHave you noticed any differences in terms of how you’re feeling about your body just because you’re less on Instagram and Tiktok?CorinneTo be honest, I haven’t noticed. I feel like my body stuff is more influenced by real life and discomfort in the actual world.I guess I do notice on Tiktok especially, that there is just a lot of filtering, I guess. Both skin and body stuff. Right now, there is a lot of talk about the new AI chubby filter, where you can use this certain filter and it makes you into a chubby person.VirginiaI want to know what it would do to actual fat people. (Spoiler: Not much!!!)CorinneYeah, I have seen fat people using it. It does not do a lot.But the thing I’ll say about it is: It’s Disney chubby. It makes you into a cute cartoon fat person. Like chubby arms, but they’re smooth and you still have a waist. And then I also was realizing Tiktok has this app called CapCut that is a video editing app, and there are so many things you can do to your body. There are little things you can click like “square shoulders” or “shrink in waist,” just all these tiny little edits that you can totally mess with your your body.VirginiaI mean, it’s not hard to see the potential for harm there is from that. Like, if you are uploading content of yourself and using these filters to digitally alter as much about yourself as possible, it is going to create a major disconnect with how you feel about your actual body.I don’t use CapCut. But when I am editing photos, I use A Color Story, which is a photo editing app. I mostly doing it to brighten up a photo that didn’t have good lighting, or cropping it to fit into how I want it to look on Substack or something. But I do brighten, and I sometimes use a filter that makes the photo look higher quality. But of course, in doing that, it also is smoothing out my skin, or making me look a little more tan, that kind of thing. And there are times when I then look at an actual mirror and I’m like, oh, wait, I don’t have the Color Story “Welcome Home” filter on me. I am less glowy in real life. And it is weird. And that’s like, such a mild use of it.CorinneTotally. When you’re recording TikTok videos, I think maybe the default is to have some kind of beauty filter on that like smooths out your skin.VirginiaOh god! So wild! Do you ever use filters when you make Tiktok content?CorinneI think I have unknowingly in that way where it’s just the default.VirginiaI’ve been coerced into it.CorinneYeah, not that I’ve looked at my face and been like, dang, put something on there. But I’ve also played around with some of the like, makeup-y filters, and usually I hate the way they make me look.I recently posted a TikTok where I was like, Does this not work on me because I’m fat or because I’m gay? I just don’t like how it makes me look. So, yeah, I think I’m maybe like, less susceptible. But I mean, it’s really strange. It’s just weird.VirginiaIt is really weird! We will link to Elise Hu, who was on the podcast a while back, talking about her book about Korean beauty culture. She has a greatTED talk she did recently about digital beauty standards and how they are messing with all of us, and particularly teenagers. It is a grim piece of this.CorinneThe other thing I think about a lot with this is plastic surgery. Because the filters are one thing. But then I also think there’s just a lot of really popular people who are doing a lot of stuff to their face.VirginiaIt’s just like intentional weight loss. It’s a necessary survival strategy in a capitalist society for a lot of people, a lot of job descriptions hinge on it. So it’s there. And it also then has these ripple effects, of the more we look at those images, the more our brains normalize to those images, and the more we expect out of ourselves and others, and that way danger lies.CorinneRight? And it’s one thing to like be doing that and disclosing it, and then it’s another thing to not be.VirginiaTotally.Are you deleting Tiktok as well on the weekends? Or just Instagram?CorinneI have been deleting Tiktok as well. Tiktok is way more of a problem for me. I have this thing where I’m like, I’m just going to look at Tiktok for 15 minutes before I go to sleep. And then it’s literally two hours later, and I’m like, what?VirginiaSo then that leads me to the next thing on our outline, which is we are going to check our phone time.I am curious to know if not having Tiktok is actually lowering your screen time.CorinneWell, not having Tiktok for two days. But yeah.VirginiaSo for anyone who missed our previous episode, Corinne and I were both averaging around eight hours of screen time a day according to our phones. Now I will put a caveat in that, which is, I talked toTheGamerEducatorafter that episode came out. And Ash told me that the iPhone screen time is not actually accurate, because it keeps recording after you put your phone down if you haven’t quit out of an app. So, like, there are lots of ways the phone is amplifying your screen time, which I think is very important for us to know.However we can at least compare. It was somewhere around eight hours before. What is it now? So let’s look at last weekend.How did you do, Corinne?CorinneLast Friday, I had six and a half hours. I had eight hours on Saturday, but I had 12 hours on Thursday and 11 hours on Wednesday.VirginiaI had 13 hours on Thursday.CorinneYeah, I’m really questioning how accurate this is.VirginiaI’m really questioning how accurate it is, but I’m also like, wow, so it doesn’t fucking matter? Because even if it’s not accurate, it’s still roughly the same as what we had before, when we were on Instagram and Tiktok all the time?CorinneI mean, it doesn’t look like it’s making a huge difference. For me it looks like there’s maybe like, one hour difference. I don’t know.VirginiaI mean, my most used app before was texting, and that’s still true. Like last Saturday, 8 hours and 39 minutes of total time, 3 hours and 22 minutes on texting. And what can I say? I had my kids last weekend, and I need adult conversation when I’m parenting. So there we are. But there is no Instagram time listed because I had deleted it.CorinneYeah, yep. Definitely spending less time on Instagram. Is that a net positive?VirginiaI don’t know, but it is distilling for me what the problems are. It tells you how many times you picked up your phone in one day, and I’m picking up my phone like 150 times a day. So maybe that’s the next piece of this I need to work on.CorinneYeah, my daily average is 140.VirginiaYep, that sounds right. Wow, cool, great. So that’s depressing. We’re getting no better, but we are noticing benefits from being on these particular apps less.CorinneYeah, right. We are? What are they?VirginiaDid we just like ruin our entire sense of accomplishment? Oh, my gosh.I mean, I think what’s interesting is we had both verbalized concrete ways this was making our lives better, and then we looked at the numbers and we felt like garbage.And what does that remind us of, Corinne?CorinneHmmm, dieting?VirginiaSo how do we think about wanting to use our phones less and not get caught up in a perfectionistic diet-y mindset?CorinneAs you said, the tracking is not accurate. So I think we need to just not track. And not turn this into an information thing.VirginiaIt really should be more about how we feel. I also think there’s still some work that I personally need to do untangling morality and screen time. Like when I said earlier, oh, I’d be so much happier reading a book. I know that is true in the way that my brain feels after reading versus the way my brain feels after scrolling. I know I feel calmer and less stressed.But what I don’t know is how much of that is because I think reading a book is a morally superior activity to being on my phone.CorinneI mean, I think it’s also really easy to make a diet culture parallel there. It’s like, sometimes I might actually physically feel better if I eat some salad with my pizza, rather than just eating a ton of—I don’t know, pizza is not a problem for me. But I think there’s an argument sometimes, where it’s like, I do feel better when I eat this way, and it’s not the whole story.VirginiaHow much of that is “I feel better because I’ve been told this is better” versus “I’m really noticing some physiological shifts.” And I think it can also be both, right? And I think with me, with books versus phone, it is both. But it is that is a piece of it. And I think I have to be careful to interrogate that part of it, in order to prevent this from becoming like…the phone diet.CorinneTotally. I also feel like you’ve pretty clearly identified what part of the phone using is helpful and valuable to you, like texting.VirginiaYeah, that’s true. So there’s no reason to feel bad if there’s a lot of hours spent texting, because that’s me being in touch with my community. What about you? Do you feel like there’s a clear way your phone is valuable to you?CorinneI feel very clear on what I don’t like, which is scrolling TikTok for three hours before I fall asleep. But that also seems to be one of the most impossible things for me to kick.VirginiaWhat if you deleted it before bed?CorinneI mean, it’s just like, would I? There are all kinds of tips that are, like, put your phone in the other room, blah, blah, blah, and I’m just like, I’m going to put my phone in the other room after I look on TikTok for five minutes. So I don’t know if deleting it would be any different.VirginiaI used to put my phone in the other room when I shared my room with someone else who had their phone on the nightstand, and now that I don’t, I want my phone in my room in case of emergencies. I want it in my room if my kids are not with me, in case, a kid gets sick in the middle of the night and, God forbid, I need to be notified. And I want it in my room when the kids are with me, in case the killer breaks into our house. So I can’t do that one anymore. And I think that’s fine.But I do think editing down what’s available on the phone is helpful for the bedtime thing. But I also understand it’s like, are you going to do it? Maybe that’s where one of those apps, or the brick or something, could come in handy. But we haven’t gotten there yet.I mean to that note of us being like we need our phones in our rooms for safety, which I think is valid for people who live alone, we should also talk about like the function of privilege in all of this, and how much divesting from screen time is, in and of itself, for privilege,CorinneAnd just the privilege to have a ton of screen time.VirginiaYeah, yeah, to have the time to do it. But also, I really, again, love Ash Brandin’s work on this. They talk about screen time and kids. So they’re not really talking about social media. They’re usually talking about video games and younger kids. And Ash wrote:If we fear a child has too much screen time? Perhaps the question to ask is, what underlying need is not being met for this child? And if we do think that’s related to screen time, the question becomes, what need is this screen time meeting? Is it replacing a lack of parental leave, child care, a regulated parent, outdoor access movement? How do we address that need? Focusing on the screen will only make the caregiver feel shame, and that doesn’t help anyone, especially the child.And I read that, and thought, yes. Because I know in addition to me needing my phone with me more as a single parent, my kids get more screen time now that they live in two single parent households, because there are not two people there all the time to have other things going on. And it does meet some needs.And I think we can definitely extrapolate that to ourselves and ask what need is our screen time meeting?CorinneYeah, that’s a great question.VirginiaSo what need does three hours of TikTok scrolling meet for you?CorinneI don’t think I have an answer, but I will definitely be thinking about it.VirginiaI do think a lot of it is social connection. I mean, I think all of our screen time increased during the pandemic because social media became a replacement for community. I think there’s a lot going on there. And I think talking more honestly about that piece of it and understanding, what are you actually getting out of this, seems more useful than just, it’s bad, it’s bad. I’m bad for using it.---ButterCorinneVirginia. Do you have a Butter this week?VirginiaI do. I’m going to suggest a fun, non screen time activity to do with kids. Not because I think screen time is bad, but just because it has been really fun in my house lately. It is giant coloring sheets, where you just put this giant poster roll of paper with a printed coloring thing on it, on a table with some markers, and you and your kids or your friends or whoever go to town on it, and it is really soothing and lovely.Some recent coffee table coloring at Virginia’s houseCorinneWow, that sounds fun.VirginiaYeah, I got the first ones at Christmas, and I did buy them off Amazon, which we are no longer shopping at. And I had them out over the holidays when grandparents were visiting, and it was really nice for giving them an easy way to hang out with the grandkids, and just like, anyone could do it. There’s no skill. There is not really a lot of skill in coloring, and it’s just a nice it’s a nice way to be together. I don’t know, it’s great.And then I posted about it on Instagram, and said I was looking for some non-Amazon options. And folks sent me two good ones. One is Friends Art Lab, which makes some really cute 10 foot long coloring rolls. So I’ve ordered some of those. And then I got some from Grove Collaborative. They’re smaller, but that was actually kind of nice. They fit better on our coffee table. And we’ve been doing those. I just keep it out on the coffee table with some markers. And I particularly find when we’ve had a cranky day, or there has been a lot of squabbling, that sitting down to color calms me down, and then inevitably a kid will join me. And maybe we’re not really talking, but we’re kind of like co-regulating ourselves.CorinneThat sounds really nice!VirginiaIt’s also good to do while you’re watching TV. if I don’t have a puzzle going, it’s the same kind of like, keeps my hands busy, keeps me off my phone.CorinneI love that.VirginiaWhat about you?CorinneMy Butter this week is maybe a little bit niche.VirginiaI love a niche butter.CorinneI was really struggling with the water pressure in my shower, my shower hose head thing was broken, and like all this water was just leaking out of it. Anyways, I replaced my shower head. It’s incredible. I highly recommend replacing your shower head, especially if you have hard water.VirginiaOh really?CorinneWe have really hard water here and minerals build up and break everything and clog all the little shower holes. But I got a new shower hose and shower head, and it’s incredible. Like, what was I doing? Was I even washing shampoo out of my hair? Or was I just leaving it there? I always kind of dread stuff like that, but it was literally like, I could do the whole thing with my hand. I needed a wrench to get the old one off, just a tiny bit. But then you just hand tighten it. It doesn’t leak. it It’s so great. It’s such an easy little upgrade. So, highly recommend getting a new shower head.VirginiaI love when any house thing that I think is going to be a nightmare turns out to actually be quite easy. A lot of them do. Not all of them! And then you’re like, oh, this dramatically improved my daily quality of life. Why didn’t I do it a year ago?CorinneYeah, it has really, really improved my quality of life. So, something to think about!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for a bonus March Indulgence Gospel!Today we’re chatting about:⭐️ How to talk to your kids about (your) weight loss and/or GLP-1 use.⭐️ How to handle medically-advised diets without getting…diet-y.⭐️Our favorite leggings (we stand by all these recs!)⭐️Dealing with haters… and more!To hear the full story, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can add on a subscription to Big Undies, Corinne’s newsletter about clothes, for 20% off.Today’s episode is a rerun; we’re bringing you episode 100, which ran in June 2023—such a simpler time! But we had a really valuable conversation about how to talk to kids about body changes, especially if you’re losing weight on Ozempic and we thought it might be a helpful one to revisit now. Plus there is our usual smattering of assorted random Indulgence Gospel topics. And dahlias! Enjoy.PS. This transcript does contain affiliate links; shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your March Extra Butter.Today we’re talking about Dr. Becky Kennedy, the beloved parenting influencer. We’ll get into:⭐️ The Dr. Becky mantra that Virginia uses…often.⭐️Why you don’t need to cook dinner for your kids at 3pm.⭐️ The infamous “school nurse call” post.⭐️ Is Dr. Becky — and parenting content more broadly— a diet or diet-adjacent?EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your March Indulgence Gospel!Indulgence Gospel episodes are usually only for paid subscribers but we’re releasing this one for free! If you like it, you can get even more Virginia by becoming a paid Burnt Toast subscriber.Today we’re chatting about:⭐️ Navigating fitness spaces designed for smaller bodies!⭐️ Feelings about hair color!⭐️ Do Virginia and Corinne like sports now? 👀⭐️ And what to do when it seems like everyone is on a weight loss drug.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 184 TranscriptVirginiaOkay, I just want to say: We got a lot of clothing-related questions this month, which we’re sending over to the Big Undies space. Not that we’ll never talk about clothes on Burnt Toast! But if you’re someone who’s coming to us for that content, you really need to be reading Big Undies because Corinne is doing the Lord’s work over there.CorinneYep,. I am doing the Lord’s work.VirginiaYou are the most size-inclusive fashion Substack. I’m going to just claim that title for you. I think it’s correct?CorinneI mean, a size-inclusive fashion Substack.VirginiaWell, admittedly, the competition for Most Size-Inclusive is not stiff, since most fashion Substacks are not at all size inclusive. But there are a handful of great ones! You are just my favorite.CorinneYou can always DM or email me your questions!VirginiaCorinne has answered many of my fashion questions. So send more of them to Corinne!Okay, so what’s new? How are you doing?CorinneI’m doing good. Is there something I should talk about other than the weather?VirginiaWell, it’s March, which is my least favorite month of the year weather-wise in New York. So if you have good weather tidings, you can bring them to us. Because I don’t.CorinneWe have had a few unseasonably warm days, I’m talking low 70s, and the bulbs are starting to come up.VirginiaI’m jealous of everybody else’s spring. I live in a very cold part of the world and it will not be spring for many, many more weeks. But that’s nice for you.CorinneYes. Shall we get to the questions? I’ll read the first one.I turned 49 in January. My hair is brown, ash blonde and going silver along the hairline. I have a hair stylist who loves to do color and is very good at it. I’ve been thinking about doing color or streaks as a way to mark this fifth decade. But what color? In my dreams, it’s sparkling gold, but I’m not actually Galadriel. I don’t want anything neon. If you’ve colored your hair, how did you choose which color? Especially if it wasn’t for overall beauty labor reasons, but more as pleasure.VirginiaI love this. I love the idea of dyeing your hair to mark turning 50, specifically dyeing it what sounds like a not found-in-nature color.How many hair colors have you had Corinne?CorinneMainly one. I dyed my hair pink in high school. I think I dyed my hair darker brown in college once, just box dye. I’ve never seen a professional hair colorist. But I have been thinking a lot about this because, you know, I recently got my colors done.VirginiaOh, that’s right! We are going to have a whole episode about getting your colors done, people! The early teaser for that is that I’m still waiting for my results. But yes, so you got your colors done. And did it make you rethink your hair color?CorinneWell, yes, and no. I think a lot of people use that framework for choosing hair color when dyeing their hair. So that is one way to think about it. And I did sort of have the question, like: Well, if gray isn’t one of my colors, and my hair is starting to go gray, what does that mean? Should I think about coloring it?VirginiaBut wouldn’t your hair naturally go the right gray for you?CorinneI mean, I think there are different interpretations.VirginiaIs there a right gray? Maybe you have no grays in your approved colors.CorinneI’m a true spring so I think I would want like a lighter gray? I don’t know.VirginiaMore of like a blonde gray ? There’s so much to discuss on this whole colors thing, because I am something of a skeptic. I started as a devotee, now I’m a skeptic. So stay tuned for the colors episode. But I could see it being both helpful and stressful when it comes to thinking about hair color.I have never had fun colored hair. I have a child with blue hair, so I do know quite a lot about the maintenance involved in living with fun color hair, and it’s a part time job of mine to maintain that. But I’ve never had it for myself. I had a brief blonde period in college—if I can find photographic evidence, I will consider revealing that to the world. You can see the color of my eyebrows. They are dark, dark brown, so it was very like 90’s Tori Spelling. It was not a natural state for me.So that was a mistake. And then I stayed my natural color, which is dark brown, all through my 20’s and 30’s. But sometime after I had my second child, my hair stylist—who is one of the most important long-term relationships of my life, she’s been cutting my hair since I was maybe 29—slowly nudged me over into color, and now I do get my hair colored, and it’s a mix of a base color and highlights. I don’t really understand what happens, I just let her do what she wants because I trust her implicitly with my head. And I like not having to make decisions about it, and that it always looks good.But it is a point of reckoning, because I don’t actually care about the beauty labor piece. Like, I don’t actually care about covering my grays, but she is covering my grays most of the time anyway.CorinneSo how do you know you don’t care about it?VirginiaBecause when they grow back in, I’m like, “Oh, hey, that’s fun. Gray hairs!" When I’m in between, you know? I’m not, like, I want to cover the grays. That’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I like going to see her and hanging out with my friend, and I enjoy what it looks like when she’s done. Like, it is pleasure. And it’s pleasure that upholds a beauty standard, so I feel complicated about it.But the way I choose the color is I just go to the salon and I trust the person who knows very well what to do. And it sounds like this reader, this listener, has someone in their life who does that. So I think I would start there! Go to your hair stylist and be like, “Okay, let’s do something fun.” And I feel like she’s going to blow your mind.CorinneI agree. And I also think I wouldn’t let not being Galadriel stop you from getting or wanting sparkling gold hair.VirginiaI think it could be pretty sparkling! Hair color technology has come a really long way. If you’re doing salon color, they can do quite a lot, especially if you have some silver you’ve already got some bleached parts. I think it could be pretty awesome.CorinneJust based on your description, brown ash blonde, going silver, sounds like a good match for sparkling gold.VirginiaIf you do it, please send us pictures! We would love to see this.Okay, next question:Even though I’ve been in the anti-diet space for years, once in a while, I think maybe I should just try Zepbound and see what happens. Has anyone else been pulled into these thoughts?Corinne“See what happens.” What are we talking about here?VirginiaWe’re talking about weight loss. We’re talking about seeing how much weight loss will happen.CorinneOne good thing to remember about these drugs is that they do cause weight loss in most people, but they don’t cause weight loss in everyone. And, if you ever want to stop taking them, you will likely regain the weight.So I think the question is: Do you want to go on this drug, see how much weight you can lose, then go off it and regain the weight? Is that a net positive?VirginiaThat’s a really useful framing. Because what you’re essentially saying is: Do you want to go back on a diet? It’s not that different from what I presume most of us have done with intentional weight loss in the past. It’s just a different delivery vehicle. You want to try the drug approach versus the diet approach now. Or a lot of people end up doing both, whatever.I think all of us have had these thoughts, right? It’s hard. The drugs are everywhere. People are talking about them constantly. We’re human. Of course there are moments where I’m like, “Am I going to be the last fat mom in the Hudson Valley?”CorinneOh God!I do just want to also make the point now though, that a lot of people also go on these drugs, lose a lot of weight, and are still fat.VirginiaThank you for saying that. Excellent note. Or don’t even lose that much weight. Not everybody responds the same way. That’s the thing.So you can have the thought. There’s nothing wrong with having the thought. But it’s important to put the thought into the context of what’s actually happening with these drugs. Which is the same thing that always happens with dieting. Yes, some people are losing weight on it for some unspecified amount of time. And not everybody is losing dramatic amounts. It’s just dieting. So yes, we’re constantly tempted to reconsider an anti-diet stance because we live in a culture that’s constantly telling us to.CorinneTotally. I do think within the anti-diet space, we’ve become so anti-these drugs that I can sort of understand being like, “What if I just tried it,” you know? And I think if you want to try it, that’s fine. But I do think it’s good to just have a reality check of what that’s actually going to look like.VirginiaBe realistic about where you’re going with it.CorinneYou could even just start by looking into how much it might cost.VirginiaOh, yeah. That might clarify some choices.CorinneYeah. It might be like, well, if I can get it for free, sure, I’ll try it. But if I have to pay $2,000 a month, no thank you.VirginiaIf it’s a second mortgage payment.Yeah, and how do I feel about chronic nausea? I was thinking about this because I just had food poisoning at the end of my vacation, and we won’t talk about it because Corinne is very triggered by discussions of food poisoning and specifically airplane-adjacent vomiting.But when it happened I was like, people are signing up to feel this way? It feels so awful feeling nauseous! It’s an awful feeling. If you’re on the drugs and you don’t feel nauseous—I get it, not everybody does. But that’s the most common side effect. And to voluntarily be like, “Let me do something where I’m going to walk around feeling nauseous.” I’m like, I have been pregnant twice. I have had stomach bugs. I could be retired from that feeling, thank you.CorinneI think nausea is one of the worst feelings in the world. And, I can understand the calculus between, would I trade feeling nauseous to experience less fatphobia? Like, that’s real. There’s a lot to think about.VirginiaI think we’re saying it makes sense you’re pulled into these thoughts. We’re offering some larger context in which to put the thoughts. We support you doing whatever you want to do, but that’s the calculus we’re landing on. We get the thoughts, and then we put it in the larger context and we move on in our fat lives. But your mileage may vary, and that’s fair. You’re still welcome here.CorinneGood luck!Alright, here’s the next question.I would love to hear a discussion on the ways movement spaces are geared towards smaller bodies, even in subtle ways—because it pisses me off, and I can’t be alone in this! For instance, I enjoy a morning spin class with a friend of mine, and when the gym got new bikes, the new models moved the lever to adjust intensity to the front/middle. Now, as a fat person, my stomach bumps the dang thing and resets it throughout my workout. Clearly, bigger bodied people were not considered when creating this piece of exercise equipment. Not shocking, but super frustrating! Keep your anti-fatness out of my delightful morning spin.VirginiaI’m so annoyed about this.CorinneYeah, that’s horrible.VirginiaOt’s so dumb. I hope you’ve complained to the gym, because they should know they bought equipment that does not serve their clients. That’s irritating.CorinneYou should definitely complain to the gym and possibly also the company that manufactures the bikes.VirginiaIt’s just rude. I mean, my solution to this is that I don’t work out in mainstream fitness spaces. I work out in my home where it is sized to me. Because I find this constantly maddening.And I think it is subtle stuff. It’s the equipment, it’s the physical built space, and it’s also the felt experience of being the fat person in a space that is oriented around thinness. I just don’t like putting myself into it.So that’s not very helpful. I’ve spent a bunch of money on weights for my house, and I have space to use them. But that’s not everybody.CorinneThis question was interesting to me, because I actually feel like I don’t encounter this a lot at my gym.VirginiaSay more.CorinneI feel like a lot of the equipment at my gym is designed to hold really heavy weights, because people are lifting really heavy weights. And a lot of the equipment is extremely adjustable. There are two bikes at my gym—they’re what are called assault bikes. Is that the real name? You pump your arms and pedal your feet. But the seat moves up and down, and it moves forward and back. So you can really kind of adjust it. When one arm is pulled all the way back, sometimes I do hit my belly, but it’s fine.VirginiaI am googling an assault bike. We’ll put a visual for people like me who have not heard of this. I just have to say, there’s just no end to fitness equipment that looks like torture devices. And why do they keep inventing these things?CorinneIt’s literally just a bike with with arm pedals. One thing I really like about it is the front is, I guess it’s like a flywheel or something? So it blows air on you. It’s cooling.VirginiaOh, that’s nice. Why does that have such an aggressive name, though?CorinneI do not know. That’s why I was like, is that the real name? I’m not sure.VirginiaWhy can’t it be called the breezy bike?CorinneOkay, I don’t know.But my other thought about this was, I was recalling that I encountered this a lot in yoga studios where you would get a strap and sometimes it wouldn’t be long enough. If there was a place I was going all the time, I would know which strap I had to get.VirginiaAnd yoga mats are not cut for everybody, they can be too skinny.CorinneYeah, not wide enough or not long enough.VirginiaAnd depending on the number of people they’re trying to cram into the class if you go into a popular yoga studio, you can feel really cramped. The space my body will need to move comfortably here is not available. I hate that.It makes sense that a sport like powerlifting would be better on this since lots of different body sizes powerlift and you’re lifting heavier weights. And I think there’s more inclusivity in terms of the size of athlete it attracts. Whereas something like spin or yoga, which are thin lady sports, are going to be really annoying on this front. Which is not to say you have to be a powerlifter, but I think if you love a sport that really emphasizes thinness or has a thin ideal, you’re going to have to advocate more.CorinneI am also curious: Are you sure the bike doesn’t adjust at all? But maybe it doesn’t adjust in a helpful way.VirginiaI’m kind of guessing maybe this person has already explored that.CorinneI will say I experienced this a lot in other spaces. Anywhere else that has seats. Bathrooms sometimes. Why is the toilet paper blocking where I need to sit.VirginiaBathroom stalls are so narrow. That’s really real. Oh, I will link Dr. Rachel Millner, who is a wonderful eating disorder therapist and fat activist. She has been posting a lot of content on Instagram—she’s on a mission to become a fat Peloton instructor. She’s posted a lot of great content talking about adjustments you can make riding your Peloton bike, and how to do that as a fat person more comfortably. So we can link to that. Rachel is amazing.I just think this speaks to the lack of inclusivity. Like, Peloton still has only ever had one fat instructor, Ash Pryor, who is a rowing instructor, not a spin instructor. So that’s not great. I mean, she’s great, but the inclusivity is not great there. Peloton fans, you don’t have to email me. I know how much you love your Pelotons. But even brands that nod towards being anti-diet, or even attempt to represent anti-diet are not always fat inclusive. Like, it’s skinny ladies talking about being anti-diet.I mean, this comes up for me even in the workouts I do at home. I mean, I do videos by two women I absolutely adore and have relationships with, so I can offer this feedback. But sometimes I’ll be like, yeah, that twist didn’t work for my belly, you know? There’s just a lot where someone in a smaller body, might suggest a child’s pose where your knees press into your stomach, and as a fat person, you’re like, yeah, that is not my ministry. I’m not going to enjoy that one. And I think the onus is really on the industry, and I think there are people really trying to do better at this, but if they haven’t had that experience they just don’t know if they’re not really making an effort to talk to fat clients about what they need.CorinneI’m sorry this is happening to you. I hope you can get a good solution.VirginiaThis next question is very funny to me. This person wrote:Do you like to watch sports? How did you become a fan? Are you becoming a fan? What’s that like? And what do you wish you were a fan of? Will you never be a fan?CorinneWow, a lot of questions packed right in there.VirginiaOkay, do we like to watch sports? We’ll go one by one. We can both answer it. Do you like to watch sports?CorinneYes.VirginiaOkay. I would say no, until quite recently.CorinneOkay, I will say yes, but I know nothing about them. But I have always enjoyed the Super Bowl, because I really enjoy the Super Bowl snacks. And I think it’s cool to watch people doing athletics.VirginiaI feel about watching sports the same way I feel about exercise, which is that I’m never naturally going to want to do it. But sometimes I end up being glad I did and enjoying it more than I expected?CorinneThat’s fair. I mean, I’m watching it, and I’m like, well, don’t really know what’s going on, but cool to watch.VirginiaSo I have someone in my life who’s a big football fan now. Which means I did watch quite a lot of football this past season. And I don’t understand what they do, and I am concerned about the traumatic brain injury stuff, and I have many feminist critiques of the NFL. And I will also say, it’s fun when they suddenly do run really fast across the field, and you’re like, well that seems impressive. And I enjoy the player backstories. I can be here for the gossip. I know a lot of player backstories now. I don’t understand what’s happening in the game, but I like that part.CorinneDid you become a fan? Are you becoming a fan?VirginiaI don’t want to commit to a position on being a fan. That feels like a big step for me. I mean, I have historically been probably the most anti-sports person you could meet. This is all quite new and disconcerting for me. My dad is a lifelong fan, loves all the sports. My extended family are hardcore football and basketball fans. I grew up just being completely allergic to the whole thing.CorinneWell, this year I’m trying to get into watching the WNBA.VirginiaThis is the other thing we need to talk about. I do feel like women’s sports finally getting a modicum of more attention is helping me quite a lot. I mean, obviously this NFL thing is not a women’s sport. But I feel like Simone Biles helped me understand that maybe I could care about sports a little bit. Certainly, the Williams sisters have done a lot on that front. And then now women’s basketball.CorinneYeah, I will say basketball is fun to watch because it’s really fast and not very long.VirginiaWhich is the opposite of football. That is the slowest game. I did not understand. One minute can be three hours. It’s wild. It makes you question the entire concept of time.My mom is really into women’s basketball, so I feel very basketball adjacent. Even if I’m not watching it, I’m often being informed about it.CorinneYeah, it is really fun to watch. Also fun to learn the gossip backstories. I have been watching, along with the Out of Your League Substack chat, which was has also been fun.VirginiaI mean, Frankie de la Cretaz makes sports very fun. I read Frankie—and of course, we can link to Frankie’s interview on Burnt Toast—even though I am not following any sport closely enough. They always make me laugh and also blow my mind.CorinneTotally. So I think we’re both getting more into watching sports.VirginiaAnd some of us feel complicated about it? Some of us might have to write a think piece about it at some point?CorinnePlease write a think piece. And I’m curious what other Burnt Toasties are watching or not watching!VirginiaI will say, after I wrote about the Super Bowl, I realized we do have some die hard football fans, because those were people who got cranky with me about that Super Bowl piece.In some cases, rightfully so, but also just don’t mess with sports fans. It’s exhausting. They feel so strongly and so deeply. And it’s like, You do realize this is all made up? Some people are on a field with a ball and nothing changes in the world? Sorry sports fans. I support you. I see you. But your fervor is sometimes absurd to me. I mean, it’s like Taylor Swift fans.CorinneI was just going to say that. Yes, Swifties.VirginiaThe sports fans and Swifties and all of the fandoms. People feel this strongly. It’s understandable. Want to read the last question?CorinneYes. The next question is:This question is both late and like THE question right now, to the point that it can feel trite. But also, I’m desperate to hear people’s ongoing thoughts and ideas around how to stay sane in this onslaught of terribleness. Not hoping for any big solutions—though, absolutely welcome if you have any, maybe just one or two things you guys are finding helpful right now.VirginiaI mean, just to put into context, we are recording this on February 26. You’re going to hear it in early March. So the terribleness this week is the Republicans just absolutely gutting Medicaid yesterday in their budget vote. The federal government layoffs continuing apace, and oh also, now suddenly we’re blaming Ukraine for the war with Russia. Like, yeah, cool, cool. So the terribleness is intense, and obviously by the time this episode airs, there will be 50 million new terrible things, and what I just said will be completely out of date.So I’m just situating us in this moment of terribleness before we give our answers here.CorinneYep. What are we doing?VirginiaI would say the number one thing I am doing that is helping me is calling my reps. You taught me about this last year when we were advocating for ceasefire in Gaza— just use the five calls app.I think people know about the five calls app, but if you’re like me, you might have downloaded it and not used it yet or for a while. Because I definitely did that for a while after you first told me about it, where I was like, yeah, I’m going to use it, but it’s scary. It’s scary. I don’t want to make the calls! It’s scary! I’ll just have it on my phone for a while.And then I did finally do the first Gaza call. I was like, okay. And now I’ve re-upped using five calls, and I don’t manage to call every day, but I definitely try to call like, three or so times a week is kind of my baseline. I have it on my to-do list every day. It always only takes three minutes. There was one scary time where I had to talk to a person, but mostly I’m leaving voicemails. You can call after hours if you would prefer to just leave voicemails. And it does make me feel like, okay, I am doing the one thing that we as constituents can do right now. I am using my voice to inform my representatives of my disgust and tell them what I want them to be doing.And it’s helping me focus in a little bit. I knew that budget vote was the big thing happening this week, because the app will be like, vote on this day is happening now. So you can kind of be like, “This is the fire I’m actually going to pay attention to,” because there are so many things on fire all the time now, and it’s overwhelming. But like, okay, I’m tackling this one.Like, when RFK was going to be confirmed, I was like, I am calling about RFK this week. I can do this one thing. So that is really a game changer for me. It makes me feel informed, and also then like I can step away the rest of the day a little bit and preserve my own sanity, because I did the one thing.CorinneIt just feels a little bit less like shouting into a void. I feel like there’s so much posting on social media, and not that that has no value, but it’s like, what value does it have? I don’t know. I would just rather make one phone call than post like five Instagram stories about whatever.VirginiaI mean, we’re so polarized. It’s very unlikely that anything I post on my Instagram Stories is being seen by people, A with the power to do anything, or B who don’t already agree with me. So the performative nature of that was getting really old to me. I mean, it’s sometimes informative. There are sometimes things I hear about on social media before I read about it in the news. And that’s valuable. But it feels otherwise, just like a waste of energy. And so making the calls is like, okay, I used my voice in the most productive way I can.CorinneYeah. The other thing I want to recommend on that front is the Substack Chop Wood, Carry Water. Do you follow that one? It’s a daily political action email. So every day they give you a thing to do, and I think a lot of it is kind of focused on Democrats and its more national electoral politics focused, but if that’s your thing, I do think it’s helpful.VirginiaOkay, I love that.This is related to what we just talked about with doing a little less on social media. But ever since I did my Instagram break over the holidays—we’re now in March, almost March, as we’re recording this, and I have continued. I still go on Instagram, but only when I’m going to post, and then I delete the app. I’m not using it for doomscrolling anymore. And I think that is really, really helping.Like, it hasn’t been perfect. I had random insomnia one night, and I was like, well, fuck it. I’m going to download it and stare at Instagram till my eyes burn. But for the most part, I’m much less on it. And there has been absolutely no downside.CorinneWow, I gotta do that.VirginiaIt just really feels great. Don’t miss it at all. I don’t know that I’m going to quit it completely because, for business purposes, whatever, whatever. And I haven’t added Bluesky, I haven’t added any new replacement social media. I’m just on Substack, which doesn’t feel like social media to me in quite the same way. I think it’s just giving me a little bit of space. So I think finding space is important.CorinneOne thing that’s completely unrelated, but, one of my friends sent me a care package the other day, and it was so nice. And now one thing I want to do to distract myself from the terribleness is send people care packages so I’m going to endorse that as a large-scale solution for everyone.VirginiaEven if you can’t send a care package, maybe you can send a card? I do think, like, time with our people. Everyone’s been saying this, but I do really feel that.Another thing that we’re doing locally in my house is Friend Friday. My seven-year-old named it. Where on Friday nights when I have the kids, we invite some friends over for takeout and all the kids play or watch a movie. It’s not revolutionary. I was actually doing it for a long time before we named it, but I’ve now told a group of friends that it’s a standing invite.I’ll send the text to remind but standing invite if you want to come over this Friday and then if you don’t make it, you can come to another Friday. Because I have them two Fridays a month, and that’s making me feel like I’m continuing to invest in my local people in a way that feels good.CorinneYeah, I have a standing dinner date with some friends once a week, and it’s so nice.VirginiaOh, that’s beautiful. Do you go out?CorinneNo, we rotate whose house it’s at. So someone cooks, but then it’s like, if you’re doing it with three other people, you basically only have to cook once a month for four people.VirginiaRight.CorinneIt’s really nice.VirginiaI want more things like that in my life. More like we have these touch points of when we’ll see people and just having those breaks. And I mean, you know, as someone who does long solo parenting stretches, I really need the adult time to pace myself with that. And it really helps, and it makes my kids happy, and I feel like it’s making my kids have a sense of us as part of a larger community. And you know, that feels really useful right now.We had more helpful advice for that one than I thought. I thought we were just going to be depressed and have nothing and just be sad. But, yeah, we’re doing what we can. We’re chipping away at it. I guess.CorinneWe’re trying, for sure.VirginiaWe’re trying. I’m trying.ButterCorinneWell, speaking of staying sane, what’s your Butter this week?VirginiaMy Butter this week is going to be meatballs. I’ve been on a meatball kick because I regularly cook for one vegetarian pasta lover, but I love pasta sauces with meat in it. And then I have another child who doesn’t like any kind of tomato sauce. And I realized that making a batch of meatballs and keeping them separate from the sauce to spare the vegetarian means that the child who doesn’t like tomato sauce will eat the meatballs because they are not tainted by the sauce. So you see, you see what my life is?But I then get to eat pasta with meatballs one night, which I love, and then I have a bunch of leftover meatballs for the week.A recent spaghetti and meatballs night, with separate components. (And Julia Turshen’s Italian Salad!)And today for lunch right before we got on to record, I’d made some lamb meatballs. They were really good, and I’d throw them in with a cup of Minute Rice, and then I had some leftover salad that didn’t have any dressing on it, that I just added, and then, dumped a bunch of creamy dressing all over the top of the whole thing. And it was such a good lunch.CorinneThat sounds delicious!VirginiaHaving those meatballs made in my fridge made lunch come together in a very useful way. So yeah, Sunday meatballs! That’s my Butter.CorinneWow, more meatballs. My Butter is probably one of those things everyone already knows about, but I’ve been watching Severance.VirginiaOh, I need to start the new season.CorinneYeah, I needed to go back and re-watch the first season, because I started watching season two, and I was like, I remember nothing. But it’s great. I’m really enjoying it. Also just want to shout out that there’s a tiny bit of fat rep. The character Dylan on Severance is a fat man, and he does some really important things. Hopefully he continues to be a good character in season two. But yeah, I’m really enjoying the show, and just wanted to shout out that there’s a fat person without, at least so far, a weight loss storyline.VirginiaWe love it. We love to see it. I’m excited to get into that. I also need to re watch season one, and then I want to do White Lotus too. So I’m like, oh, that’s two stressful shows. I gotta pick which stressful show I’m going to watch, because I can only handle so much. But they’re both on my list.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is Amy Palanjian.Amy is my work wife and best friend of over 20 years. She’s also the creator of Yummy Toddler Food and author of the nationally bestselling cookbook Dinnertime SOS: 100 Sanity-Saving Meals Parents and Kids of All Ages Will Actually Want to Eat.Amy joined me last month at Split Rock Books to celebrate the launch of FAT TALK in paperback. They also host the Burnt Toast Bookshop for us, and are forever the place to get my books signed and personalized however you like!So we talked about the book, of course, but we also got into how family dinners have changed for us post-divorce, why cooking with kids is terrible, and then Amy outed my (not so) secret love of protein powder. 😂(Bear with some imperfect audio, since we weren’t recording with our usual set-up — but Tommy worked his magic as usual so it’s still highly listen-to-able!)If you find today’s episode valuable, a paid subscription is the best way to support this work!Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 183 TranscriptAmyOkay, so we are here to celebrate your paperback release, and we had a burning question from the front row. Can you tell us if and how this book is different than the hardcover?VirginiaYes! Okay, so I don’t know how familiar folks are with publishing, but a lot of hardcovers don’t ever get a paperback. It’s just the way the industry is working these days, fewer and fewer books make it to paperback. So it was very exciting to make it to paperback! And part of how you make it to paperback is you and your editor brainstorm all the ways you can make the paperback really good so they’ll want to print it.Most of the book is the same, but there is a foreword written by Kate Manne who is an amazing fat activist and feminist philosophy professor at Cornell. She’s the author of the incredible book, Unshrinking. She wrote a beautiful foreword. And then there’s an afterword by me where I talk about what it was like to launch this book at the height of Ozempic Mania, and how that played a role in the conversations around the book, how it led so many men on the Internet to have feelings about me.AmyI was going to ask if you can talk a little bit more about how the world feels different or how your maybe your intended audience feels a little bit different from when you first released the book to now? If it does.VirginiaObviously there’s the huge conversation happening now around the semaglutide drugs and this idea that now weight loss is within all of our reach. Now, I think what we’re seeing increasingly from the data is that it doesn’t put weight loss within everyone’s reach. There’s also a very valid conversation to be had about whether we need weight loss to be within everyone’s reach. Everyone is allowed to make their own choices for their bodies. But what would it actually do for the world if we could make everyone thin?Audience MemberThat’s funny. Sorry, that’s ridiculous.VirginiaYes! So in short, it’s ridiculous. But I think what it does mean is that the conversation around weight loss is louder in a lot of ways. I mean, in some ways, I think traditional diet conversation it is less because that’s not what people are doing now to lose weight. But the fact that anytime, as a person in a larger body, I go to the doctor, this is likely to come up. You’re just navigating it in a whole other way now. And what the Ozempic conversation has really done is given anti-fatness and diet culture this “well, why not?” sort of answer. Like, “Well, we’ve got this now, so why wouldn’t you?”And again, this is not to demonize anyone’s personal choices! We’re all allowed to do what we want with our bodies. But there are lots of us that feel like that shouldn’t be the only answer, or shouldn’t be where the conversation stops and starts.What I’m also noticing is that we have a lot of people who are like, “Well, I am doing this because my doctor said it was important for my health. Can I still be for fat liberation? Can I still be against diet culture?” And the answer is absolutely yes. So I think we need to create space for the fact that people are going to make their own choices for their bodies, because that’s core to body autonomy and body liberation. But we can also still name anti-fatness and calling it out and trying to dismantle it. So it’s more nuanced now. Because we have to hold those two things together.AmySo, say you go to the doctor because your knee hurts and the subject of weight loss comes up, or weight loss drugs come up. What are some questions that you might ask for more context?VirginiaWell, I think the first question that’s always useful to ask is: How would you treat this condition for a thin person? Because someone in a thin body that shows up with knee pain is not prescribed weight loss. We know for any health condition, there are multiple ways of going about it because weight loss isn’t the answer for everybody. So asking them to think about, “what would you do for a thin person? Can we start with that for me?” is a useful starting point.Then I think having a direct conversation is important. And this is scary and vulnerable and really hard to do. But most of us who are fat, we’ve done weight loss. That’s not something we have no experience with. So saying, like, “I’ve done this, it hasn’t worked for me. This is what happens when I’m dieting.” This is the toll it takes on my mental health and my emotional health. This is why it’s not realistic for my lifestyle, because of my job schedule or my parenting schedule. And helping the doctor understand that while yes, that might solve a problem that they’re trying to solve for you, the ripple effect of that “solution” in your life also matters.So does that actually solve your problem, or does that give you many other problems? That’s going to be a different answer for everybody. But that’s the nuance that I want doctors to have. It’s not that I never want doctors to talk about weight, it’s that I want them to be understanding that the conversation doesn’t start and end with weight loss, and that you’re allowed to be a person with a whole context to your life.AmyOkay, so, speaking of versions of your book, I have a 12 year old who was obsessed with your hardcover book, and she has heard that you are noodling around the idea of a YA version. She has volunteered herself to be as helpful as possible, and would really like to know if this is happening.VirginiaOkay, we are in early conversations—this is early, early, early!—to do a middle grade version of the book. I would be delighted to have your 12-year-old write it! She and I need to talk. We’re figuring out what of the book needs to go into a middle grade version.One interesting thing that came up, actually, in a conversation with the editors was they are concerned—and the same thing happened with the hard cover. With the hard cover, people said, “Should we call it FAT TALK? Because maybe that means only parents of fat kids will buy the book!” Like, as if parents of thin kids never think about fatness or have no relationship to this concept. And I was like, no, I don’t think that will be the case. And it wasn’t.But with FAT TALK for kids, they’re saying, is this a title that makes sense to put on a middle grade book? Will only fat kids read it? Will that create stigma? Like, what do we do about that?So this is a conversation I need to have with your kid and other kids, because I think it’s a fair point. I think there are lots of great books for kids that talk about body image. I don’t think there are books that explain to kids that we’re talking about a systemic form of oppression, that explain it as a system, that explain what diet culture is, what this industry is, and what they’re trying to sell you. That’s information kids in every body size need, because we’re all navigating it. But how do we bring that to the kids? So that’s what we’re working on right now.AmyYou can ask her and I’m sure she will talk at you.So this is not meant to sound as—I don’t know how this could sound. But okay, so you really love protein powder? It seemed like a good segue. I would like to hear about your relationship with protein powder. Because it is, you know, like… protein is… yeah. So tell us about that.VirginiaAmy has decided to out me. This is all going on Reddit right now.Okay, yes, I enjoy protein powder in my smoothies. I learned about protein powder on my last diet, which was in 2015 which was a time in my life where I thought I was being really critical of diet culture, but I definitely..wasn’t. So I was writing a piece for Self Magazine about whether detoxes are worth it, and following a detox diet for two months as “research.” So I was obviously still very much in that world. I mean, I was still writing for women’s magazines. But I did this terrible detox where they didn’t let me eat anything except protein powder and chicken broth or whatever. And I did quit the detox, I think after only a couple weeks. Do you remember this?AmyWas this the chicken thighs one?VirginiaThat was a different one. Oh man. Our 20s were a bad time.I can’t remember how long I did it for it, but I did, in the course of the detox, get really into this protein powder. Even though it has now been almost 10 years since I’ve tried to lose weight in any intentional way, I still love this protein powder in my smoothies every morning. It’s just tasty. And I think part of it is, we’re allowed to reclaim these pieces of diet culture that actually we do really like. You don’t have to reject it wholesale just because it got marketed to us.But I did have to spend some time divesting from my relationship with the protein powder.AmyWhat are some other foods that you reclaimed, besides Diet Coke? Because I feel as though maybe we all know about that one. But are there others?VirginiaI’m recently getting back into kale and I think you’re going to be mad. Amy does not like kale, which is a controversial position for a food blogger to take! Because there are a lot of expectations that you would like kale, I think. It’s expected to be part of your brand. But I think I do like kale?AmyIn what way?VirginiaJulia Turshen had this really great recipe. I actually made it on Christmas Day but I have made it since, where you take Lacinato kale and you slice it up pretty thin and you really massage it with a lot of lemon and oil and stuff, and then there’s a chickpea thing you make up the air fryer and you put on top. And I think it’s delicious!AmyOkay. I have this recipe for kale bites. I did legitimately make them a lot when my oldest was a toddler and she ate them. I mean, it’s kale in a bucket of cheese. It’s one of the oldest recipes on my website and almost all of the content has been updated at least once, and I keep seeing that in the list, and I’m like, I cannot make them. I’m sorry.What is your go-to line when you are at a meal with, say, family, and someone says something either disparaging about themselves and what they’re eating or about food in general.How do you react? If you do.VirginiaI mean, I just want to say it’s hard to have one line for this. I get asked this a lot and people want one go-to line but it’s so context specific. And, it’s really okay if you just don’t engage. I’m actually doing less engaging these days, because I feel like it just often goes badly, and you’re not going to change hearts and minds by being combative in these moments. They are where they are. It’s better to preserve your bandwidth for things you really need to do. So often I don’t say anything.But where I will say something is if someone comments on how my child is eating, or my child’s body. That is one where I will insert myself. Because that’s not okay. And then I’ll probably say something like, “Oh, we trust them. We’re not worried about this.” Like, this isn’t something we’re worrying about right now. We trust them to eat how they need to eat.I frame it this way because I’m less concerned with “how do I convince this person that I’m correct,” and more concerned with “what do I want my kid to hear in that moment?” And what I want my kid to hear is, “My mom trusts me and trusts my body, and is not concerned about how I’m eating.”AmyI will also say that, as my kids have gotten older, when comments from other people happen about what someone is eating themselves, talking about it afterward has become very interesting. Even just asking, “Did you hear what whoever said at the table? What did you think of that?” Just so that they start to develop the ability to notice those types of comments and then get to have their own opinion about them. It’s very interesting to see what they say.VirginiaDefinitely.AmySpeaking of kids, what is your go-to family meal?VirginiaMy children have many great qualities, but they’re not adventurous eaters. They’re wonderful, spectacular human beings. But. My house is me and my two daughters. I would say our go-to family meal these days is some kind of pasta with some kind of red sauce, plus a snack plate that includes Cheez-Its and sliced cheese and fruit. Because one child won’t eat pasta, and so she’s going to have the cheese and crackers for dinner. And I’ve just kind of made my peace with that’s how family dinner looks like in our house right now.What I’m really more focused on is, how do we foster connection at the family table? How do we make sure that they feel safe and welcome showing up there? And I have not always gotten it right! This has been a really rocky part of my parenting a lot of the time. But at least if the food is familiar and comforting to them, then I know we have that in place.And when in doubt, those smoothies with the protein powder make me feel less freaked out about their overall intake. So we all do those for breakfast.AmySo, Virginia and I are both divorced. I’ve always felt pretty detached from what my kids eat. I mean, I put out what’s for dinner, and then they eat what they eat. And I have three very different eaters. But once I took another adult out of the equation, somehow there is just less pressure overall on family meals. There’s no other fully grown person having any opinion whatsoever. It’s just little kids. So our meals have gotten a lot more fun. Not the food! But we will often go around the table and each person gets to pick two songs and then we play them.So my bandwidth has changed a lot as I’ve put some distance in between that value on family dinner in the same way. I think it’s also because the kids are older. There’s no high chair situation. They can actually put food in their own mouths without it falling on the floor.VirginiaThey don’t need to be touching you while they’re eating.AmyI mean, that is brand new. And I have an-almost six-year-old. But there is a lot more room for it just to be about safety and connection and the food is there. So that’s been nice.What are some meals that you make just for yourself?VirginiaI order sushi a lot. That’s what I make for myself. The Uber Eats app. I also eat a lot of pasta. My child comes by that very honestly.What else do I eat? Amy, you stumped me.AmyI actually don’t know. You eat The Cheese.VirginiaOh, right. Thank you. There’s this really good marinated sheep goat cheese by Meredith Dairy that I thanked in the acknowledgements of this book. I love it so much, and I will build a lot of meals around that cheese. It’s good on pasta, it’s good on toast, it’s good on a salad. It’s a real building block for me.AmyThere’s this idea that if you have your kids in the kitchen with you, they will turn into a certain type of eater. Did you cook with your kids when they were little?VirginiaWell, I tried, but it’s terrible! It’s terrible to cook with small children. They’re so bad at it, and it’s so messy, and you just get very impatient. I think that that is exactly the kind of toxic and misleading image of motherhood we are sold, about what it means to be this perfect mom raising healthy eaters. Then you get there and there’s freaking flour everywhere, and raw eggs, and you’re just like, “Get out of the kitchen! Go watch TV.”I remember a turning moment in my feminism motherhood journey was when I was reporting a story for a parenting magazine about screen time and how terrible screen time is for children. And I interviewed this male researcher from Harvard who was studying screen time with children, and he was talking about how terrible it was, and how our children should not have screen time. And I said, “Well, okay, but I do let my three year old watch TV when I’m cooking dinner, because how else am I going to do it?” And he said, “Why don’t you invite her in? Kids love a bag of flour to play with.” And I was like, Sir, it’s Wednesday night. It’s 5pm. I need dinner on the table. And you’re suggesting I give a three-year-old a bag of flour?AmyAlso it says right on it, raw, do not eat!VirginiaI’m talking about flour on my ceiling!AmyI’m imagining it going in their mouth and then on the ceiling.VirginiaWho’s cleaning that up?Audience MemberNot him!VirginiaObviously.I googled him. He was on his second wife, it all made sense. She was a lot younger. They did have a child, but I am sure he is not at all involved in making dinner.I think this is one of those times where, if you love baking and if baking with your children gives you joy, that’s wonderful. Do it! We love that for you! But if that’s not your bliss, there are so many other ways to connect with your kids.And I think that’s something I’ve had to come to terms with. Because I don’t have kids who are super-food oriented, dinner isn’t where we talk about our day often. Dinner is often like, we’re getting through it, people are grumpy, there is sibling conflict, nobody wants to sit still, etc — and then they’re going to snuggle up at bedtime and tell me everything about themselves.There’s this pressure that parents, that moms especially, have that we have to have these perfect family dinners, and if we don’t, our kids are going to grow up to be drug addicts because we didn’t ask them about their day enough at the dinner table and all of that. And that’s just not every family. And that’s not definitely mine now, post-divorce. It’s just not what my family looks like anymore.And I actually like it better this way.AmyOkay, so you have some stronger boundaries now with your social media use. How is it being online as someone who is fairly visible, just as far as it’s a lot of feedback at times? I think you and I are both going through this process of, like, we’ve been online for a little while. And have realized that it’s kind of nice to shut off the feedback.VirginiaI get so much feedback.AmySo how is that going?VirginiaSo I took a three week Instagram break over the holidays, and it was totally on a whim. Like, we were just texting—Amy’s really working on her boundaries, too. And she was like, “I’m not going to Instagram this weekend!” And I was like, fuck it. I’m just going to delete the app for winter break. Why not? Like, it’s fine. I’ll just download it again when I need it. And it was so much better for my brain. I hadn’t even realized how much I needed that break.And then I re-downloaded it. I was like, well, I’m getting back to work, and I have to promote the newsletter. I’ve got to get back on there. And the first DM I saw was from a man who had sent me this hateful message in December describing my body and the reasons I was wrong and how he was mad at vegans, but also me. Then the second DM that he’d sent two weeks later was, “What’s your number?”And I was like, Okay, I think I’m done again. I didn’t respond to your troll message, so therefore I want to go out with you?So there is a lot of feedback. And you develop a thick skin and you can laugh about it. And, like, I’ve made reels making fun of the funny comments. But stepping away from it completely, I was like, oh, that is this part of my brain that I don’t need to be giving to that anymore. So, I mean, it’s hard, because it is our job. We make words on the Internet, so somehow we have to do that with the Internet. But I think especially right now with what’s happening with Meta and Zuckerberg doing what he’s doing, I’m feeling less need to participate. So, yeah, I’m experimenting with more boundaries.AmyDoes it seem like it impacts your newsletter audience at all?VirginiaAre we now having a business meeting?AmyI’m curious about the engagement on Burnt Toast itself.VirginiaNo, I mean, the great thing about Burnt Toast is it’s my beautiful safe space. We have amazing conversations, and everyone is smart and lovely, and even when people are critical, it’s couched in this like, well, like, you know, I just want to give some feedback. And everyone is so kind about it, and often right. That’s great. So I think finding those places, and just being more judicious with how we want to use the Internet, I think makes a lot of sense.AmyWhat makes a meal satisfying for you?VirginiaCheese?I mean, any cheese. Parmesan. I’m just like, if there’s not cheese, what did we come here to do? That’s all.AmyI’m not going to name who this was, but we were having a conversation about a cookbook that sold a bajillion copies recently, and we were talking about whether this person speaks about food in a way that is has diet culture in it. And I was like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, but apparently in the book, there is some. And I was wondering if you could recommend some food resources for recipes or just like food ideas in general, where we’re not going to run into that.VirginiaUm, Dinnertime SOS by Amy Palanjian. 100% diet culture free. Also Yummy Toddler Food. I mean, you’re at the top of the list, obviously.Just to brag about my best friend, Amy is working in this niche of kid food blogging, which is incredibly diet-y, incredibly rigid. There are so many expectations of perfection. And you have been systematically pushing against that, and in the nicest Amy way. The nicest way, but always like, no, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to very gently push back. I really admire it because you’re swimming in some shark infested waters.Other food people, I mean, we have shout out Julia Turshen, who is also a recovered diet-y person who has really brought a different perspective into her work and her food is all amazing. I think you guys are kind of my two go-tos because you’re always safe.AmyI took one of Julia’s classes—she does a live cooking class every Sunday, and I took it last week. And it was like, I could have made the recipes without her, but there was something about being there and she was, I mean, she’s like, legitimately talking to the people in the class. And I was like, oh, I sort of forgot how nice it is. We made a roasted chicken with a really simple gravy, which is not remotely something I have ever made. And it was so simple. And I was like, I could just make this for myself. It was chicken on a pile of onions with broth, and then the gravy had a whole thing of sour cream in it.VirginiaThere is the dairy.AmyIt was amazing. I would say, that is a really great gift to give. If you’re like, I don’t know if someone likes food and you’re not sure, it’s a great gift. Because you can choose from her back catalog or live classes. I cook all the time and it was just so nice to have someone be like, just do this and it will turn out really well.VirginiaShould we go to audience questions?AudienceSo last year my daughter got a note passed to her in class—and she knows exactly who wrote it—that said you’re fat and ugly.VirginiaOh my god.AudienceAnd I was like, oh, we’re still doing this shit? This is still what’s happening in middle school? Because middle school sucks, and I guess always gonna suck. I really had you in my ear, right? Of like, how to talk about that language, which is clearly intended to be hateful. And then there’s a knee jerk reaction, I think, to be like, oh, it’s not true. That’s not what it’s about. I was good at that part, but I’m sure I still bungled it. I wanted tohear what you as moms of middle school girls, how you handle when that happens. Because it just feels so shitty.VirginiaI mean, it’s so shitty. I’m so sorry that happened. It makes me really rage-y when I do hear about it. I hear it all the time from readers. And I think the instinct we all have, is to correct it and be like, “you’re not fat, you’re beautiful.” But we don’t want to do that, because that puts fatness in opposition to beauty. And instead, you want to talk about why that shouldn’t be an insult that gets weaponized. But I think the first thing you have to do is just really sit with how much it sucks for them that that happened, because that’s where they are. They just got attacked. And this sucks. You can have the more philosophical conversation about it, but you just have to sit with like it is really terrible that people use bodies against us. This is really terrible.What would you add?AmyI would add, outside of that immediate situation, in my life, there have been kids in my car who have said fat in a negative way. And I just am like, “We don’t use fat that way. It just means you’re big or you’re small, you’re tall, or you’re thin and you’re fat.” And sort of normalizing using the word as a descriptor that is not negative, it just is, can sort of help so that when those the attacks happen, then at least in the back of their mind, they’re like, “Fat is not a bad thing.” And this person is a jerk. It’s not perfect, but I think that that helps a little bit.AudienceWhat would you tell someone like me, who doesn’t have kids yet, but is thinking about it. Because when you’re in your 30’s every other day someone tells you they’re pregnant. Like, maybe I should eventually consider that! You think about it a new way. And as someone who is still working through their own body image diet culture issues, and how to parent kids and bring a human into the world, especially with the Ozempic of it all. What do you wish you knew before?VirginiaI mean, I think the bottom line is, everyone is going to show up to parenthood screwed up on this. There’s no “let me get this fixed before I have a kid.” Your reproductive options would run out before you could finish that work. This is the work of all of our lives.So I think it’s just having a lot of grace for the fact that what’s wild about parenting around this issue is that it will bring up all of your own stuff. It will bring up stuff that your mom said to you when you were nine, or that your middle school bullies said, or you’ll be comparing your body to someone else’s body after they had a baby. It just will bring up all of that.So I think instead of trying to get out in front of it and be like, “I can handle it,” it’s like, well, what support am I going to need to have in place who in my life can I talk to when I hit these moments? Who can I text? Who’s a safe person to share this with, whether it’s therapy or friends who are on the same page. Who’s going to be your support system? Because it’s not an if it’s a when you will be navigating it.Then I also think—I hear this from a lot of parents, and this was true for me—that it can be a really healing piece of it. Because you do have a chance to do things differently with your kid. Like Amy and I talk all the time about seeing our kids have a vocabulary for talking about fatphobia, for knowing fat is not a bad word, that that’s automatic to them now. Like, we didn’t have that. We know that. And it’s not that they’re not going to struggle—they are. But we have been able to build this different foundation.So when those things come up, my seven year old will come home and be, like, the teacher said this crazy thing. And it’s not landing. It’s not hurting her, because she’s like, like, what? Why? She’s recognizing it. And so that’s really satisfying to see.Also, you totally don’t have to have kids.[Every mother in the room passionately agrees.]AmyOne other thing I would say is that one of the things I didn’t know that I learned as I went was there is this whole way to talk about food that has nothing to do with health necessarily, vitamins, minerals, proteins. You can talk about the way it tastes, you can talk the way that it feels, you can talk about the color. There’s all of this descriptive language around the experience of eating.When I first started doing my brand, I didn’t quite know how to do that. And it took me some time to be like, if I just actually focus on making this taste really good, the byproduct is that we’re going to be more likely—not guaranteed—to eat it. And that is a different way of eating and relating to food. And I think especially with kids, you’re not going to have a lot of success if you try to persuade a three year old to eat something because it is good for them. But if it tastes good, or if it’s funny, or if there’s some other thing, it’s just a much more enjoyable experience.It’s just feels very different. Then one other thing I was going to say, once kids have vocabulary, like my middle schooler sent me an email and was like, “I need you to get me out of this health assignment.” It was a calorie counting assignment where they had to make a meal plan. And she’s like, I don’t want to do this.The fact that she knew and she asked for help. And then, I wrote this long email, of course, to everyone. And there was like, a one word answer that was like, fine. I mean, like, literally nobody cared. I just was like, can she do the assignment without the numbers? Can she just make a meal plan? Of course, I was like, what if we think about whether it’s enough? And they were like, No. But it’s like, there can be all of these different things that come up that are actually enjoyable. Just because there’s a lot that could potentially be stressful. There’s also a lot on the other side.AudienceI’m excited about the YA situation, and I would like to discuss that, because I also think there is an appetite, maybe, for you to discuss your situation of what you were in middle school and how that has changed into your adult life and the trajectory.VirginiaWhat I was in middle school?AudienceSmaller.VirginiaOh yeah, thin.AudienceOnly because I listened to all these stories, and I’ve always been in this body, and so I did get the “you’re ugly and fat.” I’m like, girl, no. So I think there’s an arc to be discussed, right? Like, what does it look like when you are thin, and what can you do as a thin person to advocate? And then now your body has changed, because that’s what bodies do.So is there that discussion in the YA version? Is there a potential for that?VirginiaI think the reason it’s so important to me that—and I may even change the title, if you really think that thin kids wouldn’t buy a book called Fat Talk, which I’m still not—AudienceThey might not read it in public, right?VirginiaI’m still figuring out how to handle that piece. But it’s so important to me that thin kids read this book, because not every thin kid is going to be a thin adult. I mean, even if they were going to be a thin adult, they don’t need to be an asshole about it. We need to raise thin kids to be good advocates and allies.And it’s always tricky because the trauma that fat kids experience within their bodies from the world is worse objectively, it’s terrible. But what happens with thin kids, what happened to me, is that you’re told your thinness is this superpower and it’s this thing you should hold onto at all costs. And you see the way fat people are being treated. You see, you know, that your dad doesn’t let himself eat donuts. You see all of that, and you’re like, oh, it doesn’t apply to me. I don’t have to follow those rules. I can eat the cookies because I’m thin, but if I stop being thin, can I still eat the cookies?And what we need thin kids to understand is: Your bodies are going to change. You’re in puberty. That’s what is supposed to be happening. This is a good thing. And you don’t have to diet to fight it. You don’t have to be set up to try to get back to this previous version of you. It’s all still you. So I think it’s really important to get that message in there—and maybe that’s the message we all need, right? Like, all of our bodies are changing, and that’s what bodies do.So yes, I’m thinking a lot about how to get that in the book, but we’ll see. Stay tuned. And I’m open to title ideas!The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Today Virginia is chatting with Brianna Campos. Bri is a licensed professional counselor and body image coach who works with folks recovering from eating disorders, and finding body acceptance through grief. You may know Bri from Instagram, or from her newsletter, Body Image with Bri.Bri and I talk about why this concept of body grief is so important—and yet so often overlooked in this work. And she shares how doing her own body grief work has led her to have a happier relationship with her body and to start dating again—confidently and with a lot of joy as a superfat person. If you find today’s episode valuable, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out in paperback! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. You’re listening to Burnt Toast!I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is Brianna Campos.Bri is a licensed professional counselor and body image coach who works with folks recovering from eating disorders, and finding body acceptance through grief. You may know Bri from Instagram, or from her newsletter, Body Image with Bri.Bri and I talk about why this concept of body grief is so important—and yet so often overlooked in this work. And she shares how doing her own body grief work has led her to have a happier relationship with her body and to start dating again—confidently and with a lot of joy as a superfat person.Bri is such a delight, and I learned so much from talking with her. You are going to love this episode!If you find today’s episode valuable, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.Episode 182 TranscriptBriMy name is Bri. I am on Instagram as Body Image with Bri. I am a trained mental health counselor in the state of New Jersey, and I transitioned to body image coaching and education somewhere around 2018 or 2019. The way I work with folks in helping to make peace with your here and now body is through this concept of body grief.VirginiaI think the whole idea of “body grief” is something that gets left out of a lot of the conversations around bodies, and fat liberation. So tell us how you use this phrase and why you think it’s so important to make space for this grief work?BriI was working in eating disorder recovery. And it’s funny, because I was with clients, and thinking, “Huh, do I have an eating disorder? No, I can’t have an eating disorder, I’m fat!” And not using fat in a reclaimed way.I started to notice, wow, what’s being prescribed as a person in a fat body is being diagnosed in a thin body as an eating disorder. That’s a quote from Deb Burgard, an eating disorder therapist and one of the founders of Health At Every Size. The dissonance for me was huge. Like, wow, so the only difference is because I exist in this body.So when I’m telling these girls—I worked in a facility that was only girls— “we just have to accept your body,” and they had a hard time with it, and they lived in socially acceptable bodies, it dawned on me how much harder it’s going to be for me to accept my own body. I felt like that was the piece of the conversation that was getting left out. Acceptance doesn’t actually mean that you have to like it or love it. If you look at the stages of grief according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, acceptance is sort of the outcome. It’s not a destination.But first we have this place of denial and bargaining—I see a lot of people who get stuck in this bargaining phase. Between the bargaining of “maybe I can still fix this” and “this is my body.” It’s “I don’t love that this is my body” and “this is where I’m at.” Most of us don’t want to enter that.The working definition I have for body grief is: The distress associated with the perceived loss around body change.The reason I make it such an expansive definition is because that works for people going through puberty. That works for people going through perimenopause and menopause, people who are aging. It works in alignment with gender dysphoria. It’s a change in one’s body that’s causing you distress because of what you will lose, or perceive yourself to lose.VirginiaI’m interested that you say perceived loss, because there are tangible losses sometimes, with body changes. But also, sometimes, not. Or they aren’t the losses we expected.BriCorrect. That’s what makes this so tricky. We have systemic anti-fat bias that exists in the world. So as somebody in what I would identify as a superfat body, there are times where I won’t fit in a booth at a restaurant. I may have to ask for additional seating at a venue. I can’t clothes shop in most stores. That loss is real, but it’s very easy for me to identify that as a systemic issue.To me, the grief was more in the emotional pieces that I thought I was going to lose out on. One of the stories that I very much believed when I was starting to do this work is that if I don’t exist in a smaller body, no man will ever find me attractive. I date men, unfortunately. They are a liability. And I know some really great men, right??Virginia#notallmen, but also…BriBut also. Come on.I had been exposed to a lot of anti-fatness, especially in the dating world. I’ll rephrase that, I don’t think I was exposed to it as much as I was observing other people experience it. And I was like, Oh no, no, no. I don’t want to experience that at all.VirginiaI’m not going to put myself out for that.BriI also thought I would lose the respect of of potential clients I had. I worked for a company once that said, “If a family is uncomfortable with your body size, we’re going to remove you from the case.” They tried to make it seem like it was for me. And I was like, oh, that’s fucked up. But I was so new in my own body image exploration, that I was just like, I know this is wrong but I don’t know why. And now I’m like, now I know why. Now I get it.VirginiaI’m just taking a minute with that one. So, if a family is uncomfortable with your body size, we’ll remove you from the case. Rather than the entire thing we’re here to work on is is overcoming that discomfort and internalized fatphobia.BriIt was like, “Well, we wouldn’t want to subject you to that.” And I took the job anyway, so, I mean, there’s that.And I think there’s something to be said about the societal and social pressure of existing in a smaller body. Something else I grieved so bigly was the the fear of never being “healthy” enough for my doctors. I just wanted to do a good job!VirginiaThat one’s a mix of emotions and systemic, right? Because it’s the fucked up system that results in doctors treating you that way. But it’s also so vulnerable and emotional to go into the doctor’s office.BriPeople will look at my body as a billboard for my health. Somebody will look at me and believe that they know my health status without ever looking at any other criteria. So what I felt was not only the loss of privilege, which is that systemic piece, but was no longer even being able to hide with privilege. If I was aggressively working out and dieting, at least I could come with evidence of here’s all that I’m doing, and my body isn’t changing, right?What I realized was: It was never going to be enough. There was no amount of weight that I could lose that would actually allow me to experience quality medical care. I remember I had been working out so aggressively, while also working in eating disorder recovery. I was passing out while I was working out because I have orthostatic hypertension and I shouldn’t be bending over. Didn’t know this. And every single doctor was like, “I really just want to talk about how concerned I am for your BMI.” And I lost it. I was like, “What would you like me to do? I’m working out five, six days a week.” And he was like, “Well, I just want you to keep trying.” I’m like, I’m here because I’m working out and passing out.VirginiaIt’s that Good Fatty thing. You can follow all the rules but they’re not ever going to give out the gold stars.BriI think that was my diet culture breaking point. I realized it was never going to be enough for the world. Every time I’d hit a goal post, the goal post would change. And I realized this is an exercise in futility. I am just going to keep doing this over and over and over again. As somebody who loves to succeed—I love a gold star, I love to hit check boxes—I was like, I’m just going to always fail at this.So I really had to sit with myself and say, “If I fail at shrinking my body, and I say, I surrender and I just allow my body to do what it’s going to do, what is the worst thing that could possibly happen, truly?”I recognized I would lose a lot of privilege. I would lose accessibility. I would lose the praise and adoration from society. I could potentially miss out on partners and jobs and respect. And at the end of the day, I know that that didn’t align with my own values.I don’t measure somebody’s enoughness, or humanity, based on how many days a week they exercise ,and how many vegetables they eat, or how good they are at shrinking their bodies. The true connections that I have with people don’t revolve around that.But it was a lot easier for me to accept that, because nothing I did worked. I find that people who are able to hold onto thin privilege can stay stuck in that bargaining phase a lot longer.VirginiaYes, I think that’s right. Because it’s just within reach.BriI was always fat.VirginiaThe seduction of thin privilege is so intense. It’s hard for people to recognize they’re never going to get there either. The goal post is always moving for everybody.BriSonya Renee Taylor talks about it and talks about in her book, The Body Is Not an Apology. 10/10 recommend to anybody who is on a healing journey. I’ve had clients tell me this feels advanced for me, which I get, and also breaks my heart, because what she’s talking about is radical self acceptance. And that is too hard for people. If that’s the case, I recommend starting with Jes Baker’s book Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls.VirginiaAlso wonderful.BriA great starting point of like, oh shit. This is where all this started. This is how I can check in with myself. But Sonya Renee Taylor talks about beauty standard sas this ladder, and she says, You can climb this ladder, but it has to be knowing that you’re never going to get to the top. How do we know that there’s no top? Look at Oprah. Look at the Kardashians. Look at these people who have infinite amount of resources to attain the impossible and how long have they been able to hold it for? If not even the most privileged people in the world can reach that, what hope do the rest of us have?VirginiaIt’s a rigged system.BriShe says, you have two choices. You can climb the ladder knowing that you’re never going to get to the top, or you can choose not to climb the ladder.VirginiaYou already mentioned that one of the things you had to grieve was what would this mean for future partners. And yet, you’ve been talking on Instagram recently about being out there on the dating apps!So clearly that fear was not entirely realized and I want to talk about this.BriIt’s honestly, like—it’s so fun for me. If you had told 2018 Bri, “Not only are you going to get through this, but you’re going to get to the other side, and you’re going to start talking about your own dating life,” I would have been like, “That’s not gonna happen. That’s not my story.”So I’m so excited to talk about it. It’s still raw and new and exciting and emotional. So we’re going to just kind of navigate it together. I consider myself somewhat of a late bloomer. I didn’t really date extensively when I was younger. I would say 85 percent of that was body image shit, and then the rest of it was religious shit.VirginiaThat’s a fun combination for you.BriOh, it’s super cool. It’s great. Doing my own deconstructing of faith and beliefs and and self. And what I can say through the last several years of doing this body image work is: Body image wounds often are a mask for a deeper wound. And bear with me on this, because I think there are some times where it is like, yes, my body is just uncomfortable, but the connection isn’t the problem. It’s the interpretation of what that connection means.Let’s say you change over your seasonal clothes and your pants don’t fit. There might be physical discomfort in your clothes not fitting, but usually what’s activating is that there’s an emotional story of “oh my God, my pants don’t fit. This is bad. This is not a good thing.” And then we start to panic. So the analogy I’ll use is it’s a little bit like a fire alarm going off, and your brain telling you we have to stop drop and roll. I’m a child of the 90s. The amount of training we did for stop, drop, and roll—I thought the probability of catching on fire was so high. Nobody talked to me about emotional regulation.VirginiaWe were prepared to roll flames out of our bodies at a moment’s notice. But name our feelings, no thank you.BriSo when we feel connected to our bodies sometimes, or most times I would argue, we associate it negatively. I did everything I could to not connect to my body. So then, anytime I had connection, I interpreted as it is something bad.So like, clothes not fitting, not fitting in public spaces, feeling bloated, having a stomach ache—everything was just like, oh, this is a negative connection. There was no awareness of like, hey, you know what feels really good? Drinking a warm cup of coffee! That feels good in your body. You know what feels good? A nice hug. A cozy sweater. We can feel good in our body. The problem is we minimize that experience and we exacerbate the distressful experience.So I remember starting to really seriously date in my 20s, and I hated it so much. It was not for me. I was like, “This feels effortful in a way that I just would rather be home and not trying.” And I kind of just let dating and relationships and all that go to the wayside.During the pandemic, I am a provider. It was a very stressful time for providers, especially. And I would get off my calls at the end of the day, and I’d be like, “Wow, I have pain in my chest that I can’t manage.” So I changed medications. I went from low anxiety meds to a a different medication—I’ll just name what I was on. I went on Zoloft and it worked great. Did exactly what I needed to do. But fast forward now to 2024, and I’m newly diagnosed with ADHD. I’m working with a new provider who says “I think we should try you on a different med that goes really well with ADHD.” And I switched from Zoloft to Wellbutrin. And when I tell you, it was like a light switch. It was like my entire system. Do you remember when you would turn on your computer back in the day, it would go? That’s what it sort of felt like.VirginiaAnd I’ll just interject quickly that if you’re on Zoloft and it’s working for you, we’re not saying don’t be on Zoloft.BriNo, please talk to your providers. I will also just advocate, too, if you are somebody who thinks you’re neurodivergent or is neurodivergent and your provider doesn’t understand neurodivergence, find a provider who does. Because mine did. I was like, I don’t have ADHD. And she was like, well, it could look like this, but could also look like this. And I was like, oh yeah, I do do that.VirginiaIt does look like that, actually.BriYeah, and like, night and day. And absolutely this is not a recommendation of getting off your meds.VirginiaBri is just saying, find the meds that work for you. And if you are noticing this suppressed feeling or numb feeling, this could be a conversation to have with your doctor to see if tweaks can help reboot your computer, so to speak.BriAmen.VirginiaSo you had the rebooting, the computer turning on. And then you were like, all right, I’m going to get out there. How did it go?BriSo this is now the first time in recent history where I’m getting out into the dating world. And my body image is healed, my self esteem is healed, and I was still a fucking anxious basket case. And I’m like, What the fuck? Why did I do all of this work?VirginiaThis should be easy!BriIt is such a beautiful mirror to healing your body image. Because I thought healing my body image meant that I was going to feel sexy all of the time. That I was going to feel 100 percent comfortable all the time. And I’m like, no, that’s not it. Healing my body image just means that there are days I’m like, “I feel uncomfortable,” but I no longer have a secondary story about it. Or when I do, when I’m having a lot of old body image thoughts, now I can recognize that is a clue for me. Of like, hey, these are old patterns. What’s happening? Why is our nervous system going backwards? What is happening? We are regressing.And oftentimes it comes from two things. 1. Not connecting to my body. Like having purposely or just absentmindedly disconnecting from my body for a long period of time. Or 2. Being being around super fatphobic people.VirginiaYeah, that can do it!BriSo with this dating thing, I’m like, I love myself. I love my body. Why am I still anxious?VirginiaMaybe because there are other people involved now?BriThere it is. And I was like, damn it, this is so hard.VirginiaThey might not be cool. You’re cool, but who knows how they’ll be.BriThere’s social anxiety, and there’s like, oh my God, I have to small talk. And I’m a therapist, I could small talk you under the table, right? But I don’t want to do that.And I’ve said this to a couple of, you know, people that I’ve met up with. It’s one thing for me to have healed my own body image, but it is a very vulnerable thing to have my body be potentially rejected by someone else. So that’s a very real concern.VirginiaThat’s terrifying.BriI think two of the biggest concerns I had with going into dating and putting myself out there, was that I was going to either be rejected or that I or that I was going to be fetishized.VirginiaI think these are the universal big fears for fat folks dating. Either no one will want me, or everyone will want me, but only in a weird, creepy way.BriYeah. Not my experience.VirginiaGreat.BriNot my experience.VirginiaAnd I’ll just add for the record: Not mine either, listeners. So that’s two votes for not that experience as fat ladies.BriIt’s not that it doesn’t happen, but I would say it happens so infrequently that it doesn’t detract from the experience. It doesn’t make me not want to date.And I can tell pretty quickly if somebody has a fat fetish. So I’ve just gotten really comfortable saying, “Hey, I’m just going to name this off the bat. If that’s your kink, there’s no shame. But that’s not my kink. So I don’t think it’s going to be a match if that’s for you. I know there are other people out there who will be a great fit for you.”VirginiaWe should also say: We’re talking about being fetishized without consent, which is different from a shared fetish, where you’re both into it. Great, have a good time. That’s lovely.BriBecause it’s like, how do you know if I’m consenting to it? If somebody just messages me, and is like, “Oh my god, I love your, your big, beautiful body. I love big, beautiful women,”—you are now fetishizing me without my first consenting that this is something I’m into. To me that’s an ick. Bless and release.I did have somebody who was very polite and said, “This is my kink. Like, I do love big women.” And I was like, I’ll entertain it. It ended very quickly.VirginiaAnd is this all happening over DMS on the app? Are you trying to clarify these things before you meet up in person?Bri100 percent. And like, really connecting with somebody beforehand. I have yet to find or meet up with somebody that I met off the streets, but that would require me to leave my house.VirginiaYeah, so gross.BriI don’t love doing this.VirginiaIt’s cold. What are we superheroes?No, I really think the apps—I mean, obviously they’re a mixed bag. There are a lot of terrible things about them—but I think the ability to establish clarity about key topics over DMs before you have to put clothes on and leave your house is a huge gift of technology.BriWhat I tell my friends is: I have learned so much about myself in this process. This is my dating era. I am dating now more than I have ever in my life. And I actually took a dating course with my friend Lily Womble. It’s called main character dating, and she really taught me how to figure out what I want and to ask for what I want unapologetically even if I don’t believe it exists. Yeah, even if I don’t think it’s out there, like, let’s just name it and claim it. If we connect with somebody, and then it changes, we get to bless and release that person.And I will tell you this entire process, I’m like, Okay, I’ve learned something new. Like, I’m going to need to do a phone call before I meet up with you. Because, if we can’t hold a conversation, this isn’t going to work.There are so many things that I’m learning about myself through this that, outside of the men, has been healing for me.VirginiaSuper valuable.BriAnd even just: Being able to name what I want and ask for it unapologetically as a fat woman. Also healing.VirginiaSo healing. I love this.Anything else you really advise people do to help work through those fears as you’re getting into the process?BriAs you’re getting into the process, I will tell you, we have to start with you first. Because again, I had zero, body image shit going into this, and I was still an anxious mess. I am so confident in myself, and I still was anxious. And what I realized was it was multi-layered. Some of it was old patterns, just going down that groove, old messages and stories coming up. There’s also some anticipatory anxiety of doing this thing that you have nothing to compare it to. Am I resourceful enough to handle the worst case scenario? What’s the worst case scenario that could come out of this situation?But we are a resourceful bunch. I don’t believe that we need to be resilient. I just think we need to be resourceful enough. Something I talk about in my community is good enough healing. We’re not looking for a grade. You can’t be honor roll. What will allow you to add more joy and pleasure and satisfaction into your life? You can’t get those things without also risking rejection, pain and discomfort. They’re two sides of the same coin.VirginiaI think for me, there was definitely this issue of —yeah, I’ve done all my own work, but I was suspicious about whether men would have gotten the memo of my amazingness. Does that make sense? You and I are both women on the internet, so we hear from men, which is not usually great when it’s Instagram DMs and troll comments.I just felt very aware, like, I’m over 40, I’m a divorced mom. These things are not considered hot by general society or whatever. It has turned out to be the complete opposite. None of that has mattered at all. But there was a leap of faith that had to happen where I was like, “I am willing to risk that being their response.” And I had to realize, if that was their response, that would never be a person for me. It’s fine. It’s actually not personal at all. It’s just like, yeah, oh, that’s fine. You go off and find your size two 25 year old, or whatever it is. That’s fine.BriWe like to say the that the trash likes to take itself out.VirginiaExactly.BriAnd I will say, too, I have been the heaviest person on every single one of my dates. Maybe not the tallest. But there has been no specific body type or size or person—everybody has been different, and it’s been so healing for me. A man with washboard abs wants to go out with me, like, what? Somebody’s got to tell 16 year old Bri!VirginiaThis is big news.BriI don’t think she’d believe you. And: Just because you have washboard abs doesn’t mean that you are a home run. Right? So it requires us to do a lot of work on our own internalized anti-fatness, too. There’s something about attraction, of being attracted to somebody…but I don’t believe, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, that you can say, “I’m not attracted to fat people.”VirginiaNo, I agree. I mean, I struggle with that whole conversation. None of our personal preferences developed in a void. You’re not just like, “I happen to like tall men.” No. We like tall men because society’s been telling us to like tall men forever. All of these preferences have this other context. So, I think saying “I’m not attracted to fat people” is a fundamentally problematic statement. I mean, I think it’s true for people because of their social conditioning, but I don’t think it’s an okay thing to put on your dating profile or whatever.BriSomething I’ll put on my profiles is “I’m body positive. I need somebody who is also body positive.” Like, if you like body positive, swipe right. If you’re fatphobic or you have a fat fetish, swipe left. Just don’t even. Don’t even bother.VirginiaAnd that really does help. I didn’t have a lot of people messaging me that didn’t get that memo. You’ve got to set that boundary.BriI also think when I was younger, I just felt like I was desperate. Like I just had to take anybody who messaged me, even if I didn’t find them attractive or I didn’t feel like we connected. It was like, “Well, they like me, so I have no choice.” Whereas now I’m like, nah, I don’t have to do that.VirginiaWe don’t settle for crumbs. No, thank you.BriAnd I’m not shy of options.VirginiaAgain, gift of the app! Slash problematic of the apps.BriIt’s a good way to reset and get yourself back out there. Something that my dating coach talks about is joy building. So it’s going out and doing things that you have fun doing without the pressure of dating. Because the more out you are, the more likelihood you’ll be able to connect with people. I joined a choir. I went to this book swap that was nearby. I connected with two of the women and we’re gonna go out for coffee. One of them has a son. Like, you just never know!VirginiaThere you go!BriSo it’s just, it’s creating a bigger dating pool. But what I will say is that that you need to ask yourself: Do I see myself as somebody who is attractive to be desired? Because if you don’t think you’re desirable, it’s not that you won’t find someone else. Like, we do this all time, right? Of like, “you have to heal yourself before you find that.” Now there are plenty of people who are unhealed and in relationships. The problem is, is that you will still find somebody and not believe it.VirginiaI mean, it’s like the last season of Bridgerton, where Colin has to show Penelope how beautiful she is. Like that doesn’t fucking work. That’s not the work. And also it’s so patronizing. This idea that your value is contingent on the man witnessing you and adoring you. Like, no thank you.BriIt just doesn’t work that way. If somebody compliments you and you’re like, “I don’t agree with you,” you’re going to reject that compliment the same if somebody’s like, “I desire you. I want to be with you. I want to go on a date with you, I want to make out with your face.” Like, no, you don’t. That’s a self esteem and internalized anti-fatness issue.VirginiaSo now, you’re out there, you’re going on dates, you’re having a blast. We love all of this. Are there any rituals you’ve figured out for yourself that help? Because I’m sure there are still butterflies, right? That oh God moment right before you go out the door? Like, how can there not be?BriEvery time.Yeah, so again, I’m sounding like a drug pusher here. But I keep some spare meds in my car in case my nervous system is really activated. And I remember being afraid of that, like, oh my gosh, if I do this, then I’m going to numb myself out, and then I’m not going to be present. The very first date that I went on this year, I didn’t take anything. Afterwards, I was like, Klonopin wouldn’t have ruined anything. Maybe I could have made this a little easier for myself.Just would have taken the edge off just a bit. And you know, if you’re familiar with Internal Family Systems, IFS work, like, sure, it’s probably a part that could some get work done. But I don’t have to work on that right now.VirginiaWe’re just trying to go to coffee with a guy!BriI just want to get a drink. That’s all.When I work with somebody, I use the distress scale. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how distressful is it? I was probably at like a 7.5. And I was like, I’m going, I’m doing the thing. I’m going to do it, and I’m going to survive. The Klonopin would have just taken me down to a five.VirginiaWe don’t need to white knuckle this.BriSo with body image work, what I would do is like, “Well, let’s not start with the thing that’s a 7.5. Let’s start with a thing that’s like a four, because then when your brain can handle it.” And it’s now going to give you evidence that you can continue. So 10 out of 10 don’t recommend white knuckling.But I have a huge support system. They call it my podcast. Every time I go on a date, they’re like, “We can’t wait for the voice note of what’s going to happen next. How’d it go? Give us the recap!” And having people who are there to support me is key. Also sharing my location, you always have to be safe.VirginiaAlways. And the guys name.BriName, picture… actually it’s probably one of my calling cards, I’ll be like, “Do you have a photo I can send to my friends in case you murder me?” And then just see how they respond.VirginiaIt’s a great little litmus test.I also just have to say, I similarly love the group chat aspect of dating. And I feel so bad that I don’t think many men have that? Just because of again, social conditioning, I think women can have so much more fun dating because no matter how bad the date is, you’re going to text your friends afterwards or send the voice note, and the gifs alone are going to make it feel worth it.BriI remember when I would hear people say, “dating is so much fun!” I was like, what are you doing on a date that’s fun? And I’m starting to have fun now because I’m picking people that I actually feel connected with. I’ve always dated for finding my partner. Right now, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just like, “Do I think I could have fun hanging out with you, spending some time with you, getting some free drinks?” I pay some of the time. Especially when I’m like there’s not going to be a second one.VirginiaI’m going to buy my own drinks.BriAnd it has been fun. It has not been painless. It has not been all 10s. Every experience hasn’t been a 10 out of 10, but I have learned something about myself every time I go out. And that’s the coolest part about this.VirginiaI love that. Anything else on this topic we haven’t hit on that you want to make sure to really emphasize for folks?BriIf the idea of going out on a date right now feels impossible, just start by getting on the app and seeing what happens with your nervous system.And let men or women or whoever you’re dating connect with you and and just watch and observe the process.It doesn’t mean it’s going to go anywhere. That’s the other part of this, too. You have a lot of false starts. You’re vibing with somebody, and then the next day they’ve blocked you and you’re like, oh.VirginiaThey just disappear.BriI don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but I have had to start asking now. Like, are you in a committed relationship and cheating on a partner?VirginiaI realized I had to ask that pretty early on.BriI would be like three days into talking to someone, and they’d be like, “So I just think you should know I’m married.” And I’m like, okay, are you ethically non monogamous?VirginiaTotally fine, great.Bri“No, they don’t know.” Then we’re done. So I’ve put that’s on my profile, too. If you’re cheating, get lost.VirginiaAbsolutely wild. And then I’ve had guys be like “😞.” No! No sad face for you.BriI don’t know if you’ve had this experience of going on a date with a person, and then it not working out. And I will say this has probably been the hardest part for me —actually doing the bless and release. Because I’m such a people pleaser and I hate hurting people’s feelings.VirginiaYeah, that’s hard.BriBut if you bless and release them, and then they’re cry babies about it…I’m like, no. Confirmed.VirginiaIt was a good call.I never quite figured out how to do it in person? I end up sending a text to bless and release the day or two after. But I actually think that’s fine. Especially as a woman dating straight men—there’s a safety piece. It is what it is. And if we’ve only had one or two dates, I don’t feel like we’ve earned a face to face over it. It doesn’t warrant a long conversation.BriI don’t owe anyone. I give out what I would want. I’m never just going to block and delete somebody if we didn’t have a good date. I’m going to give you the respect of having that conversation. But it’s not fun. It’s not easy. But it has been worth it, and you learn so much about yourself in this process.ButterVirginiaSo we wrap up every Burnt Toast with butter, which is our recommendation segment. Do you have some butter for us today?BriDating has very much become my ADHD obsession. I’m just like,”I’m just doing it all the time now.” Part of my ritual is one of the things my dating coach says in her book, which is called Thank You, More Please. So I made a “thank you, more please” playlist.VirginiaOh, that’s so good!BriIt’s got hype music for when I am getting ready for a date, or when I’m coming home from a date and I’m feeling myself, and I’m listen to it after I send my friends the podcast episode update. It’s just so empowering and and healing in its own way.And going back to the body connection, music can be such a somatically healing thing. So if you’re ever feeling dysregulated in your body, and you put music on, you will see, and experience, your body calm down. And so when I’m getting ready for a date, I’m like, alright, I’ve got to pump up that adrenaline. Let’s go. It’s been one of my faves. So if anyone listens to this, please send me some songs to add!VirginiaI love that so much.My Butter is a beauty product, which I have talked about a little bit on the newsletter already, but I’m just going to give it another shout out because it’s just coming in clutch for me as we’re navigating winter and all the illnesses. I haven’t been getting enough sleep, because my kids wake up all the time. So I look exhausted, and then I want to not look exhausted. So Tarte makes this eyeliner called Fake Awake, which just goes on your water line of your lower eyelid. It’s like a sort of creamy white peach color, and it just makes your eyes look less exhausted. Which turns out to be like something I really benefit from.I got the recommendation from Kim France, who writes Girls of a Certain Age, which is a great fashion Substack. And she was like, “This is like every stoner’s favorite eyeliner.” I am not a stoner. Pot is not meant for me. But as someone who is a little bit allergic to her cats and doesn’t get enough sleep, I feel like I often have stoner eyes? And it’s really great.Fake awake is #5! Shop all Virginia’s makeup here.BriI love that. I’m going to check that out.VirginiaAnd, yeah, we could deconstruct forever: Do you need makeup? Of course not. It’s all patriarchy, etc, etc. But also sometimes I just want to look like I slept better than I did.BriLindley Ashline has a great line for that. She says something like, “We don’t need to feel bad or apologetic when we want to get wear makeup or get Botox or something like that. We can just allow ourselves to recognize ‘I’m going to conform today to the standard.’” Like, it’s a survival skill.VirginiaI’m curious how you think about that with dating, actually, because I have thought about it a lot. When I was not yet dating, I was really embracing what Emma Copley Eisenberg calls frump fashion. Lots of giant, oversized dresses. No male gaze anywhere, I’m wearing whatever, just comfortable things all the time.And then when I started dating, it was like, oh, I’m not going to wear that on a date. There is a difference. There is an awareness of the gaze. And I think for me, it’s kind of fun to have both options. It’s kind of fun to play around with it and decide what level of this I want to subscribe to. But also, sometimes I’m like, where’s that line? Like, I just think we all have to find that line. I don’t know.BriI think for me, I am not going to change anything about me for somebody else. So if somebody were to call me today and be like, “Can I FaceTime you?” I’m not going to be like, hold on, let me go put makeup on real quick. This is how I look today. You take what you get, you don’t get upset.But if I’m going to meet somebody for the first time, I want to get cute. I want to look my best self. And it’s a little bit of a ritual for me, too. I’m going to put my makeup on and I’m going to listen to my music and I’m going to look my hottest, and then I’m going to feel good. And, also know that I’ve gone on a bunch of dates, and these guys have seen me with makeup and without makeup, and their responses have been the same. It’s still “Oh, you’re so beautiful.” And I’m like, “Thanks. I look like a couch troll right now, but I appreciate it.”VirginiaA hot couch troll. Put that in your bio!Okay, well, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for coming. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support your work.BriThank you so much for having me. This is such an honor, and I was just so excited to talk about it. And just excited to be able to share with with somebody else, who’s in it, and tracking with me. Because I feel like a lot of times people who talk about relationships are people who are in relationships, I’m like, you can’t relate to me. You’ve been married for 75 years.VirginiaOh, it’s a different world.BriIt is. It is a different world. But what you want is possible. It starts with healing you first. And it doesn’t mean that it has to be perfect. It just has to be good enough, and that you believe that you are worthy of love and intimacy and going on fun, flirty dates in the body that you have right now. And if you don’t, then we start with that.So with that, I’m an ADHD queen, so I’m a hot mess. So I would say the best place to learn how to work with me is on my Instagram. It’s usually the most up to date way of how you can find me. I do have a podcast called the Body Grievers Club. We are casual podcasters, so haven’t posted anything current at the time of this recording, but hoping to become more consistent with that. But we do have some episodes on sex, love and dating while fat:59. Let's talk about [fat] sex55. My partner said they're not attracted to me since I've gained weight.And I have a Substack which, again, also hoping to get a little more consistent with that.VirginiaThank you so much for being here! This was absolutely delightful.BriThank you so much for having me.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Today we're exploring the work of attorney turned self-help guru Mel Robbins.Did Mel steal the concept of “let them?”Is she just Andrew Huberman for the “We Can Do Hard Things” crowd?Is high-fiving yourself in the mirror every morning a diet?As you’ll hear, Corinne and I didn’t totally agree… until we did. Let’s get into it.Episode 181 TranscriptCorinneToday, we are talking about motivational speaker and author Mel Robbins and we have maybe some surprising opinions on this topic.VirginiaWe have different takes about Mel Robbins. Some evolving takes as well. In the course of researching this episode, I think we went on a little Mel Robbins journey.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.comYou’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your February Indulgence Gospel.Today we’re talking about Mel Robbins! We’re going to get into:⭐️ Is Mel Robbins diet culture or anti-diet? Is she just Andrew Huberman for the We Can Do Hard Things crowd?⭐️ Corinne & Virginia’s difference of opinion⭐️ The big Mel Robbins controversy⭐️ Will we start high fiving ourselves in the mirror?To hear our discussion, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.

Today Virginia is chatting with Helen Rosner. Helen is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has been covering food for more than a decade as a writer and editor, and won a 2024 James Beard Award for her weekly restaurant-review column, The Food Scene. She is an expert on sandwiches and many other important subjects. And I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Helen last month at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn (hi Emma Straub thank you so much for having us!!), at a live event to celebrate the paperback release of Fat Talk. (They should still have a few signed copies in stock if you need one!)We talked about the book, of course, but we talked about so many other fat- and food-adjacent topics, that I knew I wanted to bring it to you as a podcast episode.(Bear with some imperfect audio, since we weren’t recording with our usual set-up — but Tommy worked his magic as usual so it’s still highly listen-to-able!)If you find today’s episode valuable, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out in paperback! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. You’re listening to Burnt Toast!I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is the great Helen Rosner.Helen is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has been covering food for more than a decade as a writer and editor, and won a 2024 James Beard Award for her weekly restaurant-review column, The Food Scene. She is an expert on sandwiches and many other important subjects.And I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Helen last month at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn (hi Emma Straub thank you so much for having us!!), at a live event to celebrate the paperback release ofFat Talk. (They should still havea few signed copies in stock if you need one!)We talked about the book, of course, but we talked about so many other fat- and food-adjacent topics, that I knew I wanted to bring it to you as a podcast episode.(Bear with some imperfect audio, since we weren’t recording with our usual set-up — but Tommy worked his magic as usual so it’s still highly listen-to-able!)Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.Episode 180 TranscriptThank you Kim Baldwin for this cute pic of the livestream!HelenI was telling Virginia backstage—and this is true—I read a lot, but I'm a really bad nonfiction reader. I tend to feel like nonfiction books—I shouldn't say this in a bookstore, all nonfiction books are great. You should buy all of them. But I think there's a tendency for nonfiction books to have one really, really good idea and then say it over and over again for 300 pages. It’s like, this could have been a tweet. But I read every single page of this book in total joy. Actually, a lot of it was anger, but it flew by. It is such a great book. It’s funny and smart and so rigorous and has exactly the right kind of anger that is also transmuted into exhortation and action, and it made me feel really good about myself and hopeful by the end. I think that’s the best thing any book can do.VirginiaWhere were you when we were getting blurbs? Because that was amazing. Thank you so much. That really means a lot.HelenIt’s really exciting for me to be talking to you about this. I’m a newish parent. I don’t know at what point I just call myself a parent instead of a new parent? I have a two year old.VirginiaI think you’re getting there.HelenBut this came out right on time for me. Shortly after my daughter was born this was sitting in my stack of prominently placed books in my living room, and my mother was visiting. She just sort of touched it and looked at it. It was like watching a deer approach—VirginiaDon’t look at it. Don’t look at it.HelenDon’t look right at it. My mom, who was born in 1952 and who eats four almonds as a snack, literally. And it happened! Like, it happened. This is a great book, but it is also such a good passive aggressive prop.VirginiaI really thought about that a lot in my cover design. How will this look on people’s coffee tables when their moms come over? And I think it’s eye catching with the yellow so you want to pick it up, but then you see “fat,” and you’re like, oh my God, what’s happening.It brings up a lot for the moms. But I’ve heard this story a few times, and it gives me a lot of hope.HelenI assume it had a good impact. I mean, we haven’t directly discussed it.VirginiaNo, no. No one’s saying that has to happen.HelenOne of the things that was really striking for me about this book that I want to talk to you about is the fact that it is a parenting book. I assume everybody is here because you are on some fundamental level interested in the concepts of body liberation and fat activism and the notion of the inherent dignity of the body, and how do we untie the knots of garbage that have prevented our society from allowing that to just simply be.VirginiaThat’s just the baseline. Everybody’s there? Good.HelenSo what is the function and what is the effect and what does it do to frame that as a conversation about parenting?VirginiaI love this question.There are a couple things that made it end up being a parenting book. One is, when you are a writer who is a mom, people then assume you’re a parenting writer. So it was a path I was on a little bit, somewhat reluctantly.But the bigger thing was: There are so many important voices in the fat activism space. There’s Aubrey Gordon, there’s Sonya Renee Taylor, there’s Ragen Chastain, there are just so many people who I’ve been learning from for years.So when I thought about what can I contribute to the conversation—you know, I am a multiply privileged white woman. I’m a small fat woman. There are many parts of this conversation that I should not be centered in, that I do not own, and shouldn’t be taking up space in.But there wasn’t a book about how to talk about anti-fat bias with kids, how to think about this issue as a parent. And because I was writing in a lot of parenting spaces, and because I am a parent, I knew that this issue is something parents are terrified of and really deeply struggling with.So I felt like, well, this is the place I can contribute to the larger work of body liberation. I can take my background as a health journalist and parenting writer and all of that, and bring it into this space.And my book editor—who’s here!—also doesn’t really love parenting books. So this is something we talked about a lot, is not necessarily wanting to be a parenting book, but how do we help parents. But the really beautiful thing that’s happened since the book came out is that I hear from a lot of folks who are not parents who read it and say “This is helping me reparent myself around these issues.”So I think just framing the conversation as, how would we talk to kids about this? How would we advocate for children about this? that helps people start to think, “Well, what didn’t I get as a kid? Who didn’t stand up for me? Who didn’t advocate for me?”That gives you permission to start really dealing with some of that and sitting with some of that. That’s been the the cool thing. It is a parenting book, but I think it doesn’t have to be. You can be parenting yourself, and that’s part of it, too.HelenThis is maybe the big and unanswerable question. But I feel like this is cover-to-cover just chock full of irrefutable scientific studies and rigorously researched and peer reviewed data that shows that raising kids in diet culture is massively more harmful to them than whatever physical effects, primary or secondary, being overweight might do to them. So why is this still even a conversation?The whole focus in contemporary parenting—I assume this is always with the focus in parenting, but the way that the internet and our cultural trajectories have have allowed things to really become so filtered and focused, this obsession with optimization, right? Like, “I want my kid to have the perfect toy, the perfect book,” like…VirginiaThe best preschool.HelenEverything has to be the best. Here is this abundance of data showing how to create someone who is best set up to be emotionally healthy, physically healthy, psychologically healthy. And then our entire society is like, nah, fuck that. Like, what? How do we reconcile that?VirginiaI mean, it’s money, right? What you just said doesn’t make pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars. Raising children to be emotionally and physically healthy and feel safe in their bodies—that’s not the economy of Denmark. Novo Nordisk is. So that’s the bottom line. Weight loss has always been an incredibly profitable business model. Not a successful business model, right? Like, people lose some weight, but then they regain it. But that’s the profit.HelenWell, the business is successful.VirginiaYes, the business is successful. The weight loss is not successful, which is what makes the business successful.So that’s what we’re up against. And it’s really frustrating because to do this book, I talked to so many mainstream obesity researchers, so many doctors, so many people who really do I think in their hearts—not all of them. Not the Novo Nordisk guys—but in their hearts, I think a lot of people are like, “We’re really concerned about children’s health. We’re really concerned about raising rates of diabetes.” And they think they’re approaching this from the right place. Because they just haven’t drilled into the fact that most of the science getting done on this, is rooted in anti-fat bias and capitalism.So until our entire healthcare system is open to a major reckoning where they look at that, that’s not going to change. We’re always going to be slamming against that brick wall.HelenOne of the tensions I feel like you try to navigate throughout this book is the relationship between what we can do as individuals, within our families, within our friend groups, and what we can’t do, because there is a system. We can want the system to change, and we can work on our way for the system to change, but the system is much greater than we are.So as a parent, but also as a person who is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world probably about this whole thing, where does that leave us? Is it really going to make a difference if I have a fat child, if my child grows up to be fat, if I say all of the right things and create exactly the right space for her, and then she still goes out into a world that is equipped to make her feel like crap?VirginiaThe world will tell our kids all of these terrible things. The world tells all of us these terrible things about our bodies. But if you can have this foundation to come back to, and for kids, if they can know that home is a safe space, it does make a difference. Your daughter will know you’re never going to expect her to change her body. And that just gives her more options.And like, I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I had in the ‘90s. It’s not what I had as a middle schooler and as a high schooler. It was like, “No, obviously, change your body.”HelenI can’t believe I’m about to use a sports analogy, because I don’t do that.VirginiaI’m uncomfortable that we’re going there, but okay.HelenI’m also probably going to get the terms wrong. But you know how professional swimmers shave their entire bodies right before the actual meet? But they do all their training with their body hair. So they’ve trained with drag and then when they go out in the world, they’re super strong, and they’re ready to go.VirginiaYes! I thought that was a beautiful metaphor for the book, and for the experience it gives you navigating this.HelenWalking with weights? I don’t even, I don’t know. So I read this when it first came out, when I was a brand new parent, like I had a seven pound potato.VirginiaI’m just impressed you were reading at that point.HelenI don’t know how much I retained.VirginiaI was just watching a lot of Gilmore Girls reruns at that stage of my parenting.HelenAnd then I reread it, a month or two ago now, as the parent of a toddler, and it’s been interesting for me to trace the arc of my own relationship to my body, becoming a parent.I sort of optimistically was like, “It’s not going to change me. I’m just going to poop out a baby and I’ll continue being me.” And it’s not the pregnancy that changed me, or the parenting even that changed me. It’s that there is now a person where I am acutely aware at all times that I am the model. And I share that modeling with my husband. But like, I am a model. And I thought I was really good at not doing negative self talk. And now I’m acutely aware of it. Oh my God, it’s everywhere. Like, I hate myself. What has happened? I didn’t realize how much of this was there. Like, I get Botox, but then I stopped getting Botox because I was, like, she’ll know.VirginiaTwo year olds being famously good at spotting Botox.HelenThe level of self-parenting that reading parenting books has asked of me has been really healing and exciting, and also a little bit annoying and terrible.VirginiaThat seems right.HelenHave you had an arc of change in the two years since the book has been out? Your relationship to the book itself, or the way that you feel like people have reacted to it?VirginiaI mean, I said to you backstage that I didn’t want to talk about Ozempic because I’m tired of it. [To audience] Don’t worry, if you have Ozempic questions, it’s fine we can do it in the Q&A. But obviously, the big thing that happened in the two years since the book came out is that Ozempic has really dramatically changed the way diet culture and weight loss gets talked about.So what I will say is that I think it has made two things clear to me. One is what we’re up against, and that this is, again, a multi-billion dollar industry that is relentless. The fact that they’re marketing these drugs to kids, that they’re testing them on six year olds now—it’s very clear that the priorities are not health. The priority is how do we make as much money off these drugs as possible. And that is something I can see and talk about, and that’s fine.The second thing is more nuanced, but the more I thought about what body liberation means and what we’re fighting for here, the more I realized we have to hold space for the fact that everyone gets to make their own choices about Ozempic. And if that drug is the right drug for you, if weight loss of any kind feels necessary for you, then you will never hear me say that that was not the right choice for you.And I think I had to start talking about the book and talking to people about the book to really get to that level of nuance. Because what I started to understand is how much we all live with anti-fatness in all these different ways. It shows up in our lives in so many different ways. And so I don’t get to say, you should all be okay with living with this amount of anti-fatness. Until we can fix it for everyone, we all have to put up with this. Because I don’t know everyone’s individual lives. Often weight loss is necessary for fat folks to access medical care or to access clothing or an access job opportunities. And that’s because we’re talking about a systemic set of barriers.So I think that’s the nuance that I now bring to it. How do we talk about this as a system? How do we critique the system? How do we not critique individuals? That nuance, I think, is something I’m still finding and wrapping my brain around.HelenThat’s a really tough one because the system, while it exists as its own self perpetuating entity, is created and maintained by individuals, right? They’re not abstract, faceless people. We all contribute in our own ways to all these little systems and then there are the big, horrible architects.VirginiaWell, it’s like what you said about not wanting your two-year-old to spot your Botox. I so get that, because I have two daughters and any beauty work I engage in in front of them, I feel like I have to disclaim “This is something I’m opting into, but it’s beauty labor, and it’s not fair that women are expected to put on makeup and do our hair like this to go out into the world. And, you notice your father doesn’t have to do any of this to leave the house!” And they’re just like, okay, really mom?HelenIt’s makeup and it’s Mommy’s discourse and praxis!VirginiaAlso, it makes me happy?! I’m trying to tease out how much of it is my own joy versus the male gaze. I don’t know.So, I think I like Makeup Now? Everything I Put On My FaceHelenAre they even extractable from each other?VirginiaSo yes, all of these individual choices are also us performing in diet culture and performing in patriarchy. But I think we are all allowed to do our own math there, is where I’ve landed.HelenIt’s kind of amazing to me. I was like, how much this is such a sophomore year stoned thing to realize, but how much everything is just the one thing, right?Like, diet culture and the patriarchy and homophobia and queerphobia, all of racism, all of it is just the same thing. It’s just like, actually your body doesn’t have any impact on how much respect you deserve.And it’s wild, how much wrapping that needs to have, and how granular the getting ahead of objections needs to be. I think this is where it gets very sophomore year stoned. But it’s like, once you see it, you see it everywhere. It’s like the spider web is everywhere, and every twitch of a strand twitches everything else. And it’s just like, well, no, this is really easy, actually. Like, it’s super easy. We solved it. We just have to be cool.VirginiaJust be cool.HelenJust be cool. And then it turns out that’s actually incredibly complicated. Like, listen, I know that the entire medical profession has institutionalized fatphobia, but you’re gonna be cool.VirginiaNo, I think that’s completely it.What I often hear from folks who are on this journey of suddenly seeing the matrix, is you can do this thing where you then are trying to be perfect about not participating in diet culture. But it’s like, no, no. That’s diet culture that told you you had to be perfect. So it’s okay if you’re messing up a lot.I’ll have readers write in and be like, “I can’t show my four year old Peppa Pig because there’s so much fat shaming of Daddy Pig.” And yeah there sure is, but you also need to put cartoons on so you can make dinner, man. Talk about it later, and if you don’t talk about it this time, it’s fine. There will be other opportunities to name anti-fatness for your children.So I think we can get perfectionist about wanting to keep our kids in this bubble of not being exposed to all the big, scary things. I mean, now that I have a middle schooler, this is the whole conversation with social media and phones and all of that. And it’s like, okay, yes on one hand, I would love to throw it all into the sea and not have her ever do any of that, as someone who has to spend too much time on Instagram. You know what it’s like, it’s a dark place.But on the other hand, we need to give them the tools to navigate this. And they’re only going to be able to learn to do that by doing it to a certain extent and by spotting it and having their own relationship to it.HelenIt reminds me of a concept you come back to a lot the book, this idea that restriction creates obsession and fixation. It’s almost like inoculating yourself to the poison by taking a tiny dose. Like, if we can learn how to function within a society where fatphobia or diet culture is normalized in various places, it allows us to reinforce our sense of what the right way to behave is—not right in a moral sense.VirginiaWhat aligns with your values.HelenExactly.I’m a food writer. I’m a restaurant critic. I’ve been a food writer for decades now. My relationship to food is different in a lot of ways than most people’s. For professional reasons, I have to be obsessed with food. I get paid to be obsessed with food. And that is really bizarre. It often doesn’t come into conflict with my sense of myself and my body, I think because I have a moderately, decently healthy sense of myself and my body.But when it does come into conflict, it’s wild. I’m like, oh my God. I have to go out to dinner. I have to go to fancy restaurants and eat and it’s the thing that I am praised for. And then simultaneously, it’s also a thing that leads to a bodily result that I am punished for. We’re just having a therapy session.VirginiaNo, but I’m so interested in this.HelenI don’t even know what my question is. I’m just talking.VirginiaCan I ask you a question? Because I’m so curious about this, because it’s quite common for people who work with food or write about food, to be a little weird about food. And it’s understandable because of what you’re saying. Like, there is all this mixed messaging. There’s this need to revel in it. But also…HelenThere’s this thing in food that if you work in food media, you sort of very quickly understand. It’s never quite said explicitly, but food media is about everything that happens until you swallow. So it’s about preparing, it’s about shopping. It’s about plating, looking at it, taking the bite, tasting the flavors.But as soon as you swallow, and we start talking about what happens once it hits your body, it becomes health writing. It’s not food writing.VirginiaThis makes so much sense.HelenSo there’s a really fascinating disconnect. There’s food as an aesthetic and cultural property. And then there’s food as the actual fuel of your body. Or something, even if it’s not fuel, the pleasure, whatever it converts in your body to something physical. And that is just not the purview of food writing or food media.VirginiaDoes that make it easier then? Because you’re like, “I don’t have to think about all of that.” Or is it all still there, just unspoken.HelenIt makes it easier in the way that compartmentalization does. And like all compartmentalization, it will eventually fail.VirginiaRight.This is a personal question, so if you don’t want to answer it, you can reject it. But do you find that your body becomes a subject of discussion as a food writer? Like does that come up for you at all?HelenIt has historically. Once, a while ago, I was approached by a book agent who was like, “I have a great book idea for you. You should write a nonfiction, personal, first person book about being a fat food writer.” And I was like, well, what about it?VirginiaThat’s an idea that doesn’t make 400 pages.HelenAnd he was sort of like, “Oh, I don’t know.”VirginiaJust seemed cool, I guess.HelenI eat. I put the food into my body. Footnote, the body is fat. This sounds like sour grapes, and I have no idea what my life would have been like if I were thin. But, you know, I’m pretty sure that I’ve probably missed out on some media opportunities. But I don’t think that’s because I’m fat. I think it’s because I have a squishy potato face. So, like, I don’t know.VirginiaWe’ll come back to that later.HelenLike, yes and no, right? I think that there are ways in which being a fat person hurts you professionally regardless of the industry that you’re in, right? Like, men who work in food who are fat are considered to be garrulous gourmands, right? They get to be evidence of a life well-lived, a man of appetites, right?And a woman who’s fat is either going to be totally desexualized and we can go into a big sidebar about this, but the way that women are allowed to be physically embodied as famous food people is really interesting. Either you’re really hot and sexy and fuckable, or you’re a totally desexualized, either mother figure, or a de-gendered kind of Julia Child.VirginiaIs this explaining all the thin blonde food influencers?HelenYes. But the thing with the thin blonde food influencers is there are also so many thin blonde anything influencers, right?VirginiaThere’s something there though.I just was curious about this, because we know: Fat people get comments in restaurants. We get comments on what we order, whether it’s our mothers, whether it’s waiters. So I just wondered if that’s something you’re navigating.HelenI think that I’ve been very lucky. I can’t think of a specific instance where I felt like I’ve been judged—at least to my awareness, because I’m quite oblivious—for what I’ve ordered or how I eat.Physically, I can say like I’m a small fat and going to restaurants can be physically difficult, especially in New York, because the tables are so close together, and my ass is not even that huge. But my ass is bigger than they design restaurants for. I have knocked over countless water glasses with my hips and going through the tables or trying to navigate fixed booths. The physical architecture of restaurants is something I’m very, very aware of.I wrote a thing a couple years ago about chairs with high weight limits and why don’t more restaurants go for that, especially once outdoor dining started happening during the first few years of the pandemic. I was so furious by how many outdoor dining structures were using either those nightmarish Tolix chairs with the side that’s that just like, “would you like to have your sciatic nerve cut in half? We can provide that.”VirginiaAnd you’re sliding off the whole time.HelenOr just the cheapo IKEA folded half chairs that have a weight limit of 14 ounces. And they’re just a nightmare. And I understand that restaurants are among the most precarious businesses with just no safety net. But it is always really interesting to me to notice which restaurants put thought into accessibility broadly, right? Not just for customers of different body sizes, but also physical accessibility. A lot of restaurants, due to the size of their businesses and things like that, are often exempt from ADA requirements, for example. So that’s been more of a thing than eating in public.I think in terms of eating in public, I just do it. I like food a lot.VirginiaI mean, it’s great.HelenI have felt shame, but most of that I would locate in, like, high school.VirginiaI mean, you don’t have to write the fat food writer memoir. But, I do think that representation matters. And you being a public figure in this job is really great.HelenTo bridge our two worlds, the thing with food is, it is a source of pleasure. And I think that the way that we pathologize bodies, and the way that we use the word wellness and all of its insidious and popular meanings, fundamentally sidesteps the fact that food is a source of joy, both in terms of the flavors and textures, and the actual food itself and the act of eating together.It’s something that you talk about in the book, is the mental health effect of just participating with your friends eating a birthday cake together instead of freaking out about the sugar content. It is important to be connected to one another, and we can write as many listicles as a society as we want, about ways to hang out without food or like whatever diet culture things people want to do. There are so many of them. Diet culture is always like, “go for a walk.” But it’s better to go for a walk with a popsicle.VirginiaA walk and a treat! A walk and a treat!HelenAnd there’s a reason for that! Like, evolutionarily. And we don’t have to do our biology, right? If there’s one thing that being human means, it is that your intellect is allowed to supersede your biological impulses. However, in the same way that hunger is our most powerful impulse, the relief of hunger is a powerful mode of connection. When we relieve our hunger with other people, we become connected to them. This isn’t woo, this is like neuroscience. Eating together is actually connection. To try to fabricate ways to connect without that because we are scared of eating, is being scared of being together.Virginia100 percent. I love that.HelenI feel very passionate!VirginiaMaybe that’s your book! And just to bring it back to the parenting conversation, this is what I see parents struggling with all the time because there’s so much pressure on how we’re supposed to feed our kids in this really hyper perfect way. Like the rainbow bento box lunches.What Instagram Gets Wrong About Feeding Your KidsHelenOh my God, yeah.VirginiaAnd family dinner. There is so much pressure on the concept of family dinner needing to be executed in this certain way. And it really is just what Helen was saying. All that needs to be happening is two people are sharing a meal. Doesn’t matter what the food is. What matters is that you’re having that opportunity for connection.And you know, one of the lessons of working on this book that I’ve been able to take into my own life is really giving no effs anymore about nutrition with my kids, which I get a lot of criticism for on the Internet. And I’m comfortable with that.Why Are Men and Viking GrandmasBecause what I want my kids coming away from the dinner table with is, number one, their body felt safe, and was treated with dignity and respect. So no means no, if you don’t want to eat something.And number two, that we had some opportunity for connection. Which, again, I have a middle schooler. Like, it’s hard to have connection with them a lot of the time, and they don’t want to talk about their day at the dinner table. But if the food is something she likes, that’s going to get me closer!And it’s hard, because even for me doing this work and believing all of that quite passionately, there are a lot of nights where I look at our dinner table and think, if the Internet could see this…. Like, I’m failing a lot of the time. And it is what it is. But we have that core connection.HelenAlso, it doesn’t have to be every day, right? Sitting down together as a family, like, whatever, the research is unimpeachable. But also it’s not every single day forever, right?I don’t know how you would do a study for this, but I suspect that what’s more important than actually sitting together at a table is being the kind of family that would eat together and cultivating the kind of environment where you all think, should we all sit together at a table? Like, that’s the thing that really.VirginiaWhich, in order to be that kind of family, sometimes that means we’re going to watch TV while we eat dinner.HelenIt’s going to be at the coffee table, right? But it’s a table.VirginiaWe’re watching Tangled for the 900th time or whatever, because that’s the energy level we all have, and that’s what’s letting us connect as a family tonight.HelenI think we’re going to take audience questions now.So I have this very adorable niece, a little doll of a girl. And one year, when I went to visit her, she had just gotten much bigger. Hefty. And I felt pain, and I swear on a Bible, it’s not because I care what she looks like, but I felt that it was going to make her life harder just because of thin being the ideal. And when she gets a little older and she cares about things, wanting to be attractive or whatever. That she wouldn’t like herself. So obviously, that’s a terrible societal thing, but assuming it wasn’t going to change by the time she grew up. I just I was surprised at how much myself, I wish she had not gotten bigger. So is this another thing that you talk about in the book? That it’s not just “you shouldn’t be fat,” but it can come out of caring for the girl?VirginiaI think that is most parents of kids in bigger bodies, most adults in the lives of kids with bigger bodies, it’s not “I’m repulsed to look at you.” Sometimes it is that. I’m not going to say that’s not a reality of anti-fatness. But much more, it’s “I love you so much, and I’m worried your life will be harder.”That is a totally understandable place to start, because you know the world, and you know that the lives of fat people are harder. But the problem is, if we then say, “So, let’s change her body to make life easier,” we’ve told her that the bullies are right, that her body is the problem to solve. And that’s not the message.The message is your body is not a problem. We live in a world that’s going to give you a different message. I’m here to protect you. I’m here to advocate with you. What do you need from me? We love and support this kid in the body they have and we work on the world. Because that’s what needs to change.Well, I must say that to me, makes your book seem very important. That comment comes from someone who’s as old as your mother!HelenThank you. This is a really important book. If any of you haven’t read it, you should read it cover to cover. It’s great. It’s really good.I think it’s totally cool to be the age of my mother, by the way. Many of our mothers—probably your mother, too!—were raised with an incredibly restrictive notion of what a woman was allowed to be.VirginiaI mean, it’s just multiple decades of diet culture and patriarchy.HelenNot just diet culture, but like, how do you get a husband? Because you have to have a husband. How do you keep your husband? How do you maintain your household? I look upon my mother and her relationship to her body to food with a lot of generosity, and a lot of compassion.I feel lucky that I get to have the relationship to my body and to food and to the culture of food that I get to have, and I see how much space she’s covered in the course of her life, accommodating to a world that has changed around her.VirginiaI have lots of readers who are my mother’s age, and I love hearing from women in their 60s, 70s who are doing this work and learning. It’s not like it’s ever too late. We all deserve body liberation. Thank you.So kind of related to that question, I have a two and a half year old daughter and I have a lovely mother in law in her 70s who is really a kind person. She comes with a lot of behaviors that are remnants of being brought up in a time when thinness is really, really important. Things like she has to eat off a small plate, and she has to use a small fork, she has to eat her bread last. These are things that my daughter is seeing, and as much compassion as I have for my mother in law, I’m sort of at an impasse where I don’t know if the next move is to double down and try to fortify my child against the potential impact of those behaviors, or try to talk to my mother in law about those behaviors, which feels kind of cruel because she’s in her 70s. And in a way, she’s been hurt by the same system that’s like getting ready to hurt my my kid.VirginiaWhat I always come down to is the compassion you’re talking about. Lead with the compassion. If you’re watching this person enact this on themselves, I don’t think it’s your job to ask them to change. Maybe as your daughter gets older, you can debrief with her after a visit. Like, “Isn’t it kind of sad that grandma always uses that tiny plate? I like using a bigger plate for cake. I get more cake that way.” You debrief with your kid, so your kid sees what grandma’s doing and knows that’s not what’s expected of them, that’s not normal.And with your mother-in-law, you just continue to have a loving relationship with her, and make it clear in any way you can that you don’t expect this from her.Where I suggest talking directly to the grandparent is if they’re saying things about your child’s body. That’s different. Then you intervene and advocate on behalf of your kid.I’m a parent of a 16 year old, the child of an 80 year old. So those are fascinating conversations. But the parenting in the age of diet culture, I feel like it could also be parenting and teaching in the age of diet culture. A lot of my listening was as an educator in terms of, like, it’s not exclusively a parenting book. It’s also a guide for teachers. Can you speak to that?VirginiaI feel really strongly that this is a book I want in the hands of as many teachers as possible. There’s a whole chapter on anti-fatness in schools. It’s systemic, with the kinds of health class calorie counting assignments that come up. But it’s also the culture of the schools, the way teachers might casually reference their own diets. It’s when they’re putting together a syllabus, how many books center fat protagonists? Not that many, because we don’t have enough books like that. (There are more, a lot of them are sold here!) But, that’s a work in progress, especially depending what age you’re teaching.So I think the book is a tremendous resource for teachers. And there are several teachers quoted in that chapter who have put their own resources on the internet, and I think are making efforts to connect with other educators. So I love it when teachers come to events. Thank you!I’m a pediatric dietitian, and I have your book on my desk so medical professionals know what I’m about when they pass by. I have families come to me, and I feel like they’re very much expecting me to say one thing, and then they’re kind of blown away when I don’t, and it’s also exciting in that way.But my question is, when I have teen patients, it’s easy to talk to the teens separately and then talk to parents separately about how we talk about food and how we can change that at home. But when I have kids who are under 13, and I’m working with their parents and the kids in the same room together, what are your recommendations for navigating changing how we talk about food and body image? When I have the parent in front of me and I have the young kiddo in front of me too.VirginiaThat is really tricky. You have a really important job, and thank you.I think whatever age kid you’re dealing with, it’s great for them to hear you saying what you’re going to say about food. If you’re presenting the idea of food as nourishment and pleasure, and you’re pushing back against weight loss plans and all of that, then anything you’re saying to the parent, even if the parent is getting uncomfortable or arguing with you, like, it’s great that the kid is getting to hear this perspective. So I think I wouldn’t worry too much about filtering.Just also coming back to giving the kid as many opportunities to feel empowered about it as possible, whatever choices make sense to give to the kid. And the framework you’re talking about. I think it’s kind of great you’re having the conversation in front of the kid, honestly, although I can imagine there are conversations that are really challenging in that job.Can I break the Ozempic rule? Celebrities and pop culture and idols have always been celebrated for being thin, but this is the first time there’s been this $1,000 a month drug that makes people thinner. So then, thinness and its relationship to class and celebrity has changed. So like, I’m here to get the book. I haven’t read it, but. Do you have any thoughts on how that changes how people idolize celebrities? Or is it the same thing?VirginiaI think Ozempic is just making obvious what has always been true, which is that a celebrity body is the product of time and money. More time, more money, some genetic luck, more money. Any thin celebrity is just a physical manifestation of all the money that has gone into all of the whatever they’re doing to maintain that body.So in a way, I really appreciate those conversations about who is taking what drug, because it just makes all of this more obvious. It makes the anti-fatness more obvious. It makes the fact that anti-fatness intersects with classism more obvious. Because when we see the media writing these glowing pieces about “soon anyone can be thin!” it’s like, well, no. There are always going to be fat people. We’re just going to see fatness stratified by class even more.HelenThis isn’t quite what you were saying, but from a food media perspective, I feel like there was a story, maybe it’s in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago that was, like, “the rise of Ozempic and these drugs mean the end of the snack food industry.”And the answer is no. The way that that these drugs are talked about is so wildly divorced from reality. If you’ve read any of the actual literature about these drugs and how they work, and what kind of impact they have on people’s behaviors and thought processes and hormonal reactions—none of is a silver bullet, right?Even if you take it every week, some people don’t lose weight. You still have to decrease your calorie consumption, increase your exercise. Ozempic isn’t the drug that the narrative wants it to be. I think the drug itself is neutral.VirginiaIt’s a great diabetes medication!HelenAnd I read something recently about how it seems to be having extraordinary promise for dealing with substance abuse disorder and there are lots of interesting effects that are coming out. As a drug, I think it is morally neutral, the way all drugs are morally neutral.But the narrative around it is being constructed in ways that tells us a lot about our fatphobia, and diet culture, and the way we hierarchize bodies and the accessibility of those bodies. I think that your question cuts exactly to the core of this. It is always easier to have the ideal body when you are rich. And it is always harder to have the ideal body if you have to focus on anything other than attaining and maintaining that body. So I think I would take everything with a grain of salt, unless it is actually about a scientific study. Because, like, no, Doritos is not going to go out of business.VirginiaI have faith we can keep Doritos alive. Maybe a government bailout. I don’t know.HelenThe reason there are not plus sizes in store at Old Navy is not because there’s not a demand for them. It’s because old Navy has tried to create a narrative. The realities of demand and money and supply in human bodies has almost nothing to do with this story that is trying to be told about the way that capital is flowing."We Couldn't Have a Campaign That Was Just For Fat People."Thank you so much for your book. I am a health teacher in lower school and middle school. I read it last year, and I feel like I’m armed with such knowledge and permission to teach my classes the way that I do. And I have to talk about so many other things. Like, I talk about stress and regulation and gender and sexuality and all the other sex ed stuff too, but obviously, I really want to talk about food and nutrition. A lot of the kids’ parents come to me and they say, okay, so you’re going to help me stop my kid eating sugar. And I just say, after having read that book, I go, I will not be doing that.I remember you saying something in the book that kids are always getting so many confusing messages about food, right? The clean your plate club, but don’t get too fat. And that just creates this swirling whorl of confusing messages for children. I want to be a safe adult where I’m the health teacher that literally never uses the words “healthy food” or “unhealthy food.” But I also know that I’m very much coming up against the messages that they are getting at home. So where do you feel like is the line between a cool teacher that is a safe place to open their minds to all of these restrictive messages, where’s the line between that and like just being another person where they’re like, I don’t know what the truth is. My Health teacher saying this, I have my parents saying that.VirginiaKind of like our pediatric dietitian friend over there, I’m just so glad you guys are doing this and saying these things to the kids. This is what I am hoping will happen more and more. And I think there are absolutely going to be kids who are confused, right? Who are like, “But my mom is saying we’re going to the gym every day after school, and this doesn’t make sense.”But there is going to be some kid in your class who really needs an adult in their life to say this. And what you say is going to plant a seed that is going to help them navigate what they’re dealing with at home, or what’s to come. You have this amazing opportunity to be the safe adult. And I think you could invite conversation about what other messages they’re getting, not because you’re going to necessarily tell them that’s wrong or argue against it, but to encourage them to start thinking a little more critically, and build some of those skills. So asking, does this make sense to you? How do you feel when this happens? I think that would be like a great opportunity to just have them start exploring the messages.Because what I find with the kids I interact with is they are so good at calling this out once they have a few talking points about this. They’re spotting it everywhere. So I think they’ll be off and running with it for sure.I have a five year old, and this kind of ties into your first book, The Eating Instinct. She has just been diagnosed with ARFID, which, for everyone who doesn’t know what ARFID is, it’s basically like, she just doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty. And I’ve been trying to follow her cues, and if she doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t have to eat, kind of thing. And now I’m at this point where they’re like, no, she has to eat because she can’t grow if she doesn’t eat. And I am trying to reckon with all of the wonderful body autonomy and like not ever weighing her except for at the pediatricians or whatever. And now I’m supposed to weigh her every two weeks, and I have to count every calorie that she eats. And I know that you went through an even more extreme version with with your first daughter.So I just wanted to know, as your kid has gotten older, and she had to go through the trauma of the tube feeding, which, luckily, my kid is not at that level. But like, I don’t want to cause a problem while trying to fix a problem.VirginiaYou’re doing a great job.And for anyone who hasn’t read my first book, The Eating Instinct, what launched me into all of this in a lot of ways, is that my older child was on a feeding tube for the first two years of her life, and went through very much what this person is talking about.And what I can say to you now as a parent of an 11-year-old is: You aren’t messing it up. It’s going to be okay. You are in the acute stages of something, and you need to get your child fed, and sometimes that’s going to feel like you’re doing the opposite of honoring her body autonomy, but you’re keeping her thriving, and that’s what matters the most.Because you’re going to be coming at it from this framework of, whenever I can, I’m supporting her body autonomy. Whatever choice I can give her, I am giving her that choice. I’ll put her on the scale, but she won’t see the number. You can keep that talk away from her. She’s going to get through this, she deserves to have a great relationship with food. If that means she eats four things or 40 things in her life, then you’re doing an amazing job."They Say 'Failure to Thrive' but Moms Hear 'Failure To Feed.'"HelenOne more question!I also have two young daughters, and it’s very challenging trying to both raise them in a way that you know you can eat whatever you want, and you know food is neutral, and there’s no good or bad or unhealthy healthy. But sometimes I’ll look at what my daughter has eaten today, just cookies or just foods that are generally thought of, that you’re supposed to have less of or something like that. And I don’t know that I think that’s so bad, but I feel like I get faced with, like, well, don’t you care about her health? And like, isn’t this bad for her nutrition?And I’m like, I don’t think she’s going to get scurvy? But I don’t know where that line is. Like, am I’m overdoing it on, eat whatever you want, and actually putting her health at risk. Because I kind of keep going out to, like, I don’t know, you can have candy for breakfast. Like, that’s not going to have a major health effect.VirginiaI mean, as you just heard from this other mom, and me: Having a kid who eats is a privilege and something to be celebrated and treasured. So that’s our starting point. And I did really dive into the pediatric nutrition research for the book. There’s a lot more to it, in the book. The biggest thing I took away from the research is that what matters for kids’ nutritional needs is having enough to eat. That’s what matters the most.So if your kid is getting enough to eat, they will, over the course of a week, get enough nutrition. I have one child, I have to look sometimes, over the course of several weeks, and then be like, oh yeah, there was that green vegetable a couple Thursdays ago. They will hit their nutritional needs. There will be more variety than you see when we look at that day that’s only cookies. I call those snake days, where they just eat massive quantities of one food. You know, like, how a snake eats the whole rodent and then doesn’t eat for like, a week. That is a normal eating pattern for a lot of children. So there’s a lot in the book that will give you more facts if you need that. But I think the biggest takeaway is: If kids have enough to eat, if they know their body is safe and loved in their home, then we’re all doing a great job.HelenIf I can, with no expertise, weigh in on another aspect of your question, where you’re like, “But people say, are you poorly parenting your child?” Like, who the fuck are those people?My husband is right here.VirginiaOkay, we’ll talk after.HelenSir, are you a registered dietitian? No? Okay!VirginiaI think we solved that!HelenThank you guys. This was incredible. This was awesome. This book is amazing. If you haven’t read it, you should read it. And if you’ve already read it, you should read it again.VirginiaValentine’s Day is coming! Buy one for your loved ones.HelenNothing says I love you more than healing your own relationship to your body and food so that you can pass that to your child!The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your February Indulgence Gospel.Today we’re updating you on our great experiment: How did we do with 30 days of NO AMAZON? We’re going to get into:⭐️ Why did we quit Amazon in the first place?⭐️ Is quitting Amazon a diet—or at least, diet culture-adjacent?⭐️ What was our biggest fail?⭐️ Will we keep going???To hear the full story, you'll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. To hear more, visit patreon.com/virginiasolesmith EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Today Virginia is chatting with Frankie De La Cretaz.  Frankie is an award-winning journalist whose work sits at the intersection of sports, gender and culture. They are the co-author of Hail Mary, the rise and fall of the National Women’s Football League, and their writing has been featured in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic and more.Frankie also writes Out of Your League, a newsletter about queer sports and pop culture, which I consider a must-subscribe. If you have been remotely following the issues of trans women in sports, you likely already know how well Frankie calls out that bias and discrimination. As Frankie points out, the way bodies are policed and controlled in the sports world is really just a microcosm of how the bodies of queer, trans, and otherwise marginalized folks are being policed and controlled throughout our culture right now.So even if you think you don’t care about sports, I promise you’ll care about this conversation.If you find today’s episode valuable, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!Guest interviews are always free on Burnt Toast, but paid subscriptions enable us to pay guests for their time, labor and expertise. (This is extremely rare in the world of podcasting, but key to centering marginalized voices!)To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out in paperback! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---Episode 178 TranscriptFrankieMy name is Frankie de la Cretaz. I am an independent journalist, and my work mostly sits at the intersection of sports, gender, and culture.VirginiaEven if you identify as a deeply un-athletic and not-sports-fluent person, such as myself, Frankie’s work will make you understand sports in a whole new way—and how much it intersects with politics, culture, everything else that’s going on.So everyone needs to subscribe toOut of Your League.FrankieI appreciate that. I actually consider myself someone who writes about sports for people who don’t think they care about sports, so I’m glad that’s coming across.VirginiaWe’re going to talk about something that you’ve been writing about for a long time, which is the potential of sports to be fat positive, and the many barriers in place there. But before we go there: I want to acknowledge we are having this conversation a day after the inauguration. It’s going to drop about a week out from the inauguration. It’s a rough time in America right now.And one of Trump’s first presidential actions was to publish an executive order that I have had to read three or four times because it is so jarring to see such anti-trans, misogynist language on the White House website.So Frankie, how are you? Where are we? How are you doing?FrankieI mean, as a trans person, generally, this sucks. But as a journalist who has been documenting the rise of transphobia and anti-trans rhetoric in this country, I’m not surprised. We have been saying for a while that the goal of anti-trans sport legislation is actually this, what we’re seeing—which is to legislate trans people out of existence.This was the ultimate goal of the rightwing anti-trans groups that pushed all of this legislation that now exists in over half of the states Because sports was the place where they could make trans people, and trans women in particular, seem threatening. They could couch it in language around fairness, and advantage, and the real marginalization that cis women, and women in general, have faced over time. So sports became the acceptable place for prejudice and discrimination to happen. But the thing is, once you make trans people or any group of people a threat in one arena, it becomes much easier to make them a threat in other arenas.So a lot of these bills attempted to redefine biological sex. A lot of states that passed these anti-trans sports bills went on to pass more extreme anti-trans legislation against healthcare and education and things like that. So I think there’s this very direct link from the attack on trans people in sports to what we’re seeing now.The other thing I will mention is the reason that so many people were nervous about the bill that the House just passed—which is banning trans women and girls from girls’ school sports—is that bill also has language that defines gender as binary, as one or the other. And we could see the potential for that language to be broadened to all areas of life. And that is what we’re seeing.VirginiaThat’s what this executive order clearly intends to do. It’s really chilling.And as a cis woman, it makes my skin crawl the way the language is framed as if it is protecting fragile women and girls. As if a president who is a sexual predator and an anti-choice administration has our best interests at heart.FrankieYes, and I think that’s what makes me as angry as it does, how they have leveraged real marginalization, real harm, real oppression, that women have faced in our society. Instead of pointing the finger at the patriarchy and agents of the patriarchy—often that is cis men—they point the finger at trans women and girls. Even though trans women and girls are actually the most vulnerable and the most likely to be victims of violence. This prevents actual progress for women as a whole, because it pits these two marginalized groups against each other.This has been a really effective strategy of the anti-trans movement. Instead of allowing cis women to see their own protection and freedom as tied up with trans women, and seeing cis women and trans women as part of the same fight, they have pitted them against each other, and it has endangered both groups even more.VirginiaIt’s dangerous, and it’s just frankly insulting. It’s just like, Trump?? Really?? This known rapist is a heroic protector of women?? I can’t. It’s wild.But obviously, we know there are plenty of women who voted for him. So we have a lot of work to do. But I appreciate you giving us that larger context and helping people understand why it is so important to talk about trans rights in sports, and how that that is the stepping stone that leads to where we are now.FrankieI’ve called it “gateway legislation.” I know that’s making light of something that’s quite serious, but really, the sports legislation has served as that. Because it’s “just sports,” a lot of people didn’t pay attention until it was much too late.VirginiaWell, not to pivot from one depressing topic to another depressing topic—FrankieWelcome to my beat, Virginia.VirginiaThis is where we are! But a story you’ve been following that I really want to talk to you about is the rise of weight loss drug advertising during sports events, specifically during WNBA and women’s college basketball. What is going on here?FrankieGreat question. Just this past weekend I was watching the new women’s basketball league, Unrivaled, which is so exciting. Until I got an ad for Hers injectable weight loss medication right in the middle. And I was like, Oh, we are continuing the trend, I see.I think there are a few reasons that this happens. I think there’s an assumption that people who watch sports, and particularly women who watch sports, are going to be more health conscious than the average person. And, as you know very well, in our culture, we associate health with thinness.For a long time, coverage of women’s sports was folded into fitness coverage, like Health, Women’s Health, and Fitness—those kinds of magazines. And when we talk about fitness culture, we also are talking about these elements of diet culture and beauty culture that come with it.On top of that, we have this massive boom in women’s sports in terms of funding and sponsorships. Audiences are growing massively. Seemingly every month they’re telling us that there’s hundreds of thousands more people watching women’s sports than there were even like last month. So brands love this, right? They’re desperate to cash in on this audience. So it’s Hers, which is specifically marketed for women, that has this very feminine advertising. Ro is another one that markets explicitly for women.So there’s this insidious thing happening where in women’s sports, we have this narrative of women’s empowerment and “by women for women,” and the way we talk about them. And then you’ve got this women’s medication that continues on this theme. I think all of that is coming together to really make women’s sporting events an appealing place for these drugs to market themselves.VirginiaIt does really make a sick kind of sense when you lay it out like that. I spent the first decade or so of my career in women’s magazines and writing for places like Self and Fitness, and we regularly featured women athletes, but asked them about their beauty routine and their diet, you know? It was very much like, let’s take this athlete and let’s make sure we talk about her the same way we talk about an actress or a pop star. We want to know her beauty work. We want to know her diet secret. We want to know how she looks so great. So it completely makes sense to take that same framing which was always really patronizing towards these world class athletes, not at all on par with the kinds of questions male athletes get asked, and then assume that the audience is like, “Well, I want to look like her. I need the weight loss drug as well.”FrankieThe other piece that’s quite paternalistic is the “see her, be her” theme. This is where we position these pro women athletes as role models for the next generation and as inspiration for little girls. And research has shown that girls ages 12 to 18, are the fastest growing market and viewership for women’s sports.So when you add in the fact that they’re being exposed to these ads, that’s cause for concern, right? Because this is the age group where they’re going to be the most vulnerable to eating disorders. Use of weight loss medications among this age group is also skyrocketing right now. Sometimes that’s for the medical conditions that these medications are designed to treat. But often it’s just because teenage girls who are fat are dealing with so much bullying because of the culture that we live in. So they’re being prescribed these drugs for weight loss. They are the fastest growing age group for these drugs. So these ads feel incredibly insidious. They’re preying on our pre-existing culturally ingrained body anxiety. They’re doing so during these sporting events where we assume that the athletes on the field or the court are able to do what they do— this is implied— because they are in “peak shape.” They are not fat, right? So it’s all just, really icky.VirginiaLike, really deeply icky.FrankieI always want to be really clear that the ads that we’re talking about here, they’re not talking about diabetes as the presenting condition. They’re not talking about some other co-morbid or coexisting condition. They’re talking about being fat as the presenting condition. They’re talking about weight loss as the thing they are selling. So this is the difference between marketing for an actual medical condition that these drugs might treat and marketing by fear-mongering about body size.VirginiaYes, super important. I appreciate you teasing that out.It feels like we need to talk about Ilona Maher a little bit in all of this, because she is a peak example of this, of the role model athlete who is inspiring girls. And, you know, I have felt complicated about her. She’s delightful. She has been really outspoken about celebrating that she’s in a bigger body. She is by no means fat. But she’s tall and muscular, and not, kind of, normative, I guess? By some measures?And she did that reel that went viral over the summer, challenging body mass index. So I think a lot of folks spent last summer thinking she represents this major positive sea change for how we think about women’s bodies in sports. But as you and I have discussed on the sidelines, we don’t quite see it this way.FrankieThere’s a world in which she could be representing a sea change, but that’s not the world we live in. I feel kind of bad that Ilona Maher gets caught up in this discussion, because I think it’s emblematic of what happens when we talk about individual people rather than systemic issues. She is being used as an example, perhaps unfairly, right? But I think it’s important because she’s straight and she’s white and she’s cis and her body is acceptable, because of what it can do in a sporting context. I think we’ll probably talk a little bit more about this idea as we keep talking about fatphobia in sports. But her body is acceptable because it otherwise conforms to a lot of traditional ideas of femininity. She wears lipstick, and she was on Dancing with the Stars. She’s joked that she wants to be the next Bachelorette, which is really playing up that straightness.Ben Watts/Sports Illustrated source here.VirginiaThe hair. She’s got very Pretty Girl Hair, for sure.FrankieAnd that’s fantastic. Ilona Maher is an example of someone who can be both athletic and feminine. But what about athletes who aren’t feminine? Where do they fit in here? We don’t celebrate them in the same way.But also: What choice does Ilona Maher really have here? During the Olympics, she was the subject of speculation over her gender because of her presumed “masculine” qualities. We’re in a time of trans investigations in sports, where we are questioning the gender of women athletes who don’t fit into certain ideas of femininity. So what option does she really have, aside from leaning into that femininity? Especially if she wants to continue to get sponsorships and recognition. So she’s kind of been backed into an impossible corner here. And at the same time, she’s upholding a lot of these really oppressive ideas of femininity. But, through no fault of her own, either. And again, that’s where I think we really run into trouble, is upholding one particular person as emblematic of a systemic change, or a systemic issue, because it’s impossible.VirginiaIt’s impossible. She kind of can’t get it right.FrankieSo this is less about actually Ilona Maher and more about the way that culturally, we have responded to her. She’s not the first, or only, woman athlete to put out social media content that challenges beauty norms or body norms. So why is the athlete that we’ve chosen to rally behind the one who is white and straight and cis and all of these more normative factors? There’s a reason that she is the chosen one.VirginiaJust to go back to the weight loss commercials piece of it for a second, I realized we didn’t talk about them in the context of men’s sports. Are we not seeing the same trend there in terms of this advertising to male audiences?FrankieNot as far as I can tell.I think what’s important to note here is most of the time, it’s not the leagues who are accepting these commercials. This is different than a team sponsorship. Eli Lilly, who makes a couple of these drugs, is a patch sponsor for the Indiana Fever. The Minnesota Lynx have a local partnership with this weight loss program that their coach is an ambassador for. Those are intentional choices. But when we’re talking specifically about these commercials airing during games, they’re purchased through buying ad inventory. I have checked with the league, and the companies, and this is how they are purchased.So the league doesn’t actually really have the power here to decide whether to accept these ads. The brands choose what events they want to market to based on the demographics of the audiences for those events. This is probably why we’re not seeing that—even though women do watch men’s sports almost equally. Especially the NFL. Over 50 percent of the NFL fans are women. But people are prejudiced and don’t realize that, so we’re not seeing quite that same shift.But there’s something else happening that I think makes women’s sports particularly appealing to advertisers. These leagues present themselves as progressive and committed to gender equality and empowerment and brands actually find that really appealing. They will choose to align with these brands because it can make them look like they’re more committed to these things, too.Not only that, but when women athletes are abrand ambassadors, there’s so much more engagement from consumers. I found this number that I thought was wild, and I wanted to share it because I think this is really important. I think it highlights how dangerous it is that these ads are being able to run during these events: 44 percent of WNBA fans have visited a brand’s website after seeing WNBA sponsorships during a game.VirginiaOh my God.FrankieAnd 28 percent have bought from a sponsoring brand.VirginiaThat’s wild. Especially when you consider that you’re watching a show with your eyeballs, and seeing the ad on your TV, and then you have to get out your phone and go to the website. That’s multiple steps people are taking to engage like that.FrankieI’ve also seen something like the three athletes who are most likely to convert consumers are all Black women: Simone Biles, Serena Williams, and Angel Reese.VirginiaInteresting.FrankiePeople trust women athletes because of that role model thing. They trust that they wouldn’t align with a brand who didn’t speak to their values in some way. So they’re more likely to buy things when a woman or a women’s sports league told them that it was okay.VirginiaI’m holding my head in my hands because it’s so much darker even than I realized.So okay, we turn these women athletes into our role models. They have to lead the children into the future. And then the weight loss companies are, like, “Perfect! We too would like to be aligned with your progressive values.”FrankieYes, it’s incredible. They’re like, “We hired this new female commissioner. Oh no, we have allegations of workplace harassment that won’t stop.” Women’s leagues! Feminism!VirginiaOh, my God. It’s so dark. It’s so dark. So that explains why we’re not seeing the same type of advertising at the NFL games. Not that they wouldn’t, because obviously, they’ll follow the women wherever they find them.FrankieThey will. And I guess there’s something interesting, too, now that I’ve brought up the NFL, and I think this is related to to things that we’re going to continue to talk about. But you’re much more likely to see fat football players than you are fat basketball players. Like, body diversity exists in basketball, but it’s usually in terms of height, right? You have the players that play in the center, who are 6’ 8” and 6’ 9” and the guards shooting from the perimeter are 5’ 8”. Like, you see that kind of body diversity a lot more. But in a game like football, there’s a lot more body diversity in size, in terms of weight. They don’t talk about football players’ bodies as being lithe. So that may also impact where pharmaceutical companies want to advertise weight loss drugs.VirginiaYeah, so let’s go there a little bit, because I would love to have you talk more about how anti-fatness shows up in sports coverage and discourse, even in these sports where we do see larger bodies centered, like football, like rugby. But there’s still a larger anti-fat narrative coming in.FrankieTotally, right? Because, we just, as a culture, have ideas about who sports are for: Thin people. Which kinds of bodies can be good at sports: Thin bodies. We continue to exclude fat people from narratives about sports, despite the fact that fat people are participating, have participated, and are often excelling at all levels of sport.So these cultural ideas discourage people who are not thin from getting involved in sports at all. But they are also part of how and why eating disorders are so prevalent among athletes. Even in terms of media coverage and how there’s this anti-fat bias woven into it.I think we can go back to the Ilona Maher discussion, right? Because I mentioned her sponsorships. So there’s a lot of things that prevent athletes from getting sponsorships. And in women’s sports, athletes who are more masculine presenting are less likely to get these monies and brand sponsorships.But even if you look at men’s sports, we see disparities. Take football. How often do you see a lineman being the face of a team or the face on the Gatorade bottle? That spotlight ges to the quarterback or the running back or the wide receiver. Their contracts with the NFL are also worth more than lineman contracts. And linemen are more likely to play a much shorter time, and to deal with head injuries later in life. So they actually might need the money more.And that running back doesn’t score without the lineman blocking and creating the hole for him to run through. The quarterback doesn’t have time to complete the pass if the linemen don’t do their job. So they’re this really huge part of the success of the players who do get the spotlight, but they don’t get the same kind of attention. And that, to me, is anti-fat bias in action. We don’t think of those men as athletes or as the people we want to represent as the pinnacle of athleticism because of what their bodies look like.VirginiaAnd you will see their weight casually referenced all the time. The fact that they are so big gets invoked in almost a tokenistic way.FrankieYes, I think about this all the time. I don’t know if people remember this baseball player, his name is Prince Fielder—who is so hot, by the way! I always had a huge crush on him.VirginiaGoogling now.FrankieGoogle his photos from the ESPN Body Issue.Because he is a bigger guy who did these photos for the ESPN Body Issue, and the way they were talked about was kind of fascinating. Because the thing that ESPN Body Issue has always done really well—and something I’ve always appreciated about it—is it has done a really good job of representing the diversity of athlete bodies. And Prince Fielder is a baseball player who is much bigger than most of the people that we associate with being baseball players—unless they’re catchers, right?But it was almost like he was a curiosity. People were making fun of the fact that he was featured in this issue. Because men who are fat can be the butt of jokes. So a lot of times, male athletes who are bigger have nicknames about how fat they are, and it’s supposed to be an endearment or a positive thing, but we don’t see that happen with women athletes in the same way. This is the way that anti-fatness shows up for men.VirginiaI have a childhood memory of my dad talking about a football player that everyone called “The Fridge” and I can’t remember what team he was on. But he had that name because he was as big as a fridge. That was the joke. And when you just think about that afterwards, it’s like, wow, that’s that’s not a nice name.FrankieOr they’re compared to their smaller teammates. Like, “Can you believe these people are on the same team?” There’s also that inspiration porn thing, which happens in disability coverage too. “Look, even a fat person can be good at this thing!” Rather than just getting treated and respected as the athletes that they are. These are ways that we talk about athletes who are in bodies that aren’t thin, or are maybe outliers in terms of [the body norms of] their sport. They’re seen as exceptions, and they don’t get the same level of respect and attention.VirginiaThe Fridge’s real name is William Perry. I had to google it, just so we don’t only refer to him by a harmful nickname. And he was a defensive lineman for the Chicago Bears back in the 80s, and later played for the Philadelphia Eagles.[Post-recording note: William Perry did enjoy quite a bit of celebrity, and sponsorship deals, during his football career, though the media relentlessly reported on his weight and made fat jokes about him. But to Frankie’s point about size-related discrepancies in football contracts and other earning potential, Sports Illustrated reported in 2000 that Perry was working as a brick layer, and in 2016, reported on Perry’s financial debts, substance abuse struggles, and other health problems; at the time he was held in a Britney Spears-style conservatorship by his brother. CW on both links for significant fatphobia.]FrankieSo I mentioned my book, right? For people that aren’t familiar with it, the National Women’s Football League existed in the 1970s and 1980s. The coverage, though, really could have been written today. It was often really shocking to me how little has changed. But one of the things they would do because, again, we’re talking about a sport like football, where there is a wide variety in the size of the bodies that are going to be on the field. And one of the teams had this woman, her name was Bobbie Grant. Her nickname was SuperSugar, and she was in a band. She was a frontperson, that was her stage name.VirginiaThat’s amazing.FrankieAnd she weighed over 300 pounds, and was a lineman. And I know how much she weighed because the newspapers wanted to tell us all the time. And then they would put the weight of the smaller women next to her. You and your listeners are probably familiar with the trope of the headless fattie, right? Those dehumanizing photographs where the media just photographs their body. So Bobbie Grant would often be photographed from behind, sitting on the bench, so you actually couldn’t see her face. Or she’d be in a side by side with the beautiful, thin quarterback. And Bobbie was a Black woman, too. So a lot of these things came into play, right?But this is how the media was talking about her. Instead of being like, “This woman is an incredible lineman and is giving her team an advantage because they have Bobbie Grant and no one else does.” And so we can see that narrative, too.VirginiaIt’s fascinating, and it’s really, I think, deflating. I think about this from the perspective of parents putting kids in sports. And I think often, if you have a kid in a bigger body, you’re hoping they’re going to find a safe place in one of these sports where a larger body is an asset. So to understand that actually, they’re still going to encounter this, and it’s going to play out slightly differently than if your kid in a bigger body was trying to be a ballerina, but it’s still going to come up—that’s really frustrating.FrankieYeah, and even sports that have weight classes, that have heavyweight classes, whether it’s wrestling or boxing, they still have weight limits that they often have to adhere to. And so still, there’s a lot of that really harmful dieting or the equivalent of exercise bulimia type behavior that happens around those sports even though there are weight classes.VirginiaI’ll link back to an episode we did last year, which was an excerpt from Fat Talk, my chapter on sports, where we get into a lot of how the weight classes and the pressure to have the quote right body for the sport impacts kids. And it includes some strategies for how to talk to your kids about this. For anyone listening to this and feeling sort of panicked, but it is. It’s a really, really difficult thing to navigate.Is there anything else you want to add, about how this anti-fatness intersects with the anti-trans stuff, around how we police athletes, bodies, and especially in women’s sports?FrankieYou and your listeners know that fatphobia in sports is coming from the fact that we live in a fatphobic society. But that fatphobia often intersects with, and is rooted in, transphobia and anti-Blackness, right? The beauty standards that idealize thinness are based on white supremacy. And those same beauty standards are going to negatively impact trans athletes, Black athletes, and other marginalized athletes.And we’ve talked about Ilona Maher and the way she is feminine, a particular way that doesn’t fully protect her from some of these questions, but insulates her a little bit.For athletes who are both fat and trans, they’re going to have these intersecting challenges, right? If they’re good at their sport, suddenly it’s because they have an unfair advantage because they’re trans, right? I interviewed a transfeminine power lifter. Her name is Jaycee Cooper. She’s actually suing the state of Minnesota currently because she was banned from women’s powerlifting. But she talked about how, when she has a good competition, or does well, it’s not because she’s a good power lifter, it’s because she has an unfair advantage, because she’s trans. And if she has a doesn’t do well, and her transness isn’t a factor, she is often subjected to comments that might be rooted in weight stigma.VirginiaSo it’s coming from both directions. Well, it’s really from the same direction. But they’re going to hit both boxes if they can.Is there giving you hope right now, any any slivers of progress that you’re seeing? Because as you’ve said, there is so much potential for sports to be truly inclusive. But how do we get there, Frankie?FrankieThere is so much potential, right? Like we’ve named so many different ways a larger body can be an asset in certain sports. And this can allow people and women in particular, whose bodies are hyper-visible and hyper-policed in other aspects of their lives, to find pride in what their body can do, to find belonging and contribute to a team.When I was reporting my book, I saw this happen over and over again. Women who played football thought about their bodies differently after being on the football field. They took that into other areas of their life. They could walk with their chin held high because they knew that whatever society thought about their body, they knew differently. They felt good about themselves. So I think that there’s so much potential there.I think a lot about the conversations happening in sports like gymnastics, post the Karolyis (longtime coaches of the U.S. national team, known for their abusive practices). There are still these very specific body standards, but they are shifting. You’re having people say things like, “It turns out having muscle and eating food for energy actually makes you a better athlete.”VirginiaWho would have thought.FrankieI hate that that is progress, but it is.VirginiaThat’s where we are. That is progress.FrankieSo I hope this continues. I think on a purely recreational level, there are clubs and things that exist, whether it’s just spaces that are going to be inclusive or that are designed specifically for people in fat bodies to participate in a sport or an athletic endeavor without being stigmatized or feeling nervous about having to do that. Those are things that exist.I think, as we navigate this progress and figure out how we can not just be inclusive, but actively fat positive, I think we really need to be aware of not falling into Good Fatty tropes. Like, you might be fat, but it’s okay because you’re good at sport. We’re assigning this moralism to that. So I think that’s the line that we have to walk when we have these conversations, too.VirginiaNo one has a moral obligation to perform athleticism just because they’re in a bigger body. It’s more about getting doors open so people who have wanted to do that, who haven’t been able to, are in the room now.FrankieRight, and the idea that your size doesn’t preclude you from being athletic, but also it’s okay if you’re not athletic, you can do a sport and be terrible at it and find joy in it and that’s pretty, pretty great.VirginiaThat’s so important.ButterFrankieSo I have been watching season 3 of The Traitors, which just started. Are you familiar with The Traitors?VirginiaI know nothing.FrankieSo it’s a competition reality show where a bunch of reality stars from other networks live in a castle and it’s hosted by Alan Cumming, in high camp, and very Scottish. There are always a lot of queer people, which I really, really love. And I’m a huge nerd about MTV’s The Challenge for anyone that remembers The Real World and Road Rules. The Challenge, I’m going to credit with inventing competition reality television. But it also has like what you see in Housewives franchises, where there are storylines from season to season, because the same people keep coming back.VirginiaThat’s satisfying.FrankieSo it’s a combination of the two main kinds of reality shows, but it pre-existed all of them. And there have been OG Challenge cast members. They’ve done like 20 seasons of the show. But I consider the people who do The Challenge regularly to be pro athletes in a way, because it’s a physical competition show. But they’re getting older, and their bodies can’t do that anymore, and some of them are transitioning to these other shows.So I watched Season Two, because my favorite Challenge crush, CT, who they called Castle Daddy, was on it. And no one had heard of The Challenge. Nobody knew who The Challenge players were. And they won that show. They won that season. And they gave interviews afterwards like, “We invented the genre, and we were going to show people that we invented the genre.”So there’s a Challenger again in the cast this season. And then there are always a ton of queer people. And I just love queer people being campy and kind of making a mess. So that is what I am enjoying and thinking way, way too much about, like, narrative and dynamics on reality TV.VirginiaI mean, that sounds like the perfect place for your brain to be, especially this week. That’s deeply comforting and absorbing in exactly the right way.FrankieI can make anything sports, apparently. Reality TV is sports.VirginiaIt’s very impressive. I’ll do a TV Butter as well, which is my 11-year-old and I are watching Schitt’s Creek right now. It’s her first time watching it. I’m re-watching it, I mean, it’s not news to say that’s an amazing show, but it’s such an amazing show, and it’s really fun to watch with a middle schooler.She’s really perfecting her sarcasm, trying to banter back like David and Alexis. So it’s very good for honing those skills, which I think is important in sixth grade. And, you know, it’s obviously amazing queer rep. David and Patrick are our love story for the ages.FrankieIt is a great show. And every time I watch it, there are so many jokes layered in it. Like, it gets better.VirginiaIt gets better.FrankieI also just very much feel like David is… My gender is very David Rose-coded.VirginiaI see that. I fully support that. I mean, he’s amazing. My other rec about it is if you are parenting a sometimes angsty tween, quoting Moira Rose at her is a great way to cut through some of the nonsense.. And then we both laugh and we move on. It’s good stuff.Well, Frankie, thank you. This was such a delight. I appreciate everything you’re doing. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support you.FrankieThe easiest way to find me is my newsletterOut of Your League. And then I am TheFrankieDLC on Instagram and Blue Sky. I am, like many of us, slowly deleting many social media accounts. So I would definitely say the newsletter is the best place, because I also share the things I publish elsewhere there as well.VirginiaFantastic. Thank you for being here!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your January Indulgence Gospel.It’s time for another mailbag episode, so we’ll be answering questions like:⭐️ Is it anti-fatness to care that your partner eats faster than you?⭐️ What ultra processed foods can we not live without?⭐️ What should you do when your friend starts weight loss drugs for “wardrobe” reasons?⭐️ Did Virginia buy the air fryer and if so, what is she air frying?To hear our answers, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can add on a subscription to Big Undies, Corinne’s newsletter about clothes, for 20% off.To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Also, don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and today we’re getting into our Ins and Outs for 2025.Most Indulgence Gospel episodes are paywalled, but we’re releasing today’s conversation for free as a January-has-been-a-lot-aleady treat!If you enjoy this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription.You can also subscribe to Corinne's newsletter, Big Undies, for 20% off using this special link. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Also, don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, andThank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---Episode 176 TranscriptVirginiaOkay, Corinne, since you introduced me to this concept, can you explain for the people what an in and out list is?CorinneThis came onto my radar maybe two years ago. Everyone on Instagram was posting a screenshot of their Notes app, with a list on the left of things that are IN for the coming year. And on the right, a list of things that are OUT.I think it’s kind of a fun exercise to do. You could really do it at any time of the year, but, you know, it’s New Year’s. We’re reflecting.VirginiaWhy not?CorinneIt’s kind of like a resolution, but it’s a different framing. Because it’s this is what’s in for me this year. And this is what I’m leaving behind.I also think a lot of the lists that I’ve liked and appreciated are a little cheeky. Like something that’s out will be something you’ve been seeing everywhere.VirginiaAnd you’re over it.On the diet culture front: You could certainly be like, “carbs are out,” and it would be very obviously diet culture. But it feels like there’s a little more room to breathe and make In/Out Lists not diet culture. Because it’s not even necessarily you resolving to do the things on your list. It could just be something you’re enjoying or bringing in. I like the flexibility of that a lot.CorinneThat was one thing I wanted to bring up, because we talked about it last year. I intentionally have not looked back at my list from last year. I hate looking back at my old lists, because when I look at them, I literally feel like, who was that person? If I look back at old pictures of myself, I feel sort of tender for that younger version of myself. But when I look back at the in and out list, I’m like, who was that idiot?VirginiaI think because they are cheeky and responding to trends? It’s kind of capturing a moment in time. Like, whatever is on your out list isa time capsule of the year before, which is fun, but it’s not necessarily going to be your truest core self. These are whims, these are our hot takes or unpopular opinions on things in this moment. It’s fine. I don’t think we have to look back at it. I don’t think we have to hold ourselves to these things lasting all year long. It’s just where we are in this particular moment.CorinneDefinitely. It’s also something that I enjoy as a social activity. I like to ask my friends, what’s in and what’s out for you?VirginiaDid I end up making one last year? I can’t even remember.CorinneI think you did, but I think it was a little late. I didn’t look back for yours because I didn’t want to look back for mine.VirginiaRight, right? We’ll just let that go into the ether.[Post-recording note: Or you can find Virginia’s 2024 list here, if you’re curious!]CorinneAnother thing I’ve seen people doing around New Years is the bingo card, instead of an in and out list.VirginiaOh yeah, someone dropped this in chat this week. What is a bingo card? I don’t understand.CorinneThe concept is basically that you make a bingo board. So what is that? Five by five squares? And each square has a thing in. It can be activities you want to do, or it can be outlandish predictions like, “Drake will be the Super Bowl performer.” Or a combination of both. And then you try to get bingo, and reward yourself.And this year, I was sort of feeling like, ooh, that feels a little more fun. Because I have some things that I wanted to put on my in/out list that don’t really fit. Like, getting a tattoo, or visiting my sister—you know, stuff like that is a little more concrete and bingo card-ish.VirginiaOkay, well you decided it was an in and out episode, though. So that’s what I’ve come prepared to discuss.CorinneI’ve still come prepared to discuss in and outs! I just wanted to present the bingo card as a concept.VirginiaWe’re noting that we are aware of it in the zeitgeist—at least Corinne is. And I am now aware of it, so I appreciate that.CorinneYeah, and if ins/outs feels bad to you, then you could do bingo. Or you could do nothing.VirginiaThis may just be where my brain is on this particular day, but the whole making a grid of five squares is like sounding hard and sort of like math homework. And I’m like, no, no, don’t make me do it. But I might feel differently another day.CorinneI would lose it. Like, where would I keep it? Because I don’t know how to do that in my notes app.VirginiaI mean, I had to text you and be like, “How do we make a table in the notes app?” So this is where I’m starting.Alright, Corinne, kick us off. Give us your first.CorinneWell, as you might expect, I have a lot of ins and outs that are somewhat clothes related. So, IN for me is wearing one thing over and over again. OUT is buying multiples of the exact same thing. That’s something I’m really trying to let go of this year.VirginiaAs I’m wearing a sweater right now, which I own in four colors, I really respect that. Because you don’t ever like the thing in the multiple colors the same way. It’s very rare.CorinneI feel like we’ve talked about how this often doesn’t work. So I’m going to try and be aware of that. And I will say, I’ve already been tempted. As I was writing about the stuff I wore on my road trip, I was like, dang, I should really just buy another pair of those Universal Standard cargo jeans because I like them so much.This Christmas was a particularly exciting one for me because I have a new nephew! And it was my first time getting to meet him, plus my first trip to Oregon, where my sister lives. The drive from New Mexico is about 19 hours, which I did over the course of 3 days / 2 nights (one short day and two longer…VirginiaYou do.CorinneBut I’m trying not to.VirginiaSo you’re referring to not buying multiples of the same exact item. Like, not just “Oh, I’m going to get the sweater in three colors.” But like, you would be tempted to buy two of the same sweater in the same color, if you liked it.CorinneYes. I have this striped shirt from Target that I like, and I have two green ones and one blue one. Granted, I think they cost $10, but do I really need two of the exact same green striped shirt? Because I also have other striped shirts, you know? And then I’m trying to use this app Indyx to keep track of my closet. And I’m like, how do I even put in two of the exact same green shirt?VirginiaYeah, that’s confusing. I mean, I love a uniform, so I admit I fall for the multiples concept. I have my Beyond Yoga joggers in three colors, and I just rotate through them all week long in the winter. But I have definitely been burnt by this rule as well. So I agree it could be out, or at least heavy reflection before committing to something in multiples.CorinneYeah, I think it’s also way easier to buy the multiples of a thing that’s really cheap. I’m doing this at Target and Old Navy, you know? And then that doesn’t feel good.VirginiaYeah, The Beyond Yoga joggers are an investment. I bought one pair and was wearing them constantly and then built up the collection when they go on sale. It’s a little different.CorinneWhat’s on your list?VirginiaOkay, I’ll do a clothing one, too. IN for me is bootcut pants. And I feel like this is going to be controversial, but OUT for me is the wide-cropped Colette pants that everybody loves and that I loved like three months ago, but I don’t love anymore.Now, I am open to that changing in the summer. I really feel like for me, a wide legged crop pant is a warm weather style. I need to treat them like shorts. I cannot crack the boot styling with them. The boot and sock styling, I cannot crack it. I just feel like a crazy art teacher, and not in an aesthetic choice way. Just in a what happened way, when I get dressed in it.But I have been wearing some boot cut pants, also from Beyond Yoga. And I’m like, why did we banish this trend for so long? They’re kind of cute and comfy. I don’t know, I like them.CorinneThat’s exciting. And so bootcut—they’re touching your shoes?VirginiaThey are, yes. They touch my shoes. They are fitted through the thigh, and then there’s a slight flare, but not all the way to full flare. And they look cute with running shoes. And they also look good with a boot—like a chunky boot or probably any boot. I mean, these are leggings materials, so I don’t wear them with a dressy boot. That feels odd to me. But a casual boot. But I am now like, do I want some nice black pants that are a bootcut?CorinneOr jeans?VirginiaI haven’t tried bootcut jeans—I mean, in this millennia, obviously. I wore them plenty in the 90s, but I am like, oh, a high waisted bootcut jean is interesting to me. So TBD on that. But that’s where I am on pants right now, which is a new place.CorinneThat’s cool. Are you going to get rid of the Colette ones? Or seeing what happens?VirginiaI’m going to hold on to them for the warmer weather. I have them in denim. And I thought they were going to go through the fall/winter, and they are not. But I’m going to put them over in my shorts pile and treat them like a summer clothing item. I think that’s what they are for me. At least bare ankles weather, which, we’re recording this in 12 degrees in New York right now. So it is not bare ankles weather. So that may be heavily influencing my pants feelings at the moment.What’s next for you?CorinneOkay, my next one is kind of a response to some events, so I’ll just say that. Okay, IN: Bird watching. OUT: TikTok.VirginiaAmazing.CorinneJust for the record, Tiktok will not be out if it doesn’t get banned.VirginiaBut you are making your peace with that possibility.CorinneIf it does get banned, I’m replacing it with bird watching.VirginiaWell, my next one is very related. We’re really in sync here. IN for me is Bird Buddy, which is my new video bird feeder. And OUT for me is Instagram.So I now am like, oh, do I need to get you a Bird Buddy? Because let me explain to you what is so great about this. It’s a little bird feeder with a video camera in it, and it connects to an app on your phone. So not only do they send you photos when birds land on the feeder, so you get an exciting notification every now and then, it also has a livestream!So instead of scrolling Instagram, I can livestream my bird feeders and it is the most soothing thing ever, Corinne. I’m just like, oh, nothing’s happening. Oh, here’s a chickadee. Okay, nothing’s happening now. Oh, here’s a nuthatch.CorinneIN: bird media. OUT: social media.VirginiaAs people who read the newsletter know, I took a three week Instagram break over Christmas, and I was like, oh, I think my brain is so much happier. So now I’m trying a thing where, since I have to go on Instagram for work to post about the newsletter or whatever, I download the app, post, answer a few DMS, delete the app. And this is what I’m trying this week. We’ll see. I am really interested in less Instagram time for me. Tiktok is not my challenge. I never got hooked into it. But I think birds are the thing to replace this stuff with. I think we’re really onto something! And I’m just saying, a bird app really helps.CorinneYeah, that does sound cool. The Merlin bird app has been a Butter for me before, and I got a pair of binoculars for Christmas.VirginiaOoh, delightful.CorinneGoing to try to be using the binoculars.VirginiaYeah, yeah. Are you going out bird watching in places or backyard bird watching?CorinneYou know, I haven’t gone yet. But that’s on my goals. That would be on my bingo card.VirginiaTo go on a bird watch.CorinneTo go bird watching. I also weirdly have a lot of friends here who are really into bird watching, so I’m hoping one of them will take me under their wing.VirginiaI noticed the bird humor there. We’re going to go past that, but that did happen. But if they don’t take you under their wing, come to New York and my mother will take you bird watching. Bird watching is, I would say, conservatively, 70 percent of my mother’s personality. It is her deep passion, her retirement hobby, calling, what have you. She does it all the time. So she’s also on the live stream. Oh! I can add you to my Bird Buddy!CorinneOh yeah! Because I think my dog will chase the birds away if I get a feeder for my yard.VirginiaOkay, I will add you when we are done recording so you can check out the live stream whenever you want and get the notifications. Also, to be clear, it’s actually not my Bird Buddy. I gave it to my 11 year old for Christmas, and she does also really love it. And there’s a thing where you can name the frequent visitor birds. She’s naming them. So I got it for her, because she’s always loved birds, and now I’m totally hooked.Well. That was like 90 minutes on birds, but that feels right.Give us another one.CorinneOkay, my next one is: IN for me, decluttering. OUT for me, organizing.VirginiaOkay, say more, because how are they not the same thing?CorinneWell, I feel like I had this revelation last year (thanks to this post) where I was, like, before I can do any organizing, I actually just need to get rid of some stuff. Like, it’s like, it’s just never going to stay organized if—VirginiaIf there’s too much?CorinneI need to just have less stuff. I’m not ever going to be a minimalist. But before I’m organizing, I need to be letting some stuff go.VirginiaSo organizing is out for you, but maybe not out forever?CorinneIt’s not that being organized is out. It’s organizing is not a solution to having too much stuff, I guess.VirginiaYeah, it’s like, maybe you’ll revisit that concept if you do pare down the stuff to the point where some system of organization can contain it. But currently that is not an option.CorinneRight. And it’s like that thing where you buy the containers for your pantry, rather than first you need to get rid of all the stuff that’s expired.VirginiaTotally, totally, yes.CorinneThat’s a conceptual one, you know?VirginiaIt is high concept, but I’m here for it.This is maybe also going to be a little controversial. IN for me is baking cookies in my air fryer. OUT for me—but trust me, controversial, at least locally in my house—are Tate’s cookies.CorinneOh, wow. I’m obsessed with Tate’s cookies.VirginiaSo is my seven year old. We go through conservatively two bags a week, and I think I get to eat one of them. One cookie, to be clear.CorinneThey have the crunch level of potato chips. It’s so easy to eat a whole bag.VirginiaThey’re delicious. They are absolutely delicious. I’m not saying they’re not delicious. I am saying they are like $7 a bag.Meanwhile, I’ve been buying the tub of the Nestle Toll House cookie dough from the grocery store—you can get a giant tub for like $7 so it’s going to make way more cookies. And my air fryer has a cookie setting! So you can bake 12 cookies in the air fryer so much faster than you can bake them in the oven. And if you make sure the dough is warm enough before you put them in, they get spread out and thin, very similar to the Tate’s cookies.You all know me. I love an ultra processed food. I’m not here to say from scratch is better. I can also bake cookies fully from scratch. I’m not doing that here. I’m using the store bought dough. But the delightfulness of being able to have warm cookies, because also this way the cookies are warm! Which is the best. The Tate’s ones are not warm. And when it’s a movie night or something, just like, I’m going to bake 12 cookies really fast so we can eat them while we watch the movie.CorinneThat’s awesome. It sounds great. I mean, if I had to choose between Tate’s and fresh baked cookies, I would choose fresh baked.VirginiaI think we all would. But I would previously not have gone to the effort until I discovered the store bought dough and how much faster they are to bake in my air fryer. But I will tell you, it’s not popular. The other day, we had both options available, and the seven year old went for the Tate’s. She was like, “I don’t like those homemade cookies.”And I was like, “They aren’t even fully homemade!” So I don’t know that I’m going to be able to actually decrease my Tate’s budget. I may have to do some subtle transitioning over? But for me personally, I think they’re tastier, so.CorinneThat’s a good one.Okay, I’m going to do a food one too, then. It’s also maybe a little silly. IN for me is beef stews or stewed beef type of things. OUT is pulled pork.VirginiaWhoa.CorinneI’ve got to be honest, I have not been eating a lot of pulled pork. But we made a pot roast when I was at my sister’s house, which is something I’ve never made before, and is not something that my mom served growing up. It was delicious. And now I’m aspiring to eat more pot roast. And I’ve a couple times made the Alison Roman chili recipe, which has beef chuck in it instead of ground beef.VirginiaOh, that is a good way to make chili.CorinneAnd I think I’m going to try a brisket soon. So I’m into huge chunks of beef as opposed to huge chunks of pork.VirginiaOkay, but I don’t know why we’re being anti the huge chunk of pork.CorinneIt’s arbitrary. Maybe I could think of a better out for that if I worked on it. But I feel like pulled pork has been in for a long time.VirginiaIt’s true.I actually also have a meat-related one. Why are we so in sync? Our brains are on a mind meld.So mine, I will disclaim before I even say it—lots of privilege involved here! Privilege to be able to make a more expensive grocery choice not available to everyone. I think it’s clear with all of these, we’re not endorsing these as lifestyle plans for the rest of you.CorinneThese are highly personal.VirginiaSo mine is IN small butcher meat and eggs, OUT grocery store meat and eggs.The backstory: I have two children who are vegetarian or vegetarian-leaning. I am not interested in being a vegetarian, I’m sorry. But in a attempt to be be more aware of the many issues around meat consumption, I have decided that this year, I’m going to commit to only buying meat from our local butcher who specializes in animals raised on small farms. These were the happiest of cows, given every opportunity, a good college education, etc. So I’m only going to buy our meat and our eggs from them, and I’m not going to buy the grocery store stuff.It is more expensive, but it’s a great local business in our community. They add a lot of value. I would love to help make sure they stay here. So that is a shift I’m making. I value farmers and what they do, and I want to be being more mindful of that, since it is something I can do,CorinneThat’s cool. That’s a good one!Um, okay, I have one other food one that’s a little silly. IN as a pastry / dessert flavor in for me, passion fruit. OUT as a pastry, dessert flavor, matcha.VirginiaWas matcha ever in?CorinneI feel like yes.VirginiaDid anyone really like it? Or is it like how everyone says they read the books on the Booker list awards, but they don’t really read them?CorinneOh, I don’t know. I like matcha as a drink. I don’t want a matcha eclair. But I would like a passionfruit eclair.VirginiaI just want chocolate.CorinneAll of this is irrelevant to you, nevermind.VirginiaIt’s very opaque to me, but I’m glad for you.The next one is another little bit more high concept. It’s about colors I’m feeling right now for myself and for for my house and for my wardrobe. IN is dark teal, dark green, like evergreen forest green, and pink. OUT for me, is light gray.I should say, pink is always in for me, but different shades of pink. I’m leaning a little more hot pink these days, a little over the millennial blush pink. But all the pinks.CorinneOooh, that’s a good one, yes.VirginiaAnd I was explaining to you the other day, I have realized light gray clothing makes me look dead. It makes me look like a corpse. And yet I own so much of it. It’s a color that is heavily marketed to Millennial Moms. Because it’s very minimalist. You should have the fisherman sweater in this color. And I don’t know, I just feel like I’m always being told to wear light gray and I’m done. I’m not doing it anymore. So it feels good.CorinneI love that. I feel like those colors look good together, too.VirginiaYeah, it’s also kind of my book cover again, and I don’t really know how I feel about that, but I’m expecting it to evolve. I’m saying these are colors I’m feeling right now, but I am in the process of trying to choose a new living room sofa, and I feel like I’ve always gone for blues. Well, in my heart, I want a cream sofa, but I know my life. But in the past, I would have always gone towards more blue, gray colors. And I’m now feeling like a forest green or a deep teal or something.CorinneI’m really into forest green as well.VirginiaBut does that mean we’ll be sick of it soon and I shouldn’t put it in a sofa where I’m not going to want to replace it for a long time?CorinneI think it’s a classic.VirginiaI think it’s like navy, where you can build around it. You can change the pop of colors around it. Okay, I’m glad we had that talk.CorinneOkay. This one is a little more clothes-related and this is something I really need to work on. IN for me, accessories. OUT for me, matching sets.VirginiaOh!CorinneI thought you might feel targeted by that.VirginiaI feel a little called out, I only just got into matching sets like six months ago, and now you’re taking them from—well, not from me, from you.CorinneI had a realization. I bought a few matching sets last summer and then ended up only wearing the shorts. And I was just like, hmm, do I really like matching sets, or do I just like the concept?VirginiaI love the concept, but I understand.CorinneAnd I’m feeling I really want to beef up on my accessories collection.VirginiaI support this. Are you a “I want a set of accessories I wear all the time” person or do you want to mix and match different outfits have different accessories?CorinneI want to mix and match. I wear very basic stuff so I feel like some accessories could make it feel more fun and fancy. I feel like I’m seeing a lot of brooches? Pins could be interesting. Plus the whole bonnet/hood/balaclava thing.VirginiaYou’ve been wanting a bonnet forever. If this is not the year you get it, I don’t even know.CorinneI mean, I just feel like the bonnet season in Albuquerque is so short that I can’t really justify having a lot of them.VirginiaWhere is the bonnet season ever long? What climate does one wear a bonnet for?CorinneWell, I feel like, in New York, you could probably wear them through March. I feel like here it’s probably just December and January.VirginiaAre you talking about like a wool bonnet for warmth?CorinneYeah, that’s what I was thinking, like a knit one.VirginiaBecause you’ve also been interested in fabric bonnets, like cotton.CorinneYeah, that’s true. Okay, well, yeah, that might be a little bit of a longer season.VirginiaYou could wear that whenever you’re feeling like a little Puritan cosplay. Okay, well, I still endorse you getting a bonnet anyway, because I think your heart has wanted one for a long time. And I agree it will be a jaunty accessory.CorinneYes, thank you. Also, jewelry. You know, jewelry has been in for a while now. Shoes.VirginiaOkay, my last one is also going back to clothing. And it’s really more about my out than my in, because my in has been in for me for a while, but my IN is two piece bathing suits. They are easier when you are dealing with children and you’re gonna have to go to the bathroom. I know you can do the pull to the side move in a one piece, but I don’t like it. It is easier to wear a two piece and only body hangups keep us from that ease.So I’m pro two piece bathing suits for myself, specifically, and also the world, if that is interesting to you. And what is OUT for me is the one piece with what my friend Mary calls apology ruching.My friend Mary went to Great Wolf Lodge, which is a local indoor water park situation. I’ve never been, but I hear tales. And she was like, “Virginia, we’re at this water park over winter break with the kids. It’s like all families and their kids. And every mom in her 40s or late 30s was wearing the one piece with ruching.” Which is like, what is it meant to hide? Because it hides nothing! It does nothing. It’s your body, but now it has some bumpy fabric on top. It’s a way of signaling that you’ve tried to cover yourself. “I tried to prevent you understanding that I have a belly.”CorinneI mean, ruching is for sure out. But also, the thing I’ll say about that is, it’s very hard to find a one piece bathing suit without ruching! My top bathing suit is a one piece from Land’s End, and I would so strongly prefer that it did not have ruching, but that’s not an option.VirginiaNo, I understand. It’s one of those obnoxious things, especially about plus size swimwear. Ruching is the plus size swimwear equivalent of the cold shoulder top. It’s like, no one asked for this, but they put it on everything. But that’s why I’m going over to two pieces. And my hack for two pieces, especially for if you are busty like I am, and you need a family friendly swimsuit, is sports bra. Cute, colored sports bra, fun pattern on the bottom, high waisted bottoms, is my formula. And I just feel like it gives you more versatility, frankly, as a family friendly swimsuit.People can handle seeing three inches of your midsection and you’re not doing this apology ruching game.CorinneA lot of high waisted two piece bottoms also have ruching.VirginiaThey do. And I will not be purchasing them.CorinneHopefully we have some swimsuit designers listening.VirginiaYeah, get on this, people. No one wants it. No one asked for it. Especially with moms who are concerned about, quote, mom, body things. It’s like, this way of being like, “Maybe I used to be confident displaying my body at a communal swimming place, but I no longer am, so I have ruched my midsection.” No more!Well, this was very fun. I loved all of these. I’m very excited about our ins and outs, and I want to hear what other people are doing.CorinneYeah, me too. I really want to see what some other people have on their lists.VirginiaAnd you don’t have to do the notes format if you don’t want, obviously. We’ll have ours in the transcript. You can just put them in the comments.ButterCorinneOkay, my butter is the shirt that I’m wearing right now. It is called the Fay Chore Coat.VirginiaIt’s named after you!CorinneIt is named after me. It comes from a brand called Connally goods, which is a small clothing company in Canada. They’re really cool. They have good sizing options, and I think they’re one of those brands that if you’re not on the size chart, they will work with you to make something anyways.VirginiaAmazing.CorinneBut anyways, because I have talked a lot about loving denim shirts and denim chore coats, they made this coat. It has snaps in the front.VirginiaIt’s adorable.CorinneIt’s really cute. And I’ve been wearing it as a shirt. I think you could also wear it as a coat. The denim is not too thick. It’s pretty thin, but it’s really cute. And everyone should check it out.VirginiaAlso, can we just have a moment for like, you’re such a celebrity that someone named a coat after you? That’s pretty amazing. That’s a level of fame, few of us reach that peak is what I’m saying.CorinneI mean, I think it’s very niche. But, yes, I’m very famous within a very tiny niche.VirginiaThey’reBig Undiesfans. We love that.If you’re not reading Big Undies, this is your reminder yet again to please fix that. It’s so good people are naming clothing after Corinne! So that’s why you should be reading it. Also, if you’re a paid Burnt Toast subscriber, you get 20% off. The chore coat is adorable, and I feel like very versatile. Like you could wear it like open over striped shirt. You could do a lot with that.And it is quintessential you, they really nailed your style. It’s awesome. I’m excited to shop there. That’s very cool.CorinneWhat’s your Butter?VirginiaOkay, my Butter is what Corinne got me for Christmas, which is these amazing brownies from Vesta Chocolate.Corinne sent me—I don’t even know how many you sent, there were many. It was a very full box of these amazing brownies. And they are like the richest, most super chocolatey brownies. And we all know I am someone with some authority on this subject. I am something of a brownie expert, and they are the most rich, super chocolatey brownies I’ve ever had.CorinneAnd I just want to say that I heard about these from Helen Rosner!VirginiaOh, well there you go. There you go! These are New Yorker food critic endorsed brownies.[Come see Virginia and Helen discuss these brownies and other things IRL next Thursday, January 23! Tickets here.]They’re so rich. Like, again, I am something of a brownie overachiever. I actually couldn’t eat a whole one, so I ended up cutting them into quarters. So you maybe sent a dozen brownies, and we ended up with like four dozen.CorinneOh my God, that’s amazing.VirginiaThey were like the Jesus of brownies, they just kept making more loaves and fishes or whatever. It was great. When I was hosting a lot over the holidays, I could just have them out on the counter, just having a super decadent, delicious treat like that around all the time. Also a plug for food gifting in general, you really cannot go wrong. My food gift this year was I gave quite a few of this coffee cake that was recommended byJulia Turshenfrom a bakery called Zingerman’s. And I did gift one to myself as well, and was really glad I did that.CorinneI’ve given people stuff from Zingerman’s before. It’s really good.VirginiaYeah, their stuff is great, and it lasts a long time, too. So that’s awesome. So, general Butter of food gifting. But specifically, these brownies were off the charts, and I’m excited to see what else they ship.All right, well, so much good stuff is in for 2025. It’s been like a little rocky start to January over here in the Sole-Smith household. We’ve got some flu, we’ve got some things going on, and this is picking up my mood quite a bit. So thank you!The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your January Extra Butter! Today, we’re tackling two big topics:1. Can you do a diet-y thing and still be an anti-diet advocate?2. And can Corinne and Virginia divest from Amazon for one month?(Or is that…also kind of diet-y???)If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Substack. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter. It's just $99 per year, and is the hands down best way to keep Burnt Toast an ad- and sponsor-free space. PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and we’re dropping in today with your Burnt Toast Podcast Year In Review.Don’t forget! Burnt Toast subscriptions are 20% off right now — but that deal ends tomorrow night. Don’t miss it!And if you haven’t donated to our NAAFA fundraiser yet, we could really use your help funding fat.You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---Episode 174 TranscriptVirginiaIt has been a really great year for the podcast, wouldn’t you agree, Corinne?CorinneI would agree.VirginiaYes. I don’t know that we celebrated this properly at the time, but a few months ago, we actually passed 1 million downloads this year, which is wild to me.CorinneHonestly, I can’t think about that too hard.VirginiaThen I will not tell you that we are now at 1.32 million, as of this recording.CorinneMy gosh! It’s wild.VirginiaI know it’s really cool. I feel super proud of the podcast. I love making it with you.CorinneSo we are going to take this opportunity to chat about listeners’ five favorite episodes of the year—plus the least popular episode!VirginiaThe poor, unloved episode.Before we dive in, I feel like I need to own up that this is a very imperfect science I used to rank the episodes. Since we do a mix of paywalled and unpaywalled episodes, I can’t just go by total download numbers. That’s because the paywalled episodes—Corinne, this will be reassuring to you, as someone who’s primarily on paywalled episodes—have lower number of downloads on these. So the million downloads is not all you.CorinneYeah. And it’s a million downloads across all episodes, right?VirginiaYes. This is episode 174 so I think that number, the 1.3 million, is like, current to 170 or something like that.But I did look at which episodes were downloaded the most for the year, and then I also looked at which episodes the paywall was most effective—meaning that you all paid to listen. Because that tells us a lot about is this episode striking a nerve so much that you’re like, “yes, I will pay $7 or for Extra Butter folks, $99 to listen to this episode.” So I think that’s pretty indicative of its popularity.CorinneIt’s always fun to see what people are excited about. And where we sometimes fail with writing headlines.VirginiaWe work so hard on the headlines, and sometimes I think we’ve really nailed it and then we have not at all.I will also say I’m exempting from the data last week’s episode, as of this recording. The Tyranny of the Millennial Camisole episode came out last week. It’s not doing great, but it’s only had a few days and I don’t feel it’s fair to judge it yet! But you all should go listen to it, because it’s such a good episode.I feel that people are missing out by not hearing us discuss camisoles and horizontal stripes and whatever else we talked about in that episode.The Burnt Toast PodcastThe Tyranny of the Millennial CamisoleVirginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay·December 5, 2024Why everything you learned about "dressing for your belly" is trash.Read full storyCorinneIt’s about a lot more than just camisoles! Although camisoles were a big part.VirginiaThey were and I think maybe in my headline writing, I over-emphasized that. I apologize, but if you’ve ever worn Spanx, that episode is for you.2024’s Least Popular Podcast Episode!CorinneOkay, here we go. We are starting with the least popular episode. This is the one that has the fewest downloads and had the fewest people paying to listen.The Burnt Toast PodcastFatphobic Roller Coasters and Fatphobic SocksVirginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay·July 25, 2024You’re listening to Burnt Toast!Read full storyDo you remember this episode?VirginiaI mean, I’ll admit I had to open it up and be like, which episode was this?CorinneOh, interesting. It’s from July of this year.VirginiaDo we think everyone was just on summer vacation?CorinneIt’s definitely possible.VirginiaJuly is, historically, usually a pretty low month overall for newsletters and podcasts in general, I think because of summer travel schedules.CorinneBut I will say—the question that the headline is referring to, the fatphobic roller coaster question, was memorable for me.VirginiaYeah, no, absolutely. It was from a woman who was going to amusement parks and feeling really sad she couldn’t ride on roller coasters.CorinneIt was a good question.VirginiaI think our answer was also pretty good. Folks can click through and listen to that. I think maybe the headline is a little niche? If you haven’t currently struggled with roller coasters or socks, that might be why it didn’t speak to you.But I also want to say: If dismantling anti-fatness is important to you, these kind of mundane issues are the work. It’s not always the sexy stuff. Sometimes it is totally roller coasters and socks. Also Corinne on socks is just a great rant, guys.CorinneOh, my God.VirginiaThat’s also worth listening to!CorinneWell, yeah, I also think if you like the episodes where there are deeper questions and we’re thinking about the nuance of fatphobia and what do we give up when we decide to stop dieting. I think this is good one, and you might want to listen if you missed it.VirginiaYeah, agreed, agreed. And we’re not judging you, but a little bit we are, that you blew past some of our finest work.Okay, let’s now go through what you guys did like, and we’ll go from least to most, right?Top 5 Most Popular Episodes of 2024CorinneWe’re going from least most popular to most most popular.So the Number 5 Most Popular Episode is: Did Virginia get divorced over butter?The Burnt Toast PodcastDid Virginia Get Divorced Over Butter?Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·June 13, 2024Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!Read full storyCorinneHow do you feel about your divorce being one of the most popular episodes?VirginiaI feel zero surprise about it, and I am not going to answer that question here. People can listen to the episode and find out, what I think about it.CorinneIt’s another good episode. What else did we talk about in that episode?VirginiaWe talked also a lot about how the newsletter works.CorinneThe making of the sausage, how the sausage is made.VirginiaWe did talk about the weirdness of the Internet having a parasocial relationship with one’s personal life, so if that’s an interesting topic, it’s pretty juicy.And people have told us they really like the process stories. People are interested in how we make the podcast and the newsletter. I think I’m always interested in that for other people.Leave a comment4. Can I want to lose weight for a good reason?The Burnt Toast Podcast"Can I Want to Lose Weight for a Good Reason?"Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·March 21, 2024You’re listening to Burnt Toast!Read full storyCorinneThis is another, like, mail baggy episode. And I do think that question is kind of perennially interesting.VirginiaIt’s definitely another nuanced and chewy question, which we really love to do. But there are some other lighter questions in that episode: Is it okay to feed your children paleo waffles? My thoughts on single mom travel. Are there any comfortable jeans?CorinneThe third most popular episode—which I’m actually a tiny bit surprised about. I thought, honestly, it would be higher—was:3. When Fat Influencers Get Thinner.The Burnt Toast PodcastWhen Fat Influencers Get ThinnerCorinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·February 8, 2024Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!Read full storyVirginiaOh yeah, this was a juicy one.CorinneThis is one where we talked about fat influencers losing weight because of Ozempic.VirginiaI wonder if it would have been even higher if we had name-checked somebody in the headline.CorinneMaybe?VirginiaThat’s something—as we’ll see when we get to number one—that is sometimes effective. But it’s tricky. I think one thing we’ve realized about the podcast is that y’all really like us doing criticism and analysis of Internet culture as it intersects with diet culture and anti-fatness. So there are quite a few influencer episodes that have done well. But because Internet culture is as vast as it is, often these people are kind of niche. If you’re not already following plus size influencers, or you’re not already following kid food influencers or whatever, you might not know the specific players.So I think that’s why we didn’t include the names. Because we were like, will everyone know these people?CorinneAnd also this episode wasn’t just about one person, it was about a wider cultural phenomenon.VirginiaYes. It was the trend of influencers using Ozempic or Wegovy to lose weight, and suddenly, kind of radically changing the way they talk about weight and body acceptance and health journeys.CorinneThis is one of the episodes I was most stressed about recording, just because it feels so hard to get right. I remember when it came out, I was just like, oh, I kind of hope no one listens.VirginiaUnfortunately, many people listened. Thousands of people listened, Corinne.But what I always want to push back on is that the scolding we always get is “you’re tearing down other women,” or “you’re being mean girls.” And I think that is actually a very anti-feminist understanding of this work. We have to hold other women accountable when they are not being allies to other women and otherwise marginalized folks.And specifically, this episode—and I think pretty much all our influencer episodes—focus on white ladies with a lot of privilege who are not using that privilege responsibly. That criticism is really important right now. And it’s not being a mean girl, it’s being a cultural critic and someone who analyzes diet culture and is able to identify it. And sometimes women create diet culture. So we have to say that.But I get why you were nervous about it. People are going to be meaner to me than to you, though, if it helps. You’re the more likable one!CorinneOh, my God. I don’t actually remember there being a lot of pushback after that episode came out. But maybe you got all of it.VirginiaI don’t either but I also don’t go on Reddit very often.CorinneOh, yeah, no, me neither. At least not for that.VirginiaThat’s a self-care measure for us. We will not be doing that, and you don’t need to send us anything you find there!Okay, the next two are kind of like one and two. You can make arguments for which is one and which is two. But what I’m calling number 2 was our far and away most downloaded episode of the year:2. Is “Mom Rage” Actually “Marriage Rage?”The Burnt Toast PodcastIs "Mom Rage" Actually "Marriage Rage?"Virginia Sole-Smith and lyz·February 29, 2024You’re listening to Burnt Toast!Read full storyThis was my interview with Lyz Lenz about her new book, This American Ex-Wife. It has almost 28,000 downloads, which is easily 10,000 downloads more than a free episode usually gets. So it was off to the races.CorinneWow. It was a great episode.VirginiaIt was a great episode! I mean, it definitely also touched a nerve. I think the comment section got kind of spicy. Anytime we do divorce and marriage topics, we hear from people who really like their marriages and feel personally attacked.CorinneTotally makes sense.VirginiaAnd I’m not saying they need to get divorced, but they sometimes seem to think that’s what we’re saying? Butlyzis great, and it is a really fantastic conversation.And it’s interesting too, because, you know, I first had Lyz on the podcast to talk about diet culture and divorce well before my own divorce. And then she came back, and we were two divorced ladies together. It was kind of a fun little evolution.CorinneI love that. And the number one most popular episode of the year is…1. The Curious Evolution of Emily OsterThe Burnt Toast PodcastThe Curious Evolution of Emily OsterVirginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay·November 14, 2024Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! This month we’re talking about Emily Oster—and her evolving views on kids, weight and health.Read full storyVirginiaDrumroll for that. This one really blew up. The free preview for this has also over 25,000 downloads. The full paywalled episode is less, but it did convert a ton of people who wanted to hear the whole thing. And that is again, above average numbers for us.CorinneYeah, that’s also really interesting, because that one is from just last month. Whereas the last two were from February.VirginiaYes. I mean, usually the older an episode is, the more downloads it has, because new people discovering the podcast often go back and download old episodes. But Emily Oster was an immediate hit.And despite everything I said about feeling very strongly that we are not being mean girls, and we are culture critics, and this is valid work— this was the one I was the most nervous about.CorinneWell, and you know her.VirginiaI have a lot of respect for Emily. But there have been some weird right turns taken, and I felt it was important to talk about it. So that is all in that episode.CorinneI’m kind of surprised that the Kids Eat In Color episode isn’t on here.The Ballerina Farm of Kid Food InstagramCorinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·March 7, 2024Read full storyVirginiaIf we were only going to do top 5 paywalled episodes, it would have been number five.CorinneOh, gotcha.VirginiaThat is another good one. But since I wanted to make sure to include at least one of the free ones as well, I did some very scientific number crunching… in the 10 minutes before we recorded this episode.CorinneAre there any episodes you’re surprised aren’t in the top five?VirginiaI don’t think so. I mean, I’ve been tracking all the way along that this influencer analysis thing was really taking off. And two divorce things on this list doesn’t surprise me at all, because that’s been a huge driver of engagement.I’m definitely sad for fatphobic roller coasters being the least popular episode. That’s where I think the heart of this work is. And then the more gossipy topics like public figures and divorce—that’s what gets the clicks and the downloads. So the cynical journalist in me is like, well, of course, But we’re not going to stop doing the fat phobic roller coaster episodes.CorinneYeah, I think they’re super important.VirginiaWe really need them. So I encourage everyone: If you love an Emily Oster type episode, please go listen to that one too. Because it’s all part of the work.CorinneIt’s really fun to answer listener questions too.VirginiaYes. I guess the less cynical part of me understands, though—because I think the mailbag question episodes are really fun but they are more random. So if you’re a newer listener, they feel a little inside baseball. It’s you and me hanging out and chatting, and it feels like we’re having a conversation with all the Burnt Toasties, which I love. But I can get why they’re harder to break into. So that’s something we might think about? How to make them more accessible?CorinneI think it’s also harder to write a hooky headline for those episodes. If it’s five different topics, then what do you put up top that will get people to listen?VirginiaThat is always a little bit of an experiment. How to frame it exactly? Maybe we have to make sure to include an influencer question in those, just to get it in the headline. I’m sorry it’s clickbait, but it’s what you all respond to!ButterCorinneLet’s do the the last butter of 2024! No pressure.VirginiaThat does feel like pressure, right? What do you have?CorinneOkay, well, I feel mine is like just a little anti-climactic, because I think I feel like everyone’s already gonna know about this. But I just read the book James by Percival Everett. It really is as good as everyone is saying. I really enjoyed it. I plowed right through it.I mean, as you probably know, it’s a retelling of Huck Finn. So it just has that adventure story and a plot that just kind of carries you right along. But it’s just a good read. So I definitely recommend that if people haven’t read it. I listened to the audiobook, which I thought was really good.VirginiaOh, nice. I’m excited to know that. I tried to make my book club read it, and they shot it down. We did read Colored Television by Danzy Senna who happens to be his wife. It also came out this year. And I did have a moment of like, I’m glad we read that one, because James is the one that really blew up. And Colored Television is also excellent.And it’s probably complicated to be two bestselling authors in a marriage, both releasing big books in the same year! I don’t know. It seems that seems like something! I would love to know more about how that works. But I do want to read James too.CorinneI don’t know why your book group shot it down, but my mom was telling me about it, and I was also resisting it, and then it just like, popped up on Libby, and I was like, Oh, fine. And then I I did really like it.VirginiaWell, I have a knee-jerk reaction to not wanting to read books by and about men, which is something I can look at. I suppose. And I think the whole Huckleberry Finn retelling makes it feel like a school book versus a fun read.CorinneYeah, I could see that. I mean, it is like, about slavery…VirginiaIt’s not an uplifting topic, but it does sound like a really incredible book.CorinneAll right, what’s your Butter?VirginiaI’m also going to do a culture rec, because something else we learned this year is that the culture-based Butters are the ones we stand by, versus when I tell you about something I bought at Target. So I’m not recommending anything from Target.I’m just going to do a Butter for Somebody Somewhere. It is the most delightful, beautiful little show. And I’m sad it’s ending after three seasons, but they are three perfect little jewel box seasons, and if you somehow have not experienced the magic that is Bridget Everett, I don’t know this is what you should do with the rest of your winter break. You should go binge watch it.CorinneAbsolutely. I haven’t watched Season Three yet. I’m also like…I’m not, like, a musical person, so sometimes I’m like, can we move along there?VirginiaBut did you see the reel of her singing Janis Joplin on Jimmy Fallon?[Post-recording note: Virginia knows she talked about this show and shared this reel just last week and SHE DOES NOT CARE.]fallontonightA post shared by @fallontonightCorinneYes, she’s incredible. Like, no hate. At all.VirginiaThey called it a karaoke performance. It was insulting. That was like a stadium arena level performance. I’m in love with her.CorinneShe’s really cool, and the show is incredible. I just sometimes am fast-forwarding through the songs.VirginiaI understand. It is always that thing where, like, you have this really talented actor who’s also an incredible singer. So you write in a plot line where they get to sing a lot, even though it’s maybe not totally in line with the episodes. But I’m like, so here for it, because I just find her so incredible. And the friend group is so great too!CorinneAll the characters are really good.VirginiaWe are gonna miss that one, Bridget. I can’t wait to see what you do next. Iconic fat rep.Oh, and I won’t do spoilers since you haven’t seen Season Three yet, but there was an episode early in season three thatKim Baldwintexted me and was like, “I’m really nervous they’re gonna go in a weight loss plot line direction,” and then they don’t. AndI actually think it’s one of the best episodes I’ve seen about being a fat person at a doctor’s office.CorinneOoh.VirginiaIt’s very understated, because the whole show is very understated. It’s pretty nuanced, but they really show the whole experience of feeling vulnerable, when the gown doesn’t fit, and the way the doctor talks to her and all of that. And it’s so honest and well done. And her weight has never been part of the story, nor should it be. But the fact that they still wove it in as a part of life. It just is exquisitely done.CorinneWow, that’s amazing. Well, that makes me really excited to watch.VirginiaAll right. Well, I just want to say a big thank you to all of our listeners. This has been a really, really great year making the podcast, and I’m excited to see what we do in 2025 How will we top these top five?CorinneOh God, hard to say! I’m like, this means next year is 2 million downloads?VirginiaWell, who knows. It could totally drop off, or it could blow up, and be at 5 million? Dream big, Corinne!CorinneOkay.VirginiaThanks for doing this with me.CorinneYeah, thanks for doing this with me, and thanks to all our listeners.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

It’s time for your December Indulgence Gospel. Today’s episode is both holiday and sex-themed, which seems right! We’re getting into:️ How diet culture and anti-fatness show up during the holiday season. Comments from relatives! Fitness equipment as gifts! Matching family PJs! Etc.️ Our NEW Ask Corinne segment, where Corinne answers your fat sex and dating questions, like: What do you do when certain positions just don’t work for your body?To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Today Virginia is chatting with Anna Maltby. Anna is a health journalist, editor, content strategist, personal trainer, and author of the newsletter How to Move. Anna also created Pilates For Abortion Funds, a monthly online class that has raised about $30,000 for abortion funds since July 2022. She has been an ACE-certified personal trainer since 2015, and a certified mat pilates instructor since 2021. She’s also a certified prenatal and postpartum exercise specialist. Anna lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two kids, and two extremely cute cats.Anna was previously a guest on one of Burnt Toast’s most popular ever episodes, The Myth of Visible Abs. What’s so great about Anna—and what makes her different from a lot of fitness writers and personal trainers out there—is that she’s so smart about bodies, she’s truly anti-diet and size neutral as a fitness professional…and, she’s been in the belly of the beast. Anna worked in women’s magazines with me long enough to know all the diet culture tricks. So she’s one of my favorite people to talk fitness with, because she can dissect what is marketing, what is diet culture, and what is actually maybe useful for your body.Two content warnings for today:1. We are going to talk about specific forms of exercise. This will always be through a weight neutral lens, but if you’re recovering from an eating disorder or just otherwise in a place where exercise is not serving you, please take care.2. CW for Butter, because we ended up talking quite a lot about toilets! And while I feel it’s all incredibly practical information and you’re going to thank me for my great Butter recommendation this week, I do realize that toilet conversation is not for everyone. It’s usually not for me! So I get it! You’ve been warned.To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out in paperback! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.Episode 171 TranscriptVirginiaLast time you were on the podcast, we talked specifically about how diet culture has co-opted ab workouts. This was inspired by a viral Twitter thread you wrote back then—back when we were on Twitter, back when we called it Twitter—where you really laid out how core muscles are super important, but the way the fitness industry markets workouts just completely misses the point.So can you walk us through that a little bit? Because every time I even bring that up with people minds are blown.AnnaThere’s so much here, but I think the TLDR is that abs—flat abs, defined abs, visible abs—have a real hold on us as a culture. They have forever, unfortunately, and diet culture knows that. They’re going to use this promise of visible abs to get you to buy a bunch of stuff which is sketchy at best. Because for the vast majority of people those visible, defined abs are not a realistic, or at least a sustainable, goal.What’s frustrating for me is that all of that is kind of a distraction from the many ways in which having strong and functional abs is great for you and can help you move and feel better. So I find it self-defeating. Visible ab talk is feeding into diet culture, and it’s not supporting us in any way.VirginiaIt really is wild that this very specific aesthetic trait—the ability to have visible stomach muscles, which only certain body types are going to be able to pull off even with a lot of effort—that has become our focus. Sometimes I just have to take a minute and think: Why do we care so much about how someone’s stomach muscles look like? It’s really weird.AnnaFor some reason Botox and forehead wrinkles are popping into my head. This is a bad metaphor because your forehead doesn’t really do anything for you. But what if your forehead had some amazing function, and we were distracting ourselves with the aesthetics of it by spending all this money on Botox. It’s adding this whole additional layer of functional purpose on top of the ridiculousness of the diet salesmanship of it.VirginiaYou revisited this whole conversation recently onHow to Movewhich I want everyone to subscribe to, because it’s fantastic. You wrote a piece that was in conversation with a piece by another fitness writer we both like, Casey Johnston, who wrote a piece calledthe core workout is a scam.Casey pointed out that even major fitness influencers on Tiktok will talk about how they make content with ab exercises that they actually don’t even do themselves, because they know that abs, abs, abs is what gets engagement. This brought me back to some of our lady mag days. I don’t know about you, Anna, this felt familiar to some of those workouts that we put on magazine covers.How to MoveAre ab exercises bad, actually?As a society, we’ve been sold a hell of a bill of goods about the abdominal muscles…Listen nowa year ago · 14 likes · 3 comments · Anna MaltbyAnnaI love Casey. I really admire her work, and I think she’s so right that influencers and whoever else is trying to sell you workouts, they definitely post this kind of like core workout or ab workout very intentionally. It’s not necessarily that it’s a good workout. It’s not that it’s what the influencer does. It’s not that it’s going to achieve that aesthetic.It’s that you’re looking at this influencer, you see their body, you see them post this thing, and you’re like, “Ooh, if I do that thing, I’ll get that body.” That’s definitely a scam. I think it was kind of wild to see the influencer that Casey included in her piece, she had posted on Tiktok just saying outright, “I used to be this very toxic fitness influencer. I posted these ab workouts. It was completely a fake. I never did it. I only posted it for engagement.” It definitely reminded me of those kind of get ripped abs, toned core in 10 days—those kinds of cover lines that we used to write at magazines.VirginiaThe workouts we would write that nobody was doing.AnnaExactly, and it’s so similar because you would look at this beautiful, thin, toned, cover model next to these cover lines. Did that model ever do that workout?VirginiaNo, absolutely not. Not even the model in the shoot for that workout! Other than when she was posing for the photos.AnnaYes. She would show up on set looking like that. She would leave set looking like that. And she would never do that workout ever again.VirginiaIt’s just wild. I hope that’s the kind of thing that people know, but I don’t think it is. It’s hard, when you look at this content, to separate the myth from reality with what you’re seeing. Even for those of us in the industry, it’s hard not to see those workouts and think, oh, okay, what is that? What works for that? It’s so easy to get sucked in.AnnaYes, I think that we all have that instinct to think that’s going to work. And not all of us have this sort of baked-in layer of skepticism or or even knowledge that that’s not what’s actually going on.So I thought Casey’s piece was really interesting. This idea that ab workouts are a scam. She’s a big fan, of course, of heavy lifting and barbell focused workouts, and I definitely am, too. I love barbells. I love lifting as heavy as I can, although I personally don’t use barbells as much as I would really like to these days. And Casey suggests that if you’re doing those kinds of workouts, you’re getting plenty of core work.I think that is probably true. If you’re doing a really heavy deadlift with a barbell, your core is working really hard to support your spine during that movement, even just carrying those those plates and lifting them up to put them on the bar, the twisting, all of that is really amazing, functional core work. But I also think most people are not doing those kinds of workouts.VirginiaThat’s not a very accessible workout for a lot of people.AnnaEven if you are doing strength exercises with lighter weights at home, you’re probably getting some core work as well. But it’s not necessarily all the core work you could ever need in the world.So I’m kind of thinking of Casey’s piece with a little bit of caveat. It’s like, yes, if you’re doing all that stuff, you’re probably golden. Probably most people are not doing that stuff. Probably you could benefit from more.And I also think that even if you are someone doing a heavy barbell workout, there’s still a chance you could benefit from a little bit of additional core work. And I’m not talking about the scammy influencer 20 minute ab workouts. I’m talking about some very functional, core focused strengthening movements which can also help make your lifts better.SO I take it with a grain of salt. Basically anything that bills itself as a core workout you could, could probably raise an eyebrow to. But I don’t think it’s true that core exercises across the board are worthless.VirginiaNo, it’s that they’ve been marketed for the wrong purpose. They have lots of value in terms of building functional core strength, but they’re sold to us as weight loss, get a visible six pack, etc. And so the scam is how they put all your focus on that aesthetic goal, which is going to be out of reach no matter how many core exercises you do, versus the strength building part and the function part.Let’s drill into that a little bit more. What do you think is the value of core workouts? And on behalf of of my people who have always hated core exercises: What are some ways you can reframe how you think about core strength so it doesn’t feel like, Oh God, that’s the part of the workout I hate the most.AnnaYes, totally. So what is it for? I’ll just quote Casey’s piece, because I thought this was really smart.The whole point of a core is that it needs to be able to connect and coordinate the other parts of the body in order to be effective. Cores can’t learn to be the solid, coordinating central conduit for movement by doing, for instance, a five-minute plank alone.So it’s all part of a system. The point of a core is not just to be strong in isolation. It’s to be strong in a way that supports movement throughout the rest of your body, whether it’s laying down in a bed and then getting back up out of that bed, or picking up something heavy, or holding something heavy in one hand and something light in the other hand, and not getting completely out of whack and of balance.Whether you’re building that strength by doing a heavy barbell workout like Casey likes to do, or something more like Pilates, which I teach, we’re always loading your core by moving the extremities in different ways. Those are both great examples of this whole thing working as a system.VirginiaAs you’re saying that, I’m realizing how much the “core in isolation” is, again, part of diet culture. Because that’s about the aesthetics and not about the function.AnnaExactly. It doesn’t make sense to do a workout like Pilates all the time. It makes sense to do it maybe once or twice a week as a foundation to the other things that you’re doing, because if you can make your core, your pelvic floor, your back muscles work really functionally in tandem with the rest of your body, then the other kinds of movements that you’re doing throughout the week will be easier. And that’s movement whether it’s a workout or dancing or walking, or I have a client who owns a bookstore, so she’s picking up heavy boxes, putting things away on a shelf, and reaching and taking things up and down stairs. It’s going to support all of those other things. So it’s a really helpful thing to do. But it’s not that you need to do it every single day, you know?I will say, though, when I see something like “core workouts are a scam,” I do kind of cringe about that a little bit. Because there are definitely lots of people who don’t enjoy a core workout, and it’s not their thing—no shade at all. But there are also people who really love the 20 minute abs class at their gym. Do they need to be doing that? Is it completely necessary? Maybe not, but if they really like it, and it gets them active, and it gets them feeling good in their body— keep doing it. You don’t have to stop.VirginiaWe’re not here to shame anyone who loves a 20-minute ab class. I am fascinated by you, but I respect that you have that preference.AnnaI just don’t want to make people feel bad about what they’re doing, because the most important thing is to do something right? We want to help people find something that you can do and that you can sustain. So let’s open your mind to other ways of moving that might be supportive in other ways. But let’s also not get disheartened because we’re seeing that this is not “the perfect way”to exercise or whatever.VirginiaTotally. And I’ll also just share, as someone who does identify as hating core work, I have come to appreciate it so much more through your workouts and through talking to you about it, because it’s made me realize how much the “I hate core workouts” came from knowing I’m never going to have the visible six pack. Being able to put that down means now I do notice, ohhh, when I get my core properly engaged, my back hurts so much less. Taking the giant bag of dog food in from the curb feels less painful. I get off the floor a lot more easily after giving my seven-year-old a bath. it’s these small things that are really not that small, actually.AnnaYeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s almost about safety in your body, right? I’m capable of doing these things. I don’t have to feel fear around movement. I’m comfortable moving throughout the day. There’s so much to be said for that. You say they’re they’re small things, but they’re not really small.I really want to encourage people to get to know how their body responds to exercise because of all this noise about aesthetics, we haven’t been trained to notice these more internal or intrinsic kind of things, but if you can tap into functional changes, or just how you feel moving through the day. Are you waking up a little less creaky? Are you able to pick that thing up, or are you able to bend down into the bath more comfortably?VirginiaShampooing a fast-moving seven-year-old is quite the core workout, in fact.AnnaWrestle them into their jackets and all that stuff. This goes back to the central question of why is the myth of visible abs so frustrating? There are so many other things that not just abs, but a functional and strong body, can do for you. To me, those things are better motivators.I exercise also because of back pain. What got me started on exercise, and got me sticking with exercise, was that I was throwing my back out all the time. And I do that a whole lot less if I’m active regularly. And that’s a really good motivator, and it is achievable and it’s noticeable. And I get punished if I’m not doing it, because my back hurts.VirginiaYep. It’s a real one to one connection.AnnaWe have to also talk about people who do need core-specific exercises. It’s a bit more of a rehabilitation focus, but that might include people who are recovering from an injury or surgery. And especially people who are recovering from childbirth, whether that’s a vaginal birth or C-section. A pretty functional body who’s not in that situation, they’ll get really great core work from whatever the else they’re doing, chances are. But in these situations, I do think that isolating your core and targeting your core muscles from a rehabilitative standpoint, is really important. And I think if, like those of us who are who are listening, who’ve had a baby at home, like a brand new baby that they gave birth to, have probably had that experience of like, “Oh my god, where, where are my abs? Where is my core?”VirginiaThey have left the building.AnnaI can’t do anything. They’ve left the building. And it’s temporary. It’s okay. They will be back. You need to heal. You need to recover. But it’s kind of funny, because you’ll get the advice that you shouldn’t lift anything heavier than five or ten pounds or don’t pick up anything heavy. Try not to do anything until you’ve had more time to heal. But like when you have a new baby at home, you’re picking up and putting down a growing babyVirginiaPlus a car seat!Anna75 times a day. I just remember nursing in bed and then trying to get up out of the bed while holding the baby, and you’re basically doing a weighted sit-up. It’s so, so brutal. And it’s not realistic to say you can’t do any of that stuff until you’ve rehabilitated your core. You need to be able to live your life. But I think that working with rehabilitative exercises as you’re working through your day to day life, is going to make it easier. You’re going to get better, you’re going to start to heal, you’re going to regain that strength so much better than if you’re just not doing any of the rehab and only doing this sort of demands of daily life.So I want to say, if you’re in that situation—and I think this is also true if you’ve had some kind of abdominal or pelvic or hip surgery—and you’re recovering and you have to have that rest period, rehabilitative exercises can be really, really supportive.VirginiaWhat I’m thinking as you’re talking too, is how all of these benefits we’re talking about have absolutely nothing to do with weight loss. This isn’t about, are you losing the baby weight? This isn’t about anything to do with that.And yet, again, because of the way diet culture trains us to think about core in the past, if I wasn’t losing weight, I wasn’t aware of these benefits. It was harder to tune into these benefits, or if I did notice these benefits, I credited them with any weight loss that was happening. But whether your weight changes or not from exercise is its own separate thing. We could just put that over here. It might happen, it might not. And the core stuff, you can achieve that whether or not the weight changes. And I just want to name that, because I think that’s another place this gets so, so tangled.AnnaYes, I think that’s so important. There’s a wonderful perinatal coach named Jessie Mundell, who I’m a huge fan of. She takes a super inclusive approach. And she’s in a larger body. I think I texted you when I did her postpartum certification program, and I was like, “Virginia! There are fitness models in this program in larger bodies! It’s so helpful. It’s amazing. It exists.” And she likes to say, and I’m gonna gonna get the exact words wrong, but it’s something like, you can have a round, pudgy, poochy, cellulite, diastasis recti belly and a functional core. The aesthetics do not predict the functionality.VirginiaThat’s so helpful. It’s so important. Especially if you have the diastasis or the poochy belly, you just think, “Well, that’s it. I will never have a strong core.” And that can just be defeating to even starting with this kind of exercise. So, so important to name.AnnaYeah. There are elite athletes who are competing with a three or four finger diastasis.VirginiaThe other piece of this you touched on a little bit is the back pain piece. And I love to talk about back pain because it’s one of my personal hobbies and key personality traits.AnnaI don’t love that for you.VirginiaWell, it’s becoming much less of a hobby, but for a long time it was. And, I just think back pain is so, so common, especially in our demographic. Whether you’re post-kids or just in perimenopause. There’s a lot of back pain in in our world. And it has absolutely blown my mind as I’ve been doing your workouts, and I do Lauren Leavell’s strength training videos, and recently I’ve switched into heavier weights—not barbells, but going from like, 10 pounds to 20 pounds. And… my back is having so many fewer problems.And I don’t get it, Anna. I don’t get it! Because like you were saying, we’re told don’t lift heavy things, be so careful. And for so long, I had this narrative of myself as “oh my back goes out all the time, so I’m kind of fragile,” and need to be really careful.But that turns out to be a lie? So please just explain that.AnnaOkay, I’m gonna go deep here, so stay with me.So some of this is coming from from Anna the trainer, but a lot of this is coming from Anna the journalist and Anna the content strategist, who works at a physical therapy company. I spend a lot of time with physical therapists.And there’s this interesting concept in the physical therapy world called movement optimism, and it gets at what you’re saying, which is maybe moving your body is a better approach for dealing with pain than avoiding movement. Reframing movement as positive and supportive versus the idea like, “this movement is safe and this movement is unsafe” is generally a more helpful approach.I think there’s there can be so much fear around movement for people. And I think a lot of people with chronic pain, recurring injuries, even a history of body trauma, can start to think of themselves as weak and fragile, and think of movement as something they really need to be careful about. And while it may be true that like, okay, a certain type of movement maybe was sort of the catalyst for the pain that you’re experiencing, pain is so much more complex than many of us realize.I’m going to credit two PTs here that I’ve interviewed recently about this, Dylan Peterson in California and Ann Nwabuebo in DC. Those interviews are going to be on my Substack soon, hopefully. Full disclosure, I’m not a DPT. This is like a DPT level conversation, but I’m going to walk through some of what I’ve learned from them.So it’s not just that physical trauma of the injury itself that is contributing to your pain. There’s a huge emotional or psychological element. We know that we hold stress and tension in many parts of our body, like for a lot of us, it’s like our neck, our shoulders, our jaw, pelvic floor, hips.VirginiaMaybe all of the above.AnnaAbsolutely. There’s also a big link between things like anxiety, depression, PTSD and aches and pains and which way it goes could be either way, right?VirginiaOh, interesting. Yeah, makes sense.AnnaThen there are postural issues. So we know that the way that we carry ourselves, or sit or stand or move can contribute to pain. Tension, discomfort in our bodies. Next, there’s inflammation and inflammatory conditions, whether it’s a GI condition or even something like endometriosis or fibroids, those conditions can contribute to or just even be related to greater inflammation throughout the body. Our muscles and soft tissues can respond accordingly.And then finally, there’s this concept called central sensitization, which it basically means our bodies have experienced pain in the past, and so they almost go into overdrive trying to protect us from future damage by sending us these pain signals, even when our body isn’t in any real danger. It’s like our brain is really trying to help us that it’s like going too far and causing pain where we’re not actually like causing tissue damage with that movement.First of all, of course, if our muscles are stronger, more mobile, better able to provide us stability in those places where we’ve had pain before, whether it’s your back, hip and knee, we’ll theoretically be able to move through that area with less discomfort. And that’s where those really targeted exercises like you do in physical therapy can come in. There’s this phrase the PTs I work with use that goes, “motion is lotion.”But then if you think back to all those other factors we just talked about, tension, stress, you know, posture, sensitization, inflammation, we know that movement can be really supportive for all those things. And you know, movement helps with stress and tension. Movement helps with mental health. Movement might help you with the way you’re holding yourself. Movement can help you reduce inflammation.Even that sensitization concept that one is a little bit maybe harder to wrap your head around, if you haven’t thought about it too much. Movement can allow us to sort of gently nudge into that pain and then tell our brain, hey, this movement isn’t dangerous. You can back off with the pain. I’m okay doing this. You don’t have to send those signals quite as as strong as you’ve been sending them.VirginiaOh, that’s fascinating.AnnaYeah. So it’s like exercise, yes, ideally, it’s going to strengthen and improve mobility, which should reduce pain, but it can improve all of these other factors as well.I do want to say something specifically about back pain, though, because back pain is tricky. And I want to go back to that Casey Johnston article that we were talking about. She notes, correctly, that there’s a sort of widespread idea that core work is the answer to back pain. We’ve all heard that if your back hurts, probably your core is weak. It can be true. It isn’t necessarily true. The research is a little surprising, because it seems to find that pretty much all kinds of exercise are helpful for back pain.So core exercises can certainly improve pain and support posture if you have chronic low back pain. So it’s not necessarily that people are wrong by saying you need to do core work, but Casey is right that core work is not the only way. There’s some really interesting research that says core exercises, strength training, and even aerobic exercise, all have similar benefits for back pain. Which tells me it’s basically like, again, movement optimism. It’s better to move your body for back pain than not move your body. And it almost doesn’t matter what you’re doing. And I think it’s sort of like really goes back to pain being multifactorial, and exercise, kind of no matter what you’re doing, can really support all of those factors.VirginiaSo just to drill in a little deeper for folks who struggle with this, if you’re in an acute flare up of back pain, we’re not saying, go lift a 40-pound weight. But the idea that “because I’m someone who gets acute back pain, I shouldn’t do this type of movement,” that’s what we’re trying to kind of push back against.AnnaYes, exactly. In the moment of acute back pain, there are things that you can tap into here, things like trying to stay as relaxed as you can, taking deep breaths, even just telling yourself, I’m okay, it’s okay, I don’t have to be scared. I’ll get through this. Like, those kinds of messages can actually like, be really powerful.But it can be really hard to navigate. Like, okay, I know I should move. What does that actually mean? What can I do? What should I do? I don’t want to overdo it, and I totally understand that. And I think that that is, you know, I’ll say semi-unfortunately, where a PT comes in, because I know PT can be, it can be hard to access.VirginiaBut it’s a game changer when you can find a good PT.AnnaYeah, if you can find a good PT, it is super helpful, and they can help you navigate the do’s and don’ts and again, I don’t really want to like frame movement as safe versus unsafe, but just like, how reduced does your pain need to be for you to start pushing into it a little bit, nudging into that pain? I think there are scales of one to ten that PTs will use. Like, okay, if you’re an eight to ten, like, probably just resting, taking some deep breaths, maybe some very gentle stretches, is the way to go. But then beyond that, they’ll give you some guidance for how much to try and how far to go. But I do think just generally reframing rest may not be best, movement may be supportive. That can be really helpful.VirginiaYeah, it is so helpful. And again, it just feels like one of those things that you’re like, well, I’ve just been told this backwards. I think it comes back to the way we’re taught to equate movement with body size and shape as opposed to function, and how that underserves us.Any other fun fitness trends, myths, or anything else where you’re like, “Could we please be done with this already!” that you want to talk about before we wrap up?AnnaI don’t know if it’s fun. There’s this social media trend that I think of as “the actually trend.” Which is basically experts, whether they’re self-styled experts or legitimate experts, going around and letting you know that “everything you’ve heard about X or Y is wrong. These exercises are garbage. If you’re not doing these exercises, you’re wasting your time. Anyone who says this is wrong.”And I think that this is generally well intentioned. I know where it comes from, because I sometimes get that instinct myself. I see bad information, and I’m like, ooh, I want to correct this. I want to go out there and say, “actually, this is wrong!” But I think what it results in, especially when we’re talking about specific modalities of exercise, is confusion and discouragement for people.Because if somebody is doing an activity that they like or they feel proud about doing, and somebody is like, kind of shitting on it, then it can make them feel really unconfident, less optimistic about movement, less sure of themselves.VirginiaIs it worth doing? Am I wasting my time?AnnaAnd it’s sort of like the abs thing in that, it leaves people kind of vulnerable. Maybe they’re more likely to buy something or hit subscribe, because they’re like oh, I thought this was right, but it’s wrong.VirginiaOh, I think it’s 100 percent diet culture. Even though I see anti-diet creators doing it too, sometimes, I think it’s rooted in is diet culture. The whole business model of diet culture is telling you that you can’t be right about any of this. You don’t know how to eat, you don’t know how to move your body. You need to invest in this other system that’s going to tell you all the rules.So it’s very much that same model of “everything you thought about this was wrong,” and now we’re going to tell you the right way to have a body. And it just undercuts people’s ability to be authorities on their own bodies.AnnaExactly. And that’s what my work comes down to. I want people to have the tools that they need to feel more confident and more capable moving. And I get that instinct too, it’s a very click-y concept. But I don’t want to get followers or subscribers because people are feeling really unsure of themselves or ashamed or confused.I feel like I’m constantly saying: Don’t let what’s optimal get in the way of what’s sustainable. And what I mean by that is, of course, it’s really important to look at research and listen to experts and know what’s effective, what’s most supportive of our well-being. But there’s also a limit to that, because when it comes to exercise, most people aren’t doing it. Most people aren’t doing it at all. And the people who are doing it aren’t doing, technically, “enough” of it. I think there’s a stat that, like, about 75% of adults do not meet physical activity guidelines. Because it’s really hard! No one has time or energy to exercise. For parents or caregivers, exercise requires all these systemic supports that we don’t have in our culture. It’s really hard to take care of yourself.So I want to share messages about helping people get active and stay active, period, in whatever way will allow them to just keep doing it. Yes, there are some things that are going to be more important for heart health and bone density and all those other good things. But the important thing is to move. Moving is better than not moving. If you can do a little bit more movement than you were before, that’s good. Whatever is going to allow you to do it long term is great. So I don’t want to “actually,” people.VirginiaI’ll often get reader questions like, “Do we really need to do whatever many minutes per week of movement?” whatever those gold standards are, and every time I look into it, it’s sort of like, well, sure, there’s some research to support that—but if nobody can achieve this gold standard in their life, then how is is useful? How is that relevant to anybody? We should be focused on making whatever we can make doable for folks.AnnaExactly. I also think that the “actually” thing can can lead to some very confusing trends. And one, one good example of this, I think, is the Kegel backlash.VirginiaPeople started to hate Kegels for some reason!AnnaExactly, and it’s like, why did we swing so far the other way?VirginiaWhy did we get militantly against Kegels?AnnaWe’ve made a lot of leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades in pelvic health, both in terms of the knowledge that we have the practitioners that are available. And the stigma has kind of gone away, you can talk about pelvic health and your symptoms and whatever, which is all great.But it used to be that the main pelvic floor condition anyone knew about was stress incontinence, which came from what weak pelvic floor muscles, and so you would get Kegels like, do your Kegels. That was just like the blanket, if you have a pelvic floor problem, you need to do Kegels. And now we’ve made a lot of progress. We know that some conditions, especially like urinary urgency, pelvic pain, often stem from too much pelvic floor tension, which means Kegels could backfire and worsen those symptoms.VirginiaOkay. So I get some of the resistance to Kegels if they’ve been underserving folks.AnnaAnd it’s very important to get that knowledge out there, because you don’t want to make those symptoms worse. But then you get this telephone effect where, just, Kegels are bad. No one should be doing them. Anyone who mentions Kegels doesn’t know what they’re talking about, which is also not true. Just like other musculoskeletal conditions, it’s multifactorial. The idea that this is good, this is bad. I know what you need, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But when it comes to the pelvic floor, especially like the only person who really knows what your pelvic floor needs is a DPT, like a pelvic floor PT or OT, who has done an assessment on you. The real message should be, pelvic floor symptoms are treatable. You need to see a specialist to deal with them.VirginiaThat’s really helpful. That is so interesting. I think it is just another example of how the diet culture framing and marketing gets mixed in with the message. When content creators are selling a course or selling whatever, it’s just hard to separate that from from they may have some really good information to share, but if they’re leaning into that actually everything you thought was wrong mindset, like, that’s the marketing. That’s probably not entirely true, and that’s helpful for us all to keep in mind.Any other bad fitness trends on your mind?AnnaThere’s something that that I think is really tricky, which is this concept of movement feeling good, this idea that you should find movement that feels great, or that you feel joyful doing. Which I think is a lovely concept, and I think people have really good intentions when they say this kind of thing. I think it’s really helpful to an extent, especially if you’re someone who’s working on building a more positive, less punishing relationship with exercise. Tapping into something that you actually feel good doing and what helps your body feel good can be super helpful.But there are a couple of caveats to this that I think are important. One is that for some people, movement generally does not feel good, whether they have chronic pain, they’ve experienced trauma, they have a disability or some kind of illness, or for many other reasons. Exercise may not ever be something that feels good or joyful for some folks. And so this idea that it needs to feel good canexclude a lot of people. When maybe, if you’re in that boat, you can still get a lot of benefits from finding movement that you can just kind of tolerate consistently.VirginiaYeah, where it’s okay, but not great. There’s something very ableist “movement should be joyful.” And sort of controlling? We don’t all have to like the same things! I’m someone for whom it’s just always more joyful to read a book on the couch.AnnaI do think if you’re in that boat where you have some sort of condition where movement feels very uncomfortable, it can really help to find some guidance. I wish I could give you a really specific resource, but it’s very condition specific, I think. Try to get a little help, whether it’s an online program or a trainer that you can work with, even just for a couple of sessions, just to say, “Everything kind of feels bad. I know I need to move, so what’s the bare minimum that I need to do, or what can I do?”The other big caveat for me as a trainer about “joyful movement,” is that if you’re looking to make gains in terms of muscle mass, bone density, cardiovascular health, it can be very helpful to get comfortable with discomfort. You are going to need to push yourself.I have recently started presenting a monthly strength training workout, and I want people to engage in progressive overload, where each week they add—well maybe not each week, hopefully each week, it depends on the person. But maybe they add a little bit of weight. They’re able to do a little more. The only way you can really do that is if you push. And by the end of your set, your muscles are kind of shaking, and you can barely finish that final couple of reps. That is where you get stronger.How to MoveA starting-point strength training workout (with or without cats!)Welcome back to Workout of the Week! If you’re one of my many subscribers interested in strength training — working through a set of exercises consistently for a multi-week cycle and gradually adding weight, so we can build muscle mass and bone density — I’ve got great news. Thanks to a genius suggestion from my wonderful reader…Listen now10 months ago · 23 likes · 13 comments · Anna MaltbyI talk about this a lot because I’m not a big cardio person, and I really should be. We all should be probably doing cardio, even though it sucks. No shade if you’re a cardio lover. But if you want to improve your resting heart rate, your VO2 Max, those markers of cardiovascular wellness, you also need to do a progressive training approach where you’re pushing yourself to whether it’s run or walk or bike or whatever, a little faster, a little farther. You need to keep loading your cardiovascular system and challenging yourself so that you can see those improvements that you’re looking for.That might not always feel very good, but I do think it goes back to like what we were talking about earlier, noticing what are the other improvements that you feel throughout the day? Maybe your workout feels like, oh my god. That kind of sucked. That was really hard. I was struggling. I was quaking, all that stuff. But maybe later that day, you notice you’ve got a little bit more energy, a little more pep in your step, you’re carrying yourself a little bit differently.Whatever you can do to tap into those benefits of how you feel as a result of the workout, and build that connection. That’s what’s going to help you understand that that sort of momentary discomfort is worth it.So I never want to go into it being like, “I’m going to punish myself. I’m going to work so hard because I have to, because I need to make up for something.” None of that. That’s not what I’m talking about. But, you know, should every workout feel wonderful? I’m not sure. I don’t think so.VirginiaI’m doing your strength training progressive workouts, and there’s something you said in it about, like, maybe as you’re lifting heavier weights, this move that we’re doing for a minute will only be a 45 second move for you, because it’s so hard to finish. That was really helpful to my brain. Because I think those of us with a lot of good girl, perfectionist conditioning, cab sometimes get trapped in, “I can only do the workout if I can do it right.” And so then that keeps me from pushing myself more. Do you know what I’m saying? Because I’m like, I need to be able to execute this flawlessly somehow. And the idea that part of progress is like, it might be harder and a little messy, was really helpful for me to understand that it’s not like a failing if it’s getting harder.AnnaYes, exactly. And I think there’s also, there’s so many levers we can pull to make things a little bit more challenging, whether it’s the position, the weight, the speed, the length of the set, you know, there’s a lot of different ways to make things more challenging.This goes back to Pilates and something I talk about a lot there, which is you don’t have to do the hardest possible version of an exercise to get something out of it. In fact, for most people I would say, definitely myself included, I’m not going to choose the hardest version of every exercise because I’m forcing it, and I’m not necessarily using the muscles that I’m supposed to be using, because I’m compensating. Whether it’s I’m using my neck muscles to lift my head instead of my abdominals or whatever it might be. Maybe some of the progressive overload that you’re doing in a strength training context is I’m starting with a different version of the exercise that allow me to complete the movement, and maybe I work my way up to a slightly different version of the exercise, but there’s going to be a little discomfort there, like you’re not going to get there without experiencing some some positive, productive discomfort.ButterVirginiaAnna, do you have a Butter for us today?AnnaOkay, yes, I have two Butters.VirginiaYay. Love multiple Butters.AnnaI had to look up the name of these things because they’re like just these little adhesive, rubbery dots that you could stick on a cabinet or like a door frame, or even a toilet so things close silently.VirginiaOh, so your children can’t slam the toilet lid up and down all the time. Wow.AnnaOkay, so I think there’s called some places call them cabinet bumpers or door buffer pads or sound dampening door buffers.VirginiaWow.AnnaSo it’s both, like, if your kid goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it’s not going to wake you up because they’re slamming the toilet seat.VirginiaTotally.AnnaSo that’s amazing. But then also I even notice if I’m closing a door or or lifting the toilet lid or whatever during the day and it’s just silent. I think I’m a little bit of a sensitive person to sound and stimulation, so having having those little, tiny experiences throughout the day be very quiet is so calming. It’s very nice.VirginiaThat’s delightful.AnnaI always have to say, I don’t love Amazon. So if you can go to your local hardware store or dollar store, I bet they’ll have them.The other thing that has been really bringing me joy lately is I’m so much more into, like, holiday decor now that I have children than I ever was before. I have a little flock of bats taking off from my from the top of my TV during Halloween season. And they’re so delightful. And I just took them down, and the wall was looking very sad. So I started making paper snowflakes with my daughter. And I hadn’t done that since I was a kid, so had to Google, how do you make a paper snowflake? Like how do you fold the thing and cut it. And I discovered that there are all these little patterns, and I’m not crafty at all, but it will show you. Here’s the little folded triangle, and here’s the little pattern to draw on it, and then you cut it out, that beautiful, amazing shape. So being not crafty at all, I find this so satisfying. So now we have a little growing snowstorm above our TV of DIY snowflakes.VirginiaWe did that one year and put them all over our front window. And I’m like, why did we stop doing that? We should do that again! That was really very cheap and fun, and magical. And like, you can do five, or you can do fifty. You can, like, stop whenever, like, it’s very imperfect craft. You can just kind of do what moves you, which I love.AnnaYeah, like, oh, I have five minutes after I finished cleaning up the kitchen, and I’m just gonna make a snowflake. It’s cute. It’s not like me at all. And, I like that too.VirginiaAll right. It’s interesting you brought up toilets, because I’m gonna bring up toilets as well. I have a very practical Butter that’s really a PSA, which is this: If you are a household that currently has a toilet plunger, you can throw it in the garbage. Because what you really need is a toilet snake.This has changed my life. I’m gonna just put my children on blast, they use an excessive amount of toilet paper. Like truly excessive. We have tried many strategies for not using so much. I’ve used guilt about climate change, like you’re killing the trees. But it is what it is. They are excessive toilet paper users, so clogging toilets is something that happens with some frequency in my house. So then I was like, okay, I’m going to start charging you guys for the plumber visits, because plumbers are not cheap! And I would try plunging, but it wouldn’t work. I finally bought this toilet snake off Amazon, but absolutely get it at your hardware store. And it’s so much more effective than a plunger for breaking up a clogged toilet. Game changer.And it’s weirdly satisfying to use, too, I have to say.AnnaWow, I’m not gonna lie, Virginia, that’s a little gross, but I’m super happy for you.VirginiaI maybe should have included a content warning.AnnaI feel super lucky that I’ve never had to plunge a toilet. Maybe we just have really good toilets?VirginiaI can tell you I do not. The last plumber who came to my house was like, “your toilets are terrible” and wanted to replace all of them. And I was like, I could spend hundreds of dollars, if not more, replacing all my toilets. Or I could buy this $30 toilet snake.It’s this long metal coil thing, and it snakes down into the drain. And it’s actually less gross to use than a plunger, too—I’m sorry we’re really like in it now—but you stand further back, so there’s not the same splashing concerns. You just turn the handle on the snake. You get it all the way down, and you turn the handle, and it just burrows its way through the clog. I don’t know how it does it, but it does it, and it’s less gross to me to use than a toilet plunger, and weirdly satisfying. So that is what I have to say.AnnaA lot of toilet optimization today. Your toilet needs to work for you.VirginiaIt’s something we’re dealing with all the time, especially as parents. Kids and toilets are kind of a nightmare combination sometimes. They’re just not great at it.Alright, that’s probably the grossest Butter I’ve ever given but here we are! It was time. And I felt like you were someone I could do it with. We’re making your toilets silent and unclogged. And really, that’s all I want out of a toilet.AnnaIt’s heaven.VirginiaWell, thank you for indulging that. This was so much fun. Tell folks where they can find you and how we can support your work.AnnaI am on Substack atHow to MoveI also just recently started up a public Instagram for that, which is_howtomove. My my personal Instagram is really only for people I know, so don’t, don’t be offended if I don’t accept your follow request. I’m a little shy about it.VirginiaAnna, thank you so much for being here. This was really delightful.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your December Extra Butter! Today, we’re talking about bellies—and how we’ve been taught to dress them. You need this conversation if you have feelings about:SpanxHorizontal stripesThe Millennial structured camisole era + long, flowy topsAlways tucking in your shirt/never tucking in your shirtAnd so much more.If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

It’s time for your November Indulgence Gospel. Today, we’re doing an old fashioned mailbag episode for you.We are going to chat about grocery shopping.We’re going to talk about what to do if you are “not fat enough” to be in a fat space.We are going to talk about how to get divorced.We’re going to talk about a mom who wants to stop her adult daughter from getting diabetes.And we’re both going to dig into our phones and face up to…just how much time we spend on them and why.To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your November Extra Butter! This month we’re talking about Emily Oster—and her evolving views on kids, weight and health.We recorded this before the election. But as we all continue to grapple with how America slid to the right, the story of a public health advocate and scholar who is now aligned with conservative media feels especially timely. That said, we also want to hold space for how much Emily’s work has meant to so many of us (including Virginia!).If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter.PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!---Episode 168 TranscriptVirginiaEPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Today Virginia is chatting with Mara Gordon, MD.Dr. Gordon is a family physician on the faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as a writer, journalist, and contributor to NPR. Dr. Gordon also writes Chief Complaint, about her efforts to make medicine more fat friendly, and help her patients and herself explore body liberation and radical bodily autonomy.In our conversation today, Dr. Gordon and I get into why the healthcare system is set up the way it is, and what we can do to advocate for more weight-inclusive care—even when we’re not seeing weight-inclusive doctors.She also answers your questions about common weight-linked health conditions like acid reflux, sleep apnea, and prediabetes.To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Farideh.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---You’re listening to Burnt Toast!I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is Mara Gordon, MD.Dr. Gordon is a family physician on the faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as a writer, journalist, and contributor to NPR. Dr. Gordon also writesChief Complaint, about her efforts to make medicine more fat friendly, and help her patients and herself explore body liberation and radical bodily autonomy.In our conversation today, Dr. Gordon and I get into why the healthcare system is set up the way it is, and what we can do to advocate for more weight-inclusive care—even when we’re not seeing weight-inclusive doctors.She also answers your questions about common weight-linked health conditions like acid reflux, sleep apnea, and prediabetes.PS. If you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!Episode 167 TranscriptMaraI am a family doctor in practice in Camden, New Jersey. That means I take care of both adults and kids and I practice what I like to call size inclusive medicine. I’m also a writer—and I’ve written a fair amount about my interest in making healthcare more fat friendly. And I’m an advocate for making healthcare a more size inclusive space.VirginiaYou are also part of a new organization that was just launched, Association for Weight and Size Inclusive Medicine, which, as soon as you told me about it, I was like, thank God, this finally exists. MaraWe are so pumped. This organization is called the Association for Weight and Size Inclusive Medicine or AWSIM (pronounced “awesome!”) for short.VirginiaOh, just got the acronym!MaraYou can find us at weightinclusivemedicine.org. Basically we’re a group of physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who are committed to size inclusive medicine and committed to making healthcare more welcoming place for people who live in bigger bodies. The need for this is just so obvious. Healthcare spaces are ground zero for fatphobia.I think they’re often a lot of people’s origin stories for fat phobia, too, which really disturbs me. Like, “my years of body dysmorphia started with an offhand comment from the pediatrician when I was a kid.” Over and over again, I hear these stories, and it is awful. We need to do better. So AWSIM began as a group of of us who found each other organically online. We’re all over the country, all over the world. Actually, we have some folks in Canada, in South and Central America, but I would say that we’re North America focused for now. We’re trying to build a movement, a professional home for doctors and other healthcare providers who are interested in fighting against fat stigma and making our offices more welcoming spaces.VirginiaThis is so great because one of the questions I’m asked most often is: How do I find a weight inclusive doctor? And there just hasn’t been a place to point people, like an easy answer. And of course, you guys are a new organization. I’m not saying you’re going to solve it for everybody all over the country this minute, but the fact that you are working towards this is really, really thrilling. MaraRight now we’re in our really early stages. I’m actually learning so much from our medical student allies. In particular, Medical Students for Size Inclusivity is a grassroots organization that now has chapters all over the country working to start conversations about size inclusivity at the medical school level.I’m a medical educator. I teach medical students. I love working with them, and MSSI has just done such an amazing job of finding networks, connecting with networks. It’s really community organizing in a digital age, right? They are bringing together a movement of students saying, “Hey professors, you’re doing a terrible job at this. We want better for our education. We want better for our future patients.”We have a lot of MSSI members in AWSIM, which we hope will be their professional home once they become practicing physicians. I gotta give them credit. They’re just leading the way, and I’m learning so much from them. VirginiaThe reader letters that give me the most hope are the ones from medical students. Because I’m just like, okay, if you get it now you’re going to go into healthcare, and there’s going to be more of you guys doing it that way. That’s so encouraging.MaraIt’s awesome. And I think eventually, our goal is to one day have a directory of healthcare providers who identify as size inclusive. We’re a long way off from that. That’s a lot of work. But we hope it’ll be a way to organize and build community. It can feel lonely sometimes, advocating for more fat-friendly health care, just because the dogma is so fatphobic.VirginiaIt’s just so stacked against you.MaraIt is so stacked against us. I think when I started speaking and writing about some of these issues, my fear was always, somebody’s going to call me stupid, right? Like they’re going to say, oh, haven’t you read all of these studies that show the link between BMI and the risk of all these diseases. I think we have a culture of fear and shame around asking new questions in medicine.It’s the fear that you’ll look dumb on rounds, right? Rounds is when all the doctors are standing around, like on House, outside of a patient room, presenting the patient’s case, and everybody chimes in, like, oh, have you heard of this medical study about this? Or, oh, have you thought of this rare disease? In some ways, it’s a great culture, of pushing the team to make sure that we’re doing really, really rigorous science. But there’s also a dark side to it, where we just get really entrenched in dogmatic ways of thinking. There’s always this like, “Oh, you’re dumb. You’re not up to date on the science. You’re not a rigorous scientist,” is always the answer to anything that might question the existing dogma. So it feels great to have a community of support to change that dogma, and trying to question some of the really entrenched ways of thinking in healthcare that are causing a lot of harm to our patients.VirginiaWhat helped you connect these dots? Or what was it for you, that moved you? Because I’m assuming your medical school training was this more traditional, dogmatic model.MaraLike many philosophical shifts, it wasn’t just one moment, right? I definitely trained in an environment that was very much “lose weight, that will solve all your medical problems.” I wish I could say that I have never practiced that way, but I really have. And I think part of my work in exploring some of these issues is acknowledging that I’ve caused a lot of harm in taking that approach over time. I was doing what I was taught to do, which is, “Hey, have you thought about hopping on the treadmill more often, that’ll fix your XYZ problem?” And I started to notice over time that it wasn’t working. I noticed that it wasn’t working at the stated goal of weight loss. It wasn’t seeming to prevent complications. It wasn’t preventing disease. And I could see it really doing harm. I could see people’s faces disengage when I brought up topics of body size or weight. They just wouldn’t come back to see me, right? I could see that I was losing their trust. That was really painful to admit and acknowledge, because that wasn’t why I went to medical school, right? I imagined I’d be a great communicator and my patients would trust me, and we’d have relationships over many years. The fatphobia that I was enacting was not achieving those goals.VirginiaI love though that you noticed that disengagement and thought, Wait, what am I doing that’s contributing to that?” So often what fat folks experience is that if we disengage, the doctor then labels us as noncompliant or hostile. We’re just not trying, we’re not taking it seriously. The fact that you were like, “Oh, wait a second, if the patient is disengaging, how am I losing them?” That’s a really different shift. MaraI didn’t do it alone. I think reading works by fat authors really helped me start to think of these questions in broader ways. Reading the work ofRoxane Gay, and Kiese Laymon, Lindy West—all those books which I read maybe like five, seven years ago started getting me thinking about some of these issues. And I mean, honestly, my own body changing, right? Around pregnancy and childbirth—I have a three year old son—I got fatter. And realizing that the advice I was doling out, I couldn’t take myself. I started to realize maybe the advice is bad. Maybe it’s not me, right? Which is a really profound shift in in thinking that takes time. And it takes thinking about these questions and talking about these questions over and over again.So it’s been a slow, slow process, but it feels really exciting to be part of a community that I hope is really changing things for the better and trying to do good in pretty disastrous healthcare system, in a healthcare system that perpetuates a lot of harm. VirginiaWe can only go up at this point, right?MaraI know. VirginiaSo that’s what you’re not doing anymore in terms of pushing weight loss as a blanket prescription when you’re seeing a patient. What are some other things you do differently now? What does practicing size-inclusive medicine look like?MaraI joke that size-inclusive medicine is basically not yelling at my patients to lose weight. VirginiaI love that. MaraIt’s so basic, and yet, everyone has had an experience with this, right? I always come back to this, too. I have thin friends who tell me, “Oh my gosh, I won’t wear a sweater or boots when I go to the doctor because I don’t want to get weighed and tip over into that 26 BMI and all of a sudden feel that wrath.” Like the reams of paperwork you get that are like, here’s how to lose weight, and your BMI is flashing red in the computer. So at the core, I don’t yell at my patients to lose weight. Reading some of the scientific literature about the inefficacy of diet and exercise for weight loss is what got me interested in this more size inclusive approach. I was like, wow. This thing that I’m doing—counseling my patients to lose weight—isn’t working. That’s really borne out in the literature.Weight counseling intervention in primary care medicine has pretty much zero data to support it. So I was doing this thing that had no evidence base. I would never prescribe a medicine that didn’t work, right? So that’s what got me interested, and I started learning about it. I am a huge fan of exercise. I know that many folks listening to the podcast may find exercise triggering or harmful for whatever reasons, and that’s totally fine. You have no moral obligation to exercise. But I find it really helpful in my own life, and many of my patients find it really helpful in their lives. So what I say now is, “Actually, I don’t care if you lose weight, but I do care that you exercise.” It’s it’s really shifted my focus from a weight goal or a BMI goal, for my patients and for myself, frankly, to what are these healthy behaviors that we can engage in on a regular basis?For most people, that’s regular exercise, sleep, stress reduction. You know, all these things that we think of as really helpful for wellbeing. And now I just don’t care if they make you lose weight, I care that you’re doing them.I think that’s also borne out in the literature. I mean, we really see there is research on this that’s really interesting, which shows that people get cardiovascular benefits and metabolic benefits from regular exercise, even if they don’t lose weight. So I don’t care what the number on the scale is. But let’s talk about these routines you can have in your life, or these medications you can take, frankly, because I do think that access to healthcare. Access to medications is a big part of it for some people.There are these things that you can do on a regular basis to try to achieve whatever feels healthy to you, right? What your definition of of healthy is. VirginiaI would imagine, too, that decoupling exercise from weight loss allows you to talk about exercise in a more nuanced way. Because if we’re assuming the goal of exercise is weight loss, then there’s only one way to exercise, or like a fairly narrow definition. It’s as much cardio as possible, as hard as possible, and always more and more or whatever. This approach would allow you to then talk to people about, what’s doable in your life, and what do you enjoy? If it doesn’t matter whether it makes you lose weight, there are more options on the table, and then there are more ways people move their bodies.MaraI will say, this is something I really struggle with clinically. We have these 20 minute visits. And a lot of my patients are not radicalized towards body acceptance. They are just every day people showing up, making comments on their weight, making comments like, “Oh am I a healthy weight doc? Oh, I gained five pounds, doc.” So it is really challenging. When I say the word exercise, I think a lot of my patients hear weight loss. So part of the work that I’m trying to do is to undo that. VirginiaYeah, that’s tricky.MaraIt’s hard in our tiny little 20 minute visits. But I’m curious to hear from you, though, Virginia. What has helped you start to detangle exercise from weight loss as a goal?VirginiaThat’s a great question. I did have to put exercise down for a few years in order to not do it compulsively. That is part of my history. And running would probably not be prescribed to me, or should not be, given the way I ran in my 20s.MaraRunning is a lot.VirginiaLove it for other people, really not my jam. But anyway, after having kids I developed a lot of back pain. And I realized that strength training is the one thing that really keeps my back on track. I mean, I realized this, to be honest, after quite a few experiences of falling off the strength training wagon, throwing my back out, ending up in physical therapy again. I had to learn that lesson a few times.MaraYeah, totally.VirginiaBut now, it’s oh, if I do this, I can prevent this immediately life-derailing pain problem that I have. It is not fun to throw your back out. MaraYeah, it is not. It is not.VirginiaAnd it has nothing to do with weight. It’s just like, if I don’t do this regularly, I will throw my back out every six months, and I don’t need that in my life. So for me, it was replacing weight with another tangible benefit. I can see that a equals b here. And obviously I hope most people don’t have back problems. But I do think finding some immediate benefit from exercise that you can hold onto really helps. Because a lot of us are just like, “I’m not someone who loves exercise. I don’t get an immediate endorphin high off it.” It doesn’t do for me what it does for some people. I get an endorphin high from, like, reading a book on the couch for four hours, not going for a hike. MaraYeah, totally. And that’s okay! VirginiaI don’t have that internal motivation. So I did need an external motivator, but it needed to be an achievable external motivator, which weight loss never was. MaraYeah, that’s so well said. I think that is what I’m hoping for for my patients. And honestly, I’ve experienced it, too. When I was pregnant, I had terrible insomnia, which, thank God, is something that I don’t experience while not pregnant. And I was really struggling to exercise while I was pregnant, and that was what motivated me. It’s like, oh my gosh, this is going to help me sleep, right? And that was the main thing that got me going again. There are these ways that movement can make you feel healthy that just completely take weight out of the equation. And that’s my goal as a doctor, which is tough, because I think we have such entrenched ideas about exercise and weight loss. And frankly, even when I start to say, like, “exercise can help with diabetes prevention,” you know, the word diabetes is very much associated with being fat. And it’s not entirely! I have a lot of thin patients with very advanced diabetes. It’s really humbling how hard it is to predict who’s going to have severe disease and who doesn’t. But anyway, I think my goal is to disentangle the the practice that can have very real health benefits from some of this stuff we’ve gotten mixed up with weight loss.Ask Dr. Mara!VirginiaWell, since you brought up diabetes, that’s a perfect segue, because we’ve been gathering some “Ask Dr Mara” questions from the community.MaraI can do my best! VirginiaNow to be clear, Mara Gordon is not your doctor. She is not giving you individual medical advice. All the disclaimers. She’s going to talk generally about weight and health that will be useful to a lot of us. But here’s the first question:What’s the deal with prediabetes? Is this a real condition or just a stick to beat fat people with?Which I was like, well said.MaraSo I think my answer to all of these is going to be, we don’t know, right? I did a little bit of homework in preparation to answer this question. Thank you to the listener who asked it! But I’m a little disappointed with the results, because we just don’t know the answer. I looked up prediabetes in Cochrane Review, which is published by Cochrane Database, a nonprofit research organization that summarizes medical evidence. It’s where I turn to when I have a big philosophical clinical question.. And I found what’s called a systematic review about your risk of developing diabetes if you’re diagnosed with “prediabetes.” They found over 100 studies, and they summarized them, and analyzed them together, and the short answer is: We have no clue.VirginiaA hundred studies and we know nothing. MaraPart of what makes it so hard to study is that we don’t have consistent definitions of what it means to have prediabetes, right?VirginiaOh cool. That wouldn’t be useful at all.MaraThe lab I use in my clinic will tell people they have prediabetes constantly. I mean, this happens on a daily basis for me. Our lab uses a cutoff that’s defined by the American Diabetes Association, which is a great organization. They do a lot of amazing research. They also take a lot of money from pharmaceutical companies, and often are criticized for trying to get more people on more medications. But they also do great work. I mean, again, it’s complicated, right? So my lab uses the ADA definition of prediabetes so my patients, when they get a diabetes test done, the lab will tell them, on the patient portal, the app you have from your doctor, it will automatically get sent to them before I’ve even looked at the results. And have a moment to be like, wait, wait, wait, let me explain. And it will just pop up red saying “you have prediabetes.”VirginiaOh God. And everyone panics.MaraTotally, but that definition is from 2001, from the American Diabetes Association. And it’s a hemoglobin A1C level in a certain range. We won’t get too much into the weeds, but basically that’s a measure of your blood sugar over the last three to four months. And it’s a really useful test. I use it daily in my clinical practice. But the ADA, in 2001, was like, okay, we think we’ve agreed the definition of diabetes is this number, a hemoglobin, A1C over this. And we’re going to say that prediabetes is between a different range, right? But the World Health Organization disagrees, and says, hey, actually, the ADA definition is not appropriate. And there are also all these different European and international diabetes organizations, and we can really get into the weeds, and they all debate what prediabetes is, right? It’s crazy. So long story short, going back to the review that I looked at: Even trying to have some cohesion about these different definitions of what it means to have prediabetes is difficult. We don’t have a great sense of who goes on to progress to true diabetes, and who regresses to what we call normal glycemia, like their blood sugar normalizes. It seems like people who use a higher cutoff for prediabetes tend to have a higher risk of developing prediabetes than a lower cutoff. More of those people go back to normal glucose levels. But it’s all a mess. It’s wild. VirginiaRight, because they might have gone back to lower normal glucose levels because they were never really at risk.MaraTotally. There is harm in making the cutoff too low. And this is a really interesting question in medicine in general, which is you know, if you make a threshold for positive tests lower, you catch more people, right? But you also have more false positives. This is something we teach our medical students in first year of medical school, like, thinking about appropriate thresholds for positive versus negative tests. And I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, what I tell my patients, because they come in like, “Oh my God, Dr. Gordon, now I have prediabetes. Like, what does this mean? Am I dying?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” We don’t know really what it means. I usually don’t recommend that we start a medication. Although I have patients who want to, which is maybe a separate issue. I’m like, you know what? Let’s focus on regular exercise. So it’s what I’ve been saying all along. A prediabetes diagnosis doesn’t really change my recommendation in the end. That was a long-winded answer, but it’s a really complicated question it turns out.VirginiaIt’s so complicated! But you know, to distill it down a little bit, I think this listener is right. This label can be weaponized against fat folks. Because they’ll put the prediabetes label on your chart, and then a doctor will use that to be like, “Okay, we need to lose weight.” We need to push this agenda. And a different way of thinking about it is: Here is a data point that we don’t really know what to do with. But let’s go back to talking about healthy lifestyle, and how that will benefit you regardless of whether your weight changes. To reframe the power of that label, I think is really important.MaraYeah, and diabetes is a disease that’s just so highly stigmatized, and it is really common, and yet this shame around body size and diabetes just really, really persists.I mean, I’m just humbled—the further I get in clinical practice, I cannot predict who’s going to have diabetes and who isn’t. I think the most predictive thing is family history. There’s just something genetic going on that’s putting people at risk. And, I mean, the stigma does so much harm, right? People are afraid to seek care. They’re embarrassed to seek care. We know from so much research that the more stigmatized a condition is, the worse people do with it.So prediabetes—I wish it didn’t exist, long story short. It’s not totally clear if it is useful in predicting your risk of future diabetes. A lot of people revert back to so called normal glucose levels, and I don’t really know what to do with it. VirginiaI think that’s an honest and actually really useful answer, just because it takes the fear down a little bit for anyone who gets that diagnosis, having this larger context is is useful. It’s not as black and white as they think. MaraIt is not. Few things are, so few things are in healthcare.VirginiaTwo other conditions that we got questions about are acid reflux and sleep apnea. So I thought we could talk a little bit about each of those.On the acid reflux front, this person wrote, “I was recently told that if I even lost five pounds, my acid reflux would be cured. Is acid reflux actually caused by my excess weight pressing on my esophagus?”MaraI’m so sorry you have acid reflux. It can really suck.VirginiaIt really does. Solidarity. I also have it. MaraI mean, the short answer is, again, it’s complicated. But the longer answer is a good doctor is going to find ways to help treat your conditions that feel concordant with your health goals. So if thinking about weight is an unhealthy practice for you, a good doctor is going to avoid it, right? There are great treatments for heartburn, for acid reflux, that do not involve weight loss. Really handy medications you can buy at WalMart or Costco that really, really help. They’re great. Modern medicine can help get rid of your heartburn.I have some patients who do really want to lose weight, and that is concordant with their health goals. And, of course, it’s informed by culture, right? It’s informed by our fatphobic society. It’s informed by our fatphobic medical culture. But you know, I have patients who say, “Oh, I lost weight and my heartburn got a lot better.” And I have patients who are really, really thin, who have terrible heartburn.So I think the answer is, there’s no one size fits all approach. It’s really about the patient who’s in front of me. It’s hard to answer that question in a blanket statement, but I think it’s really about defining what your health goals are. And if it feels unhealthy to think about weight like it does for many of us—it feels that way for me, then let’s find a different treatment plan. There’s plenty of them, right? VirginiaYes. And this doctor who said, if you even lose five pounds, it will be cured—Like, that’s clearly an overpromise. Like, how could that person be so certain? MaraI mean, there are just so many horrific offhand fatphobic statements that I hear secondhand all the time. I mean, that’s just ridiculous, that’s just wrong.VirginiaI’m assuming it’s a similar conversation with sleep apnea. You have some folks who find a little bit of weight loss benefits. You have other folks who are thin are struggling with it. That seems to be a recurring theme here, right?MaraTotally, right. There are absolutely thin people who get sleep apnea. Kids get sleep apnea! Children should be gaining weight. Their bodies are growing. And we see all the time we have kids who have severe sleep apnea, and the treatment for that is actually getting their tonsils out, right? For adults, again, it really varies. I have patients of all body sizes who have sleep apnea. I think sometimes people tell me, like, “Hey, losing losing some weight has helped my sleep apnea.” And, I have people who can’t lose weight or don’t want to lose weight, and we find other treatments for them. Again, it’s really about defining the patient’s goals and trying to treat each condition objectively, without a focus on weight as my goal, as a size inclusive doctor. VirginiaThat’s a super helpful reframing. Is there literally any health issue for which weight loss is indicated as a necessary treatment? MaraIs there ever a time where I tell a patient that the only thing we can do is weight loss? The answer is no. I mean, that’s just not patient centered care.Unfortunately, a lot of doctors disagree. I hear stories all the time of people who say, “the doctor told me the only treatment for my knee pain was to lose weight, or the only treatment for my heartburn was to lose weight.” Like, you can go buy some Nexium at Costco, right? I do think it gets framed in these sort of hyperbolic terms. So, yeah, I will put my stake down and say, no. There is no condition where the only thing you can do is lose weight. But I do think that there are circumstances where people derive benefit from weight loss. And I think that’s a really subtle point that I sometimes struggle to get across as a size inclusive doctor. It’s not a moral obligation. It’s not a medical necessity, but a lot of my patients want to lose weight, and often people feel like their conditions have improved when they lose weight. But, a lot of people don’t want to lose weight, and we find other ways to treat their conditions.And remember, a lot of people are pretty thin to begin with, and they still have medical problems. So I try to use that thought exercise of, what would I recommend to somebody who had a BMI of 24? That’s a helpful approach for me as a doctor to think, I wouldn’t be recommending weight loss to somebody who had a really low BMI. So how can we think more expansively about other treatments for all patients? But you know, when I first started talking publicly about size inclusive medicine, it was in the context of Ozempic coming on the scene. And I just had patients in droves coming to see me saying, “Hey, you’re a size inclusive doctor. Like, can you give me Ozempic, right?” And I was like, wait, were you listening to what I was saying? VirginiaI don’t think you understood the definition?MaraTotally. And at first, I mean, I sort of experimented with, I don’t know exactly, not quite withholding the medication, but… I quickly found that it was not therapeutic to act as a gatekeeper. I wouldn’t do that for other types of medications. Like, oh, I know better than you what your body needs. I mean, I do in some ways, because I went to school for a long time. But, I don’t, in the sense that you know your body much better than I do. I found that having a really dogmatic “I won’t even engage conversations about weight” approach with my patients, is not therapeutic, in the same way that yelling at them to lose weight is also not therapeutic.VirginiaWell, and it’s not supporting their body autonomy.MaraExactly, right? And that’s the core of everything is bodily autonomy. VirginiaWhen you do have a diagnosis that is associated with being at a higher weight, whether it’s one of the ones we’ve already talked about, or cholesterol, blood pressure, etc, what is the best way to discuss those conditions without a focus on weight loss as a first step?MaraI actually had a patient who came to see me specifically because she had a history of pretty severe eating disorder and she didn’t want to get weighed. We didn’t weigh her, but she wanted to get blood work. And she came back with her cholesterol mildly elevated. And she was really upset when she got those test results, and was like, “Oh my gosh. I’m working so hard to heal from my eating disorder. What does this mean? Does this mean I have to go on a diet?” And it really challenged me to think, like, okay, how can we be holistic about trying to help patients understand what their test results mean, or preventing disease or treating a disease that they’ve already been diagnosed with. And the answer is that there are a lot of treatments other than weight loss, basically. So, there are medications. There is regular movement. You know, diet is complicated, and maybe we can set that aside for a bit, because that’s that’s a really complicated can of worms. But there are ways to minimize your risk of developing disease or treating disease that don’t focus on weight loss. I think if you’re seeing a doctor who isn’t used to thinking about it in a more size, inclusive way, I think just starting with feeling comfortable advocating for yourself and your health goals is always the first advice that I give people. I think most doctors really want to do the right thing. We haven’t always been trained to do it in a way that is concordant with bodily autonomy and size neutral approach. But I think they want to do right by their patients.So I think really clear, direct communication about, “I don’t want to talk about my BMI.” Like, that’s not something that’s on the table for discussion. I think most doctors will greet it, maybe not enthusiastically, but at least will be respectful of a patient’s desire. Clear communication is the first step if it’s important for you to talk about a diagnosis that’s traditionally been associated with a higher weight with your doctor, and the doctor isn’t quite yet on board.VirginiaThat’s really helpful and I think empowering for people to know that, if a doctor has your best interests at heart, they should be open to taking the conversation in that direction. Unfortunately, depending where you live, you can’t just fire a doctor and find a new one the next day. But it’s so easy, as the patient, to feel vulnerable and feel like I have to listen to whatever this person is telling me. So just underscoring for folks that you have the right to say, no, I want to handle this differently, I think is really, really useful. MaraYeah, totally. I guess I’m curious to hear from you, from your readers, Virginia. I’m sure people contact you about this all the time, and what, what do they say? I give this advice, like, you know, speak up for yourself. But I think the power dynamic—I do underestimate it sometimes because it’s my day to day. VirginiaIt’s a real range. I definitely hear from folks, and I have found myself, that when you do advocate for yourself, you can often be pleasantly surprised by the results of a doctor being willing to move the needle, and reframe and meet you where you are. And that’s great. And it’s worth trying. And I think there’s also the reality that it’s easier for me as a well-off white lady with a lot of education to go into a room and say, I want to handle it like this than it is for a person of color. The more barriers that you’re encountering, the more barriers you’re encountering. And so that’s just the tough thing about it. I think for a lot of folks the reality is that they have to play the weight game with the doctor because that’s how they access the care they need for other things. You’re not going to put up a big fight about not getting on the scale because you need to be perceived as compliant during the appointment. There’s just a lot of nuance to this. But I do think that core of like reminding people that they should have this power, even if it’s not always readily available, is still valuable.On Saying No To the ScaleVirginia Sole-Smith·February 22, 2022Read full storyMaraI mean, the onus is on us, right? Meaning me and my doctor friends. I don’t mean to shift the blame to patients, like, “If you just speak up more, it’ll all be fixed.” Because it’s really, really complicated. I mean, that’s part of the advocacy work that I’m doing is trying to change these conversations within healthcare. VirginiaOkay, one last listener question.What is the best resource to point different health professionals to to explain why they shouldn’t need to take my weight. I feel comfortable in explaining why I don’t want to step on the scale, but I’d love to use those few seconds to broaden my potential impact on them. I do want to underscore again that for more marginalized folks, refusing to be weighed often isn’t the mountain to die on. Like you get on the scale, because you don’t want to pick this battle. However, I personally don’t get on scales anymore. If you’re in eating disorder recovery, it’s not necessarily safe for you to be on a scale. And I also think for thin folks going to doctors, this can be a great advocacy opportunity. Use your thin privilege. Don’t get on the scale and tell them why.So I’d love your thoughts on what should this person say? Or what can they point their providers to.MaraI’ll say, like, hard yes to all of this.  I don’t require my patients to get weighed. I don’t know if I ever really thought about requiring it. It’s just such a part of the intake process, right? I mean, it’s just this ritualized gauntlet, right? I mean, nobody likes it. It’s awful. And it harms thin people, too. I just think about my friend talking about not wearing boots to the doctor. I mean, how silly. And just the mental space wasted on that. Working in a big hospital system, it’s hard to change a workflow that’s really, really ingrained. And I actually have done a little bit of reading, I was sort of curious, do we have data to show that it’s actually safe to completely forgo weighing all of our patients? And I don’t think we know the answer. It just it hasn’t really been studied. I think particularly in children, it worries me a little bit, because kids really should be growing. And I think there are some circumstances in adults where it makes me a little nervous, too. Particularly around rapid weight loss. I practice in a low income, in a community of color, most of my patients are publicly insured, and my patients have a lot of stress in their lives, and they’re not like lining up to get their mammograms and their colonoscopies, right? All this is to say that rapid weight loss can be—I don’t want to use the term cancer screening. I mean, that’s not the right way of thinking about it. But my patients aren’t getting all the preventative care they should be getting, so that’s one additional clue if they’re losing weight rapidly that I should be digging into what’s going on with them. So I have mixed feelings about it. I have some patients who don’t want to be weighed because of a history of disordered eating, and I’ve never weighed, and I’m fine with that. But it’s not my practice to just completely forgo weights completely for everybody. I just don’t know if there’s data on whether or not this should be a universal practice where we just give up weighing all adults or not. To the listener, I wonder if some of the eating disorder literature on harms of a public weighing process around people who are in recovery from eating disorders might be compelling or interesting to their doctor. That was sort of my first thought. There are known mental health harms to being weighed, often in public. I mean, just in the middle of the dang office, it’s so ridiculous, and in front of your family members. I mean, it’s just so bad.But my second thought is, I love it when my patients bring me stuff, whether it’s like scientific papers or stuff they’ve read in the news. But I felt like the subtext of that reader’s question was also like, “oh, I think that this is going to, like, convince my doctor to change.” Our visits are just so short. But what’s coming to mind is some of the literature about, like, decision making around vaccines, right? When my patients don’t want to get a vaccine, I used to be like, oh, look at all this data about why you should vaccinate and get the COVID shot and whatever. And I just don’t think people in these tense emotional moments—they don’t respond to data like that. I would hope a doctor has enough training to rise above it, but I think we’re humans too. Doctors are people. And I worry that sort of, oh, look at this thing that you’re doing. Here’s all the data why it’s wrong is not the way that people change their mind about behavior. VirginiaI agree.MaraAnd I think doctors should hold ourselves to a higher standard because of our position of power in in that decision making process in the exam room. But I wonder if maybe a more emotional approach actually is the way to affect change in the same way that when I talk to families about the COVID shot, or their flu shot, I say, “I just took my three year old to get his flu shot last week. I don’t say like, oh well, there’s a 57% blah blah rate.”So anyway, again, not that it’s the listeners responsibility to fix health care, but I’m sort of curious about whether a personal story or a more emotional approach about why they experience harm from being weighed might be an interesting way to explore it. VirginiaAs a journalist, I obviously believe in the power of personal stories to affect change. It’s my whole raison d’etre, so I’m a fan. I do think there is a risk that we often go into healthcare settings already defensive and combative, and that does not serve the goal of affecting change in healthcare. Nor does it generally serve our own health.And again, as you keep saying, it’s not the responsibility of patients to make this change happen. But if you are someone with privilege who feels like, oh, I could work towards getting this healthcare provider to think more expansively about these topics, then probably building a rapport with that person will get you further. It may not happen quickly, but building that rapport will help you over time open up the discussion a little more.MaraTotally, it’s about relationship building and and I mean, doctors are humans. And I get this question a lot, like, why are doctors just so bad at this? I mean, the answer is super complicated. But, I think the answer is that we’re humans and we’re products of a fatphobic culture, right? And as much as we like to think that medicine is objective, it’s obviously not. The questions we ask in medicine, the research we do in medicine, is defined and influenced by culture, and our culture has a lot of work to do. ButterMaraOh my gosh. Virginia, I have been thinking about this all weekend! I am an avid fan of your podcast. I’ve gotten so many good recs from the Butter. And I was like, I need a good Butter. No pressure.VirginiaI know, people come in very stressed out about it, if they listen to the show. But we love a random butter. It doesn’t need to be anything mind blowing.MaraTotally. I guess mine is a little mind blowing. I would like to recommend the book of poetry called What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer. VirginiaSo good. MaraSo I bought this book, I bought the audiobook in 2020 and when it first came out, and it was pandemic times. I would listen to the audiobook while I would go on these long walks with my dog, because there’s nothing else to do. I would just weep in the streets. Like, it’s just so good, and it has resurfaced in my life, because my book club—shout out to the Badass Women Book Club of the Greater Philadelphia Area. VirginiaGreat book club name. MaraThank you. We chose that book and we just met over the weekend to discuss it, and revisiting it was really wonderful. A couple thoughts, just super briefly. Audiobook form for poetry is the best, because I have a lot of baggage about being smart enough to properly read poetry. When you listen to it, you get the emotional valence of it, you know? And right now we’re recording two weeks before the election. VirginiaIt is now, listeners, two days after the election. I hope we are in a better world.MaraI know. Please, Americans of the future, make the right decision. You can do it, guys. I trust you. VirginiaI hope this episode is reaching everyone in a in a happier place.[Post-recording note: Obviously fucking not!!!!!]MaraOh, my God, I know. I feel my heart racing. But anyway, Kate Baer’s poetry is about so much about bodies, and feminism and bodily autonomy, and it just feels very prescient. So, yeah, yes, that’s my Butter. Thank you. What’s yours?VirginiaMine is not as powerful, but still very fun, which is, I am going to recommend watching cat videos with your kids, especially if you have a tween who is hard to communicate with in other ways. The love language of my 11 year old and I right now is dumb Instagram reel is about cats. It is such a mood reset. If things are a little bit stressful, I’ll be like, do you want to see a funny cat? And she’s like, yes. And then we watch a funny cat video, and I will put in the transcript some of our favorites.caMy algorithm is now almost exclusively serving me cat videos, which is a great hack for Instagram, let me tell you.MaraThats one way to avoid all horrible content is just click on the cats.VirginiaNow getting the guy who wears his cat in a Baby Bjorn and the cat’s wearing a funny hat, that’s all I want. That’s all I need to get through—again, listeners of the future, you know what’s happened, but it is a high stress time. I need a steady stream of cat videos.MaraI love it. I love it.VirginiaAnd it just, it makes me reflect a little bit on how sometimes these gold standard health messages about screen time or phones, all these things. It’s often worth thinking like, but how does it serve me? Being able to use technology to create this bond with my kid, to destress a little bit, it’s just great. It’s great. MaraI love that framing, right? You found it to be really positive in your life right now. And that’s fab. VirginiaAnd you know, you don’t have to do cats. I’ve also gotten into funny cow videos, is another genre I’m exploring. Like, a video of a woman giving a cow a shower in her bathroom. I don’t know, it’s delightful.MaraHow’d she get it in there?VirginiaIt’s a small cow, big shower. I don’t know, it brings us a lot of joy. If you’re having a hard week, you probably need to watch a cow take a shower is what I’m telling you. MaraAmazing. I can’t wait. I’m going to go look it up right now.VirginiaWell, Mara, this was fantastic. Thank you again. Tell folks where they can find you and how we can support your work. MaraThank you so much, Virginia. Such a pleasure and I’m such a fan. You can find me on the internet, at MaraGordonMD.com. I’ve pretty recently joined Instagram. It is a kind of cool place. I was resistant for years, but I’m at Mara Gordon MD, and I write a Substack that’s calledChief Complaint. Thank you.VirginiaFantastic. Thanks again for doing this. MaraThanks for everything, Virginia.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

Today Virginia is chatting with Amy Palanjian. You probably already know Amy as Yummy Toddler Food, which is her blog/Instagram/Tiktok. She’s also the bestselling author of Dinnertime SOS, and writes a great bi-weekly newsletter called YTF Community, which comes with super helpful meal plans. Some of you may have listened to our old podcast, Comfort Food, or maybe you’ve just heard Amy on her previous appearances on Burnt Toast (one, two and three). But we realized that Amy hasn’t been on the pod since we both got divorced! Obviously a lot in our lives has changed, but specifically, a lot has changed in terms of how we feed our people and how we feed ourselves.So this is an episode about single mom dinner. I think you’ll enjoy it.To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page. If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content! Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.FAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Farideh.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---This transcript contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 166 TranscriptVirginiaAmy, you are here!AmyIt seems like it’s been a long time. We’ve lived a lot of life.VirginiaWere we both married when you were on the podcast last? No, because it was when your book came out.AmyBut nobody knew I wasn’t married anymore.  VirginiaOh, you were secret not married.AmyI was going through the process of divorce, and had not yet made it public. VirginiaI think I was out? But you were not. You were still in the divorce closet.Well, we have lived a life. And you are back on the podcast! Do you want to tell folks who you are, in addition to being divorced, and what you do?AmyYes. You guys will quickly learn that Virginia and I have a lot of shorthand, because she’s my best friend. I’m Amy from Yummy Toddler Food. So that is my website, social accounts. I’m also the author of Dinnertime SOS, which is the book we were talking about that came out last year. VirginiaIf you’re not already following Amy, all I can say is you’re not a Millennial Mom because literally all of us follow her. So we’ve been talking about doing this episode for a very long time, ever since we both started eating as single people again. We were like, oh, it’s really different. There’s a lot to say. We have a lot I want to talk about. Before we dive in, I do want us to quickly talk about the phrase “single mom.”Whenever I use it, inevitably someone will —maybe rightfully?— say to me, “I’m not sure you’re allowed to use the phrase single mom.” Because a true “single mom” is someone who has no co-parent whatsoever, no support, and is doing 100 percent of all of the things by themselves.So I’m curious how you feel about that term.AmyI guess when I think of it culturally, I do think that the word is more often used for moms who have full custody of their kids all the time, and they’re legitimately doing it on their own all the time. But I do use it to refer to myself, because I am single and I am a mom, regardless of whether I have custody of my kids. And there is the reality that even when my kids are not physically in my house, or under my supervision, I am still their mom and still often doing mom things. So it feels unnecessarily divisive to have that be so rigid. VirginiaSomeone said to me, “you should say solo parenting.” AmyBut isn’t that when you’re married and your partner leaves for a bit?VirginiaYeah. I don’t want to say solo parenting, because that’s what my married friends say, “oh, I’m solo parenting this weekend,” and that is a totally different situation. You’re solo parenting for two days. You are not in our club.I do have a super-involved co-parent and I’m grateful for that. But still, when I am making dinner for my children in my house, it is just me. So I use it somewhat selectively. I’m fortunate that there is a co-parent, and there are aspects of parenting I do still collaborate on. And there are a lot of pieces of the work of taking care of my kids that I now do 100 percent alone. When I have them, it’s 100 percnt me.So I just wanted us to acknowledge that there are definitely different layers of divorce privilege and single mom privilege. And I want us to acknowledge our privilege as we launch into this conversation. But for the purposes of this episode, we’re going to be talking about feeding our kids by ourselves, and feeding ourselves as single people. And that feels like an allowable use of “single mom” in my book. AmyI also want to say, parenting is hard regardless. And there is this thing that happens where it becomes so quickly a competition of, like, who has it harder? And I really just don’t want that. So I just want to acknowledge it’s hard. VirginiaSomebody who pushed back on me recently, said, “I’m a step-mom and my husband is really involved in the kids, and if his ex was identifying as a single mom, it would be sort of erasing his contributions.” So I hear that, and I don’t want to minimize anyone who’s parenting kids in any capacity, you know? Good job. Way to show up. AmyBut her experience might be different from his. That’s her story.VirginiaI’m curious what listeners will say. I’m sure we’ll get a lot of comments about this piece. Just wanted to put it out there that we are aware this is a loaded term.And I think we both feel we have some claim to this loaded term, and now we are going to proceed with talking about single mom dinners. So there are now two kinds of dinners in our lives. There are the dinners where we are feeding our children and we are the single adults in the house making that happen. And then there are the dinners where we feed only ourselves. Let’s talk about the kids part first. How does that feel different for you now?AmyWell, I think the expectations are simply lower. I didn’t quite realize how much the expectations of what another adult thought dinner should be impacted my mental load. And, you know, I wrote a book about dinner. I thought about dinner a whole lot. VirginiaYou are, I would say, one of our nation’s foremost dinner experts.AmyOnce it was just me making those decisions and taking into account the premises of my kids and myself—it’s easier, I’ll say that. It’s just less complicated.One big difference is I don’t cook meat very often. That was something that was an expectation before as part of “a real dinner.” And so now it’s just looser. I often serve my kids more informal meals. Like last night, I had to make something for work, and so I had the leftovers and it was a form of pizza. And my kids—like this literally is the first time this has happened. They gave me a round of applause. They were like, “round of applause for Mama!” And I was like, what is happening? VirginiaYou won, you won dinner.AmyBecause they just were so delighted. Of course, it ended with, like—I don’t remember what it was. But then I texted you, like, “I will not ramble tomorrow about how much my kids complain about dinner.” VirginiaSo there was a pivot. There was applause and then there was the pivot. The hard pivot into “actually we hate this and everything you stand for.” That makes sense. That sounds familiar.AmyYes. I have put a lot less pressure on dinner, and we eat a lot of the same things. And I think it’s partly because my kids are here every other week. So there’s something to the comfort of having familiar meals and foods. VirginiaYeah, totally. AmyAnd they expect certain things when they’re with me now. And I like that because it’s just easier. So I’m pretty much buying the same groceries and I’m pretty much making the same set of meals with small changes, and I really do not have any concerns about that whatsoever. VirginiaIt has been set in stone almost since the beginning, that the first night they come back from their dad’s, we’re going to have pesto pasta and brownies. That is the meal they want to come back to me for. Which, like, he makes those things, too? But I do think my pesto is really good. And I think that’s a useful touch point for them. Of like, “Okay, we’re back in this house now.” We’re back in this routine, and there’s something expected about the routine here.And, I admit I am sick of eating pesto pasta every Tuesday. I’m over it. But I am continuing to make it because I see how important that is for them. AmyI also will say, I buy a lot more like frozen chicken tenders than ever before in my life, and I eat them when I’m by myself also. VirginiaYou had that great dinner last week. You were like, I’ve never been so proud of a meal I made for myself. And it was chicken tenders and pasta with Rao’s marinara sauce, I think? AmyIt was like a deconstructed chicken parm. It was amazing. VirginiaWell, I made it the next night for me and the kids and it was great because one of my kids doesn’t like pasta with red sauce, but loves chicken tenders, and the other one only eats the pasta, and then I ate everything. I was like, “This is a meal I have been missing from my rotation.”A big shift for me that I think I’m really coming to terms with is, how much work I had put into cooking as a married mother. And people know my backstory, feeding my kid was really hard for the first few years due to medical challenges. So I come into this with a certain amount of baggage. It’s gotten, of course, tremendously easier, but it is still so much freaking work. And, yeah, being able to feel less pressure around how dinner has to look, like dinner capital D dinner. So last night, I ordered sushi for myself. One kid ate leftover pasta, one kid ate microwaved pancakes, and that was dinner. And I threw some fruit on the table. I don’t remember if anyone ate it. I’ve hosted many a 20-person Christmas dinner. I bake really good chocolate chip cookies from scratch. I was the primary cook in my marriage, and I am now the only cook in my house.But what I’ve slowly realized over the past year is that… I don’t like to cook. At least not right now. And it’s feeling entirely possible that I won’t ever like it again?Read full storyAmyI think that what has happened is: All the things that we always said that we believed about dinner are now actually the way that we’re living. VirginiaInteresting.AmyWe weren’t quite fully able to do it before. VirginiaWe weren’t giving ourselves permission before. AmyPart of the reason I was so happy with myself when I made that dinner was because I rarely cook dinner for myself. VirginiaOh yeah, same.AmyI’m able to give myself permission to not work all the time in a way that I haven’t been able to do that before. So I’m happy about that, because, frankly, it’s too much work to cook all day and then have to keep cooking. VirginiaI don’t know how you do it. But, I think you’re right. We were always talking about “it’s okay to make it less work. It’s okay to take shortcuts,” but not always giving ourselves permission. I was very attached to the idea of one family, one meal. Don’t be a short order cook. I thought it represented some kind of failure if I was making something on the side for a kid who didn’t want to eat the main meal. I was definitely dying on that mountain for a long time. But something about removing a person from the table makes it less work for me. I can’t quite understand the math, but it doesn’t feel as hard to be like, “oh, I can just make three quick things that isn’t really cooking” and everyone gets what they want. Versus “Let me try to make one full meal, somehow needing it all to slot together like a jigsaw puzzle.” Why was I putting that pressure on myself? AmyI mean, I still consider myself to be making one meal, but I think I just care a lot less about the components. VirginiaThey don’t have to go together so well.AmyOne of the meals I make almost every week that the kids are with me, is—I mean, this is going to sound so simple. It’s some form of breaded chicken in the air fryer, broccoli, and potatoes. There is nothing special or fancy about any of that, except for the fact that it is a reliable combination of foods that everyone will eat at least two of them. I don’t know that I would have necessarily considered that “dinner enough,” do you know what I mean? VirginiaIt sounds like a very full dinner? Again, my children ate leftover pasta and microwave pancakes while I ordered sushi last night. You had three things that go together! It’s not contradictory to serve potatoes and chicken and broccoli. AmyI’m not saying that it is. I am saying that it is three incredibly simple things. VirginiaYou would have felt like you had to dress it up more before?AmyRight. Like, there’s no recipe involved. You’re not going to find that listed anywhere as a dinner idea on the Internet. VirginiaI mean, I’m writing it down.AmyGuys, it’s a really good dinner idea. Chicken, broccoli, and potatoes. VirginiaWait, how do you do the potatoes? AmyI buy baby potatoes, and then I quarter them and just boil them until they’re soft, and then I toss them with butter and salt. That’s it. VirginiaOkay, yeah, I could probably do that. But yes, it is a very different vibe now. I’ve talked about this on the newsletter, we read books with dinner most nights now. Or one of my kids might listen to an audio book. I’m less focused on, like, dinner has to be this moment where we come together and have a conversation everyone all together.Because one thing I find with my version of single parenting is like, in some ways, there’s more time for me with the kids. I’m going to have those conversations with them, but they happen at different points in our day now. I’m doing both all of dinner and all of bedtime, right? AmyDinner doesn’t have to serve all of the purposes. VirginiaI’m not tag teaming with another person anymore throughout the afternoon and evening. So on the days when we don’t have a lot of activities, my kids are home from 3pm until I can put them in their beds. That’s a lot of time! And sometimes by 6pm, I’m kind of like, “Let’s just all read our books. We don’t need to talk. It’s fine.”So that’s another change where this feels less like it needs to be this big “come together” moment for the family.And I think, too, some of that is just wanting less work for me. Like, sometimes if my kids are in a real arguing phase, I know they’re going to both be happier if they get more one-on-one time with me, versus me forcing “We all like each other right now, it’s going great!!”AmyOne of the things that we do now that we didn’t do before, is we listen to a lot more music. I bought a speaker for the kitchen. Yes, there are some arguments about what we listen to, because it tends to be the same thing for like, six weeks, and then one kid decides they hate that music.ShareVirginiaObviously. AmyBut it changes. When my kids get into those phases where they’re just arguing with each other, I put music on, and it just helps. But the difference is that I can play whatever I want, and I have convinced my children to like the music that I like. VirginiaI mean you’re an evil genius.AmyIt is the best. This is my parenting super power somehow.VirginiaAs you know, I have one child who will like everything I like, and one child who will never like everything I like. I will not name them, but one child joins me in my Chappell Roan love, and the other child is way too cool. And I’m just like, “You’re wrong. I’m sorry. You’re wrong. Talk to your peers. Get back to me.”Should we talk about single lady life and single lady dinner? AmySingle lady meals. We’re not going to call it Girl Dinner!VirginiaWe’re definitely not. So you do cook for yourself more. Less than you previously cooked, but more than I do. AmySo I think I want to acknowledge that I still very often, have very little appetite, and that is a fact of my life that I have just accepted is partly due to stress. VirginiaI don’t know how much of that story you want to share? AmyWhen I was going through my divorce, I basically fully lost my appetite. Like, nothing seemed appealing. I didn’t physically feel hungry. And so I was just had to make myself eat, because that’s what you do. You want to make sure that you’re nourishing yourself. And it was awful. It’s a pretty terrible thing to have to put food in your mouth that you both don’t want and don’t feel hungry for, but just knowing that you have to.It definitely got better once I was living in my house by myself or with my kids, and, you know, I’d say I’m like, 75 percent there with it. But when life is chaos, or the kids are yelling, or if we’re having a meal and one of my kids loses their mind, my appetite is like, “I’m out.” Like, I am just done.And even when I’m by myself, it depends on what else is going on, but it does still sort of happen. So when I’m looking at meals for myself, they have to have a lot of flavor, or a lot of texture contrast or some other element to make it more appealing. And I feel a lot of empathy for my toddler community, because I feel like that often is what they’re looking for in addition to flavor, like, how else is this interesting to me? So it’s been a learning process, but that is why I think that the jarred marinara, which is very flavorful, paired with crunchy, crispy chicken tenders with melted cheese. I think there’s something about that texture contrast that’s hits everywhere. VirginiaYeah, it checks all the boxes. AmySo I sometimes cook for myself. I sometimes make salads with chicken. But I feel like I’ve landed on a couple things that I know I really like and that I can make easily when the kids aren’t here. VirginiaI’m still working on that list a little bit. I didn’t experience the appetite loss. I think, if anything, when my children are having a hard time during dinner, I’m inclined to be like, “You can leave and I will stay here and finish eating.” I don’t send them away, but I’m like, if you don’t want to be at the table, in fact, I’m going to sit here and eat my dinner. I have a strong self-preservation streak when it comes to me and eating.But I do feel just really aware that the amount of work I have put into feeding other people over the last many years of my life is work that I need a break from. And that applies to feeding myself as well.And I think I’m still savoring the ability to have downtime when the kids aren’t with me, in a way that’s harder to recreate when they are here. Not that I don’t relax with my children, but it’s just a different energy. AmyI buy more shortcut ingredients for myself than I ever have. Even more than I do I think, for the kids. Like, I buy frozen rice from Wegman’s, because there’s a particular type that they have that is—like, rice is not hard to cook, but it is one of those things that when you are like this would be really nice to have rice with it. Do you want to go spend 30 minutes?VirginiaAnd get the other pot dirty?AmySo it’s like three minutes. It’s really good. So I always have that in my freezer. And then almost every week that I’m on my own, I buy pre-cooked chicken.VirginiaLike, a rotisserie chicken or?AmyI am an exclusive Wegman’s shopper. They have this Peruvian chicken that is very flavorful, and it is versatile enough with the spices that are on it that it can pretty much go with anything. So I either usually get that or a lemon garlic chicken. It’s like a grilled chicken breast, but it’s very tender. It’s not dry at all. And so having something like that in the fridge has been very, very helpful, just as a component. VirginiaI would order less takeout if I lived near a Wegman’s, is what I’m learning. Because my solution tends to be what I call the Lorelai Gilmore School of meal planning, where you over-order on your takeout, so that you can get multiple meals out of it. AmyLeftovers.VirginiaIf we order from the good taco place—whenever Amy visits, we have to order from the good taco place. Last weekend I ordered that for dinner with my sister. And I ordered two of your favorite salad and kept one in the fridge so I’d have it for lunch. AmyOh smart! If I lived near that taco place—it’s called Hudson Taco. They make this salad that just is the most delicious. I’m never going to try to recreate it, because it’s just, it’s so good. VirginiaI don’t know what the dressing is, but it’s so good. And then I make it into a lunch. I added some more cheese, and chopped up some turkey. And I had the tortilla chips and the guac and the salsa left over and that was a great lunch.So I’m very strategic with my takeout ordering. It’s not a budget-friendly way to feed yourself, but it works. Like, I never have my kids on Mondays. So I always order takeout on Monday nights, because that’s my long work day. And I just recognize I need to be able to work and not be like, “I have to stop and cook dinner.” That is something I need in my week, is to have a day like that. But otherwise, I do a lot of Rao’s sauce and pasta, Maybe scrambled eggs. What else do I make for myself? The other thing is: When I don’t have my kids is when I make my social plans. So I tend to eat dinner out because I’m meeting friends at least one or two of the nights, and that’s same thing. Be strategic with your order and get leftovers. Bring them home, repurpose. This is a whole way of life. AmyYeah, I do often make myself salmon bites in the air fryer, which is a recipe that’s on my website. But the beauty of that recipe is it tastes as good cold as it does warm. So I make it and then I eat some of it warm for dinner with rice, and then have it cold either with a salad or in a wrap or some other way. Or just eat it. And that’s not like meal prepping. That’s just actually liking leftovers, which is not something that I always like.VirginiaYeah, you’re not a leftover fan like me.Okay, real talk. Do I need an air fryer? Is this what’s missing from my life? AmyMy oven takes a very long time to heat up. And I absolutely would not turn on the oven to cook myself a piece of salmon. I mean, you can do it on the in a pan. But frozen chicken, breaded chicken—my experience of it is that it’s better and it’s so fast.So I’m not going to say yes. I mean, you have a convection oven, right? VirginiaI do have a convection oven.AmyTechnically that is the same thing. It just takes longer. VirginiaYeah, it does take longer. I don’t ever use the oven when the children are not here. I can’t remember when I used the oven to cook only myself a meal. Why is that? That’s weird. I don’t know why that is.AmyI mean, that actually might be the same for me.VirginiaBut you’re using an air fryer and I’m ordering takeout. This is the difference between us. That’s Amy’s and Virginia’s personalities in a nutshell. Amy’s like, “I found this easy hack with the air fryer.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what that means. I’ll just get Uber Eats again.”I want to hear what listeners think about air fryers. I feel like I’m going to get a lot of a lot of fervent opinions pro-air fryer, and I’m here for it. I do want to know, if you keep it on your counter, does it drive you nuts as more counter clutter? Because I do have limited bandwidth for that.AmyI do have a lot of storage space, so it’s not on my counter. VirginiaWait, where do you keep it? AmyIt’s in a cabinet. VirginiaThen do you have to pull it out every time you use it? AmyYeah, but it’s not that big. It’s like, this big? It’s like, the size of my head. I don’t know. I was trying to show you with my hands.VirginiaNo, let’s go with the size of your head.AmyI just pull it out and put it on the counter right above it. VirginiaSo it’s not like, the size of a microwave. I think I thought they were the size of a microwave.AmyIt’s like half the size of a microwave.VirginiaLike…a toaster? That feels like a more standard unit of kitchen measurement than your head?AmyYes, but it’s not a huge deal. The only part you have to wash is the bottom part. VirginiaIt’s not as much time as using the blender. AmyI feel a lot of responsibility if you get one and you hate it. VirginiaI know. I will blame you. It’s your fault.I mean,Julia Turshenis pro-air fryer, too. A lot of you are warming me to a concept, but I need to spend some time with my kitchen to figure out where it would live. If I had better seltzer storage, I could make some counter space. We don’t need to get into redesigning my kitchen right now. AmyThis is a very fancy problem.VirginiaI just need a kitchen renovation, and then I can buy an air fryer. Great. Problem solved.What else do we want to say about feeding ourselves? I will say one thing I love about eating alone is, as mentioned, I read with my children too, but I get more interruptions. Like, being able to read, being able to eat in front of the TV. AmyOh, eating in front of the TV is the world’s greatest when you’re not worrying about someone else spilling anything.VirginiaExactly, exactly. This is, again, not like I won’t let my children eat in front of the TV, but I’m arming them with trays and napkins and like, okay, you can have that here, but that you have to go eat at the counter because I don’t trust you to drink a smoothie on this couch. But just being able to be like, I’m going to curl up with my bowl of Indian takeout and watch whatever. Bliss, absolute bliss. AmyYeah, that is nice. I have to say, I do that more in the colder months. I haven’t done it a lot because I do eat outside. Well, we’re like, at the end of the season, but I did eat outside a lot this summer, which was very nice. VirginiaYeah. I feel like summer, it’s sit outside with a book, don’t get interrupted. Winter, it’s curl up in front of the TV. Don’t get interrupted either way. It’s pretty great.One thing I struggle with a little, and this is kind of like the whole discussion about girl dinner, is on the one hand, it’s great. We can lower standards and just make what we really want to eat and not feel like we have to perform capital D dinner. And on the other hand, sometimes I’m like, “Is it that I think I’m not worth making a fancy meal for?”AmyI have this thought a lot, because every time I want to show someone the meal I made for myself, I’m like, “There are single people everywhere eating something for dinner.” Surely a lot of them cook. This is like, not, not a novel thing. VirginiaNo, it is not. Single people should all feed ourselves. We all deserve to eat. AmyI think for me, the nature of the content that I produce for work is kid-centric, and when I’m planning meals to have with my kids, I do take my preferences into consideration, but I am taking a lot of other preferences into consideration. VirginiaYou’re trying to balance all the needs.AmyI think it’s partly that it’s just novel to have the experience of being able to make all the decisions and then get to decide how much energy.But I’m super aware of, like, when I see another single person what they made for dinner, I’m like, oh, that’s just their normal life. They’re not judging themselves one way or another. I think it’s just a difference in circumstance that maybe we’re still getting used to. VirginiaYes, but we are new at this. Well, we’re both over a year out, but it’s relatively new.And this is also where the single mom thing comes back in. If you go from the hot and cold of “I’m intensively feeding other people every meal they eat. They’re dependent on me for everything,” to “I only have to worry about myself,” versus someone who’s single all the time. Like a child-free single person has a different set of calculations, I would imagine. I don’t know.  I will say, in addition to spending too much money on takeout—I like that all my solutions are expensive. I’m also renovating my kitchen, you’ll notice— I do enjoy buying myself like one fancier thing that I wouldn’t buy to feed the kids.Like often it’s that Meredith Dairy sheep and goat cheese, which is a very versatile staple for feeding yourself. Because you can put it on everything. You can put it in pasta. You can put it on a salad. I will often buy a jar of that at the beginning of my long weekend, right? And that will factor into a lot of meals. And that feels like a real gift to myself to buy a nice a nicer ingredient, like the fancier pasta, maybe. AmyYeah, I do sometimes buy the fancier pasta. There’s a local farm that has a bunch of local food products and there’s this one bread that is very expensive, but it is full of seeds and it is sourdough. I don’t even know. It’s really, really good. They also have a cheese that I really like. So I will sometimes on Friday, drive out there and get myself some things. They also have croissants, and so I’ll sort of get an assortment of basically bread and cheese to have. But that has nothing to do with the kids, because they won’t eat any of that. I mean, they would eat the croissants, but they won’t eat any of the other things. So I think it’s also just having the space to be able to make decisions like that.I mean, I would hope that anyone in a marriage who wanted to go buy themselves nice bread and cheese would be able to do that. I am just aware that we have more time to be able to do that more easily.VirginiaYeah, and you’re only buying it for one person. The math is just somehow different. I mean, married people, you should eat well, too.AmyI think that the struggle of feeding yourself is true for many moms, regardless of the situation, because there are just so many external influences. I think the thing that we have gotten to experience is just what happens when you have a little bit more space. VirginiaThe space is nice. The space is really helpful. What’s the best thing you’ve made to eat with your kids recently? And what’s the best thing you’ve made to eat by yourself? AmyI mean, I really like the salmon bites that I was talking about. So it’s salmon bites, which have spices on them, with rice and a cucumber sauce, which is basically like Tzatziki. It’s very good, very simple. That’s maybe my favorite thing to eat by myself right now. VirginiaI definitely want to try that. Even if I don’t have an air fryer. AmyFavorite things with the kids—I mean, we all really like chicken noodle soup with really sturdy egg noodles that make a giant mess. My daughter—it’s in my cookbook and there’s a picture of her slurping noodles. So she refers to that soup as the one that gets all over my chin, because that’s the way that she eats it. So we have that quite a bit, and I make it with rotisserie chicken. It’s super easy, but I think that would be my pick. VirginiaThat’s really good. I don’t have a pick because, as discussed, I don’t like cooking right now, but I will say, because I do order more takeout, I’ve had the recent breakthrough that one child now likes Indian food and the other child doesn’t. But our Indian restaurant does do chicken nuggets, so now there’s one takeout meal I can order to feed us all. And I don’t know, that feels pretty delightful? You and I have talked about how we both have our kids for pretty long stretches, and when you’re at the 80 percent mark of your stretch, is often when bandwidth is low. And so I’ve been saving that Indian food dinner for the Wednesday night before they go back to their dad’s.Because normally our routine is they get their weeknight screen time while I’m making dinner, which is something I started when they were toddlers. And I couldn’t figure out how you cook with toddlers, and I’m not Amy. And so that was when they got to watch shows. So that’s still when they get their screen time. And I realized, if I order take out and I don’t have to spend that hour cooking, then I get to read a book or something. And that is pretty great for managing the single parenting bandwidth. AmyYeah, that sounds nice. VirginiaYeah, follow me for more pro tips on how to feed your kids! Don’t actually. Follow Amy for those tips.Well, this has been super helpful and interesting and maybe I’m renovating my kitchen now. So, good talk. Thank you. AmyI bet I could come over and just find you a spot. VirginiaIt’s possible I don’t need new countertops to do this. But do I need new countertops? I mean, just a thought, just a thought.AmyI don’t know, I think you’re okay.VirginiaNo countertops. Don’t worry everyone, I’m not renovating my kitchen that I don’t even want to cook in.AmyI feel like we’ve learned like everything we needed to know about Virginia’s relationship to cooking. VirginiaI think it’s going to come back. I used to enjoy cooking more recreationally, and I think it’s going to come back, but it’s not back right now. And I think I just need to be okay with that.AmyThat’s fair!ButterVirginiaAll right. Should we do butter? AmyOkay, so my reading is primarily spicy romance novels, which is a genre that I adore. VirginiaIt’s the best genre. AmyBut I actually am going to give a book recommendation that’s not that. It’s one of the few non-romance books I’ve read lately. It’s called The Pivot Year, and it is a little self help-y, but I love it so much because there are 365pages, and every one has a paragraph. And it’s basically like, I don’t even know how to describe it without it sounding like terrible, but it’s motivational, just reminding you that you’re enough, essentially, is like the through line, which has been very helpful to me in the past year. I don’t read one a day. I just read a couple before I go to bed, and I feel like it orients my brain in a really nice way. VirginiaI mean, you’ve been in a pivot year. I like the phrase “pivot year,” too. We have been pivoting. AmyHold on. I’m going to grab the author’s name—VirginiaIt’s Brianna Wiest.AmyThere’s a lot of it that’s about relationships and thinking about the people in your life and just being present in all of those things—her words sound better than mine. But I do really like it, and I actually might even give it to my oldest kid, because there’s a lot about just remembering that you’re great the way that you are that I think would be kind of amazing to hear as a tween. And she usually likes my recommendations.VirginiaYou can get away with that. We have different tweens. Anyway.I love that. It sounds like if Glennon Doyle took all her best lines and made them into a short book?AmyAlthough this author seems a little more even-keeled. Not to say anything bad about dear Glennon.VirginiaWe’ll both come on your podcast, Glennon! But also, sometimes we worry about you.That’s a really good rec. All right, I’m going to recommend the book I am actually I’m in the final 10 pages of, but I feel pretty confident it’s gonna stick the landing. It’s called Colored Television by Danzy Senna, who is a new author to me, but not a new author. This is her third book. I’m excited to go read the others.She is a mixed race woman. And it is a book about a sort of floundering novelist who is mixed race and who writes a lot about the challenges of being mixed race. And they’re living in LA and their family is super strapped financially, because both the parents are artists, and obviously that doesn’t pay well. So she’s then trying to break into TV writing. So it’s about the world of TV writing. It’s about marriage. It’s about a lot of things, I really loved it. We’re reading it for book club, and I already heard that some people didn’t like it, so I’m curious to see what the notes are. But it’s a really fast read. I realized I needed to take a little bit of a spicy romance break, because I put down two recently—and I don’t want to say which ones they were, because I’m not dissing the books. But I think it’s feeling a little too familiar, you know? I needed a genre break.At first, I was like, “Oh, I’m going to try to read a more literary book. Can my brain do that?” But this one pulled me, and it’s really propulsive and interesting, and she does make some smart observations, relevant to our conversation about acknowledging divorce privilege. There’s a moment where she’s considering divorce and what that would look like for them financially. And she’s like, all the wealthy white ladies in LA love divorce because they get to do the self care time and all this. And I was like, okay, okay, I hear you. I take that note. But, yeah, but it’s great.So Colored Television by Danzy Senna.AmyI’m going to look that up. VirginiaYeah, I think you’d really like it.Awesome. This was really cool. Come back on the podcast soon, and we will talk about more things related to food or otherwise.AmyWe will make sure to not wait for a major life event next time.VirginiaLet’s not do it for our next divorce. Let’s do it sooner.AmyI’m a one divorce woman, Virginia.VirginiaSame. Am also one marriage woman!AmyYeah, exactly.VirginiaTo be clear, we’ve done it. We’ve been there, done that. Even though it would be so good for newsletter growth if I could just keep getting divorced and writing about it.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

It’s time for your October Indulgence Gospel. And today… we’re going to look back at all of our Butters!If you’re new here, Butter is the recommendation segment that runs at the end of every podcast episode. Butter is sometimes things you can buy, but it can also be a show or book we love, something great that we ate, a current mood, etc. Butter is any small moment of joy. (It can also, ofc, be literal butter, which we all know to be synonymous with joy.) But sometimes joy is fleeting!So today, paid subscribers get to hear which Butters have stood the test of time:Is Virginia still wearing her trad wife dress?Does Corinne still love her $100 baseball hat?Are we still into the bra that made us break up with underwire?Plus a few low-key life-changing household appliances, Virginia’s favorite thing about her bedroom, and what we’re definitely going to STOP recommending from now on… To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!