You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today my conversation is with Jamilah Lemieux.Jamilah is an award-winning writer, cultural critic, and leading voice in digital feminism, known for shaping online conversations around race, gender, and relationship. She writes the Care and Feeding Parenting Advice column for Slate, and her work has appeared in outlets like the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post.Jamilah is also the author of the brand new book, Black. Single. Mother. Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging.I've been a fan of Jamilah from Slate's Care and Feeding Parenting Podcast, where she was a longtime co-host. Today we get into who gets to call themselves a single mom, the kind of social life co-parenting lets you have, the importance of friends, and we ask: Is dating (especially for single moms) a diet?Become a paid subscriber to comment, get episode transcripts, and hear Indulgence Gospel — our new bonus segment, running after every episode!Corinne hops on to debrief with me about my conversation with Jamilah. Indulgence Gospel segments are audio-only so don't miss out! You can listen right here (tap "play" above) or add us to Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Another great way to support Burnt Toast is to MAKE SURE you are following us for free in your podcast player! And if you have two more seconds, please leave us a rating and/or review! Just scroll down wherever you're listening and tap the stars, five of them please, and leave a little note about why you love Burnt Toast. Both of these things really help new listeners find conversations like these!BUTTERJamilah: Old Wisconsin Yumbo honey brown sugar turkey sausage stick.Virginia: Kin by Tayari JonesEPISODE 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 talking about PEPTIDES. This new diet trend is the cursed love child of the protein bros and the RFK stans, and it's supposed to make you thin, tan, and maybe horny. What could go wrong?!We're getting into:⭐️ What the heck is a peptide? Why would one stack them?⭐️ Clavicular, the 20-year-old looksmaxxer extraordinaire.⭐️ Why Bro Science is exhausting and deliberately hard to fact-check. ⭐️ Why are so many peptide fans... also anti-vax?We also have a new Indulgence Gospel for you, with a few unfiltered life updates plus a rundown of what we've been reading!To hear that bonus segment, read the transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.ButterVirginia: toe spreaders, Petra FisherCorinne: Instant Glow SerumEPISODE 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. Today my conversation is with Emma Copley Eisenberg.Emma is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Housemates and the story collection Fat Swim. Her essays, literary criticism and reporting have appeared in The New Republic, Granta, and Esquire among others, and she writes the Substack newsletter Frump Feelings. She lives in Philadelphia.Emma joined me to chat about her new short story collection Fat Swim, fat characters in fiction, what thin authors get wrong, why we’re over Jonathan Franzen and so much more.And become a paid subscriber to get Indulgence Gospel — our new bonus segment, running after every episode!Corinne is going to hop on to debrief this interview with me. We're talking about fat kids in fiction, our Default Outfits and MORE! Paid subscribers all get commenting privileges and a full episode transcript. JOIN US HERE. Photo by Kenzi CrashEPISODE 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 are rerunning a fan favorite episode about Mel Robbins, motivational speaker and author of The Let Them Theory. This episode originally ran as a paywalled Just Toast episode, but today we are unlocking it so that everyone can listen—with a special paid subscriber only update!In the original episode we asked, "Is Mel Robbins a Diet?" You'll have to listen to hear what we think (and let us know what you think in the comments.) Plot Twist (or is it?): Mel is now selling nutritional supplements. Protein shots, to be exact—so we decided to give them a try.Paid subscribers can hear Corinne try Mel Robbins' Pure Genius protein shot and give us her honest review. 👀Free list: You don't want to miss this!Sign up for just $5/month!Join Just Toast!

In the original episode, we asked, "Is Mel Robbins a Diet?"Plot Twist (or is it?): Mel is now selling nutritional supplements. Protein shots, to be exact—so we decided to give them a try.Paid subscribers can listen or WATCH Corinne try Mel Robbins' Pure Genius protein shot and give us her honest review. 👀Free list: You won't want to miss this! Subscribe 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!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your April Just Toast episode!This is a special episode because we recorded in person! I traveled to New Mexico to see Corinne, have new Burnt Toast headshots taken and visit Meow Wolf with my kiddo and my boyfriend. It was a glorious trip and I'm excited to share some of the behind the scenes with you today.In this episode we're talking about: ⭐️ Why it's so hard to have your photo taken.⭐️ Thin friends not putting their fat friends on the grid.⭐️ The art of a good selfie.One audio note: our Airbnb in Santa Fe was an acoustical odyssey, so please bear with us on the sound quality. You need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month! Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Sign up for just $5!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 241 TranscriptVirginiaWe're recording in person from an Airbnb in Santa Fe, New Mexico. If the audio is not perfect today, it's not Tommy's fault. It's that we're doing it in an adobe room and that creates some echoes.CorinneWe have covered the floors with soft things, but it's still very echo-y.VirginiaSo bear with us. This is only our second ever in person episode, so it's going to be a really fun one.This is a Just Toast episode. As we explained on our previous Extra Butter episode, we're no longer calling it the Indulgence Gospel, although we always will in my heart.We're trying to make it clear what kind of episode you're listening to. So if you are listening to this whole episode right now, you are a Just Toast subscriber, which means you are a regular paid subscriber tier. There's also our premium tier, Extra Butter, for a little more money where you can get behind every single paywall. Whichever tier you are, we're very happy you're here.CorinneWe're going to talk about something we did yesterday.VirginiaCorinne and I did something together for the first time.CorinneIf you're a longtime listener subscriber, you may have noticed that we have no photos together.VirginiaExcept one we took in a hot tub two years in Hot Springs.CorinneYesterday, while Virginia is here in New Mexico, we got some photos taken by a photographer named Molly Haley.VirginiaWho is an old friend of yours.CorinneWe went to middle school and high school together.VirginiaSince we were doing a photo shoot, we thought, well, we've got to talk about photos on the podcast because it's a whole thing.CorinnePhotos can be hard!VirginiaI would amend that sentence and say photos are hard.CorinneAlthough your child would disagree.VirginiaMy 8-year-old keeps telling us that that's a silly thing to think and photos are great and they love having their photo taken.CorinneThey're not wrong.VirginiaNo, it's a lot of stuff. A lot of diet culture noise. It's a lot of being seen, I think. Being perceived.CorinneWould you say that you've struggled with photos?

You are listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole Smith. Today my conversation is with Keri Harvey. Keri is an NASM certified personal trainer and a pain-free performance specialist specializing in beginner strength. She's a part owner of Form Fitness Brooklyn and has recently gotten into powerlifting. She just competed in her first sanctioned meet and won first place in her weight class. Keri began her career in personal training after her own fitness journey transformed from aesthetic focused to working on feeling strong and capable in everyday life, a very Burnt Toast trajectory. Her training style involves feeling less focused on the number on the scale and more on how people feel. She's a firm believer in setting performance-related goals, such as feeling less winded after the dreaded subway station steps. Keri was featured as one of Self magazine’s Everyday Athletes and collaborated as a fitness expert in Shape, Self, Livestrong, and Women’s Health magazines. Her ultimate goal is to help cultivate an inclusive and welcoming environment in the gym, and for all of her clients to leave each session feeling strong and powerful. Keri is hosting a pop-up strength class called Strong on Purpose in Houston, Texas on April 11th.Keri joined me to chat about her relationship to fitness and movement, getting stitched by toxic gym bros on TikTok, misconceptions about fat personal trainers and so much more. We've also got answers to some of your listener questions. This is a great episode. I think you're going to get so much out of it.Here is Keri.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 240 TranscriptVirginia We are really big fans of yours here at Burnt Toast. For anyone who doesn't already follow you on Instagram or TikTok, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your work and your relationship with fitness and movement?Keri I am a certified personal trainer. I currently am a part owner at a gym called Form Fitness Brooklyn, which is a personal training studio. The reason that I'm here and the reason that I exist in this field is because there's not a lot of body diversity in the fitness industry. I wanted to be a part of helping other people feel seen.I live in a larger body and I show up every day in this body and do a lot of really cool things with it because I want to and because I want other people to feel like they can, as well. My relationship with fitness is one of exploration, being curious about what I can do and trying to approach it from a viewpoint of being balanced in acknowledging the fact that no one is ever at one hundred percent. I'm trying to make sure that I don't stress myself out too much trying to be perfect and just focusing on showing up as me and seeing what I can do. It has done wonders for my mental health and my physical health, because I'm showing up consistently.Virginia I love that. I was just watching a reel you did about working out with a migraine, which as a fellow migraine girlie, I found deeply relatable. That feeling of, This isn't going to be the best, but it's probably going to make me feel a little bit better. And I'm annoyed about it, but I'm here anyway.Immediately, I'm like, Why don't I live in Brooklyn so I can come to your gym? We need more body diversity. We need more of this whole ethos in the fitness space, for sure.Keri Absolutely.Virginia If I remember correctly, you went viral on TikTok. Some gym bro ... Oh, the gym bros of TikTok. I could do a whole podcast just on that, but we'll move on. A gym bro stitched you as an example of who not to hire as a fitness trainer - sorry, I can't even say that without laughing - then another less gym bro stitched him and schooled him on anti-fat bias. Then you made a response video. Am I remembering that narrative correctly?Keri That's absolutely how it went.Virginia How did you feel about all of that? Did you feel supported in that moment by the other guy's response?Keri That's such a loaded question. I did feel supported, and at the same time, it is a little strange having people stitch your videos, whether it's to be positive or negative, and not reach out and tell you that they're doing it.Virginia That feels like an etiquette breach, for sure.Keri It feels like people are talking about you behind your back, whether it's positive or negative. So that was a little bit weird. However, I did feel supported in knowing that there are people in this industry who are not poisoned by the idea that the way someone's body looks tells you about them as a person, or that there is something wrong with the way that someone's body looks.One person who stitched my video and had positive things to say, his statement really stuck with me. He said that 'The world is really big and there are people with all kinds of goals. And so Keri may be right for someone, even if she's not right for you.' I've really taken that with me because that's the truth.Everyone has different goals fitness-wise, and you should have your own personal goals. But the world is very big and just because one trainer is not right for you doesn't mean they're not right for someone else and vice versa.Virginia I've been on the receiving end of some gym bro critiques. I always think, Sir, I'm not for you. You are not for me. Why are you spending your time on this? How much am I bugging you just by existing that you needed to spend this time to make this video?I'm not going to lie, there's something a little satisfying about the idea that I'm not thinking about him at all, but he is so annoyed he has to make a video about us. That feels like a little bit of a win maybe.Keri Absolutely. I always think about like the fact that they're raising their blood pressure arguing with their phone because I'm not wasting my time arguing back.Virginia And you know they're so careful with their macros and everything, and yet to risk it.Keri Don't risk it. You're going to pass out. You should calm down.Virginia We love your content. You make really great videos. I used to do a lot of video making. I took a long break from it. Getting back in the game is not easy. There is a lot of work that goes into making Instagram content and TikTok content. I don't think people understand that.I wonder how you think about the importance of showing yourself working out in a gym because that representation, like you were saying, matters so much.Keri I am very, I think the word that I want to use here is purposeful, about the way I show up in the gym and the way I show myself on social media inside of a gym. Because I have Form Fitness, I don't have to go to a big box gym and workout. However, I do - one, because I like to get out of the space. And two, because I want to know what it's like for my client who's like, 'Listen, I'm really nervous about walking into this gym because I don't know what that's like if I'm just in this small room where I know that everyone views fitness and bodies the way that I do.' I walk into spaces that make me uncomfortable so that I can feel what my clients feel. Then when I'm filming content, I'm also really not worried about "Can you see my belly outline?" "Is my arm fat hanging out of the bra behind me?" Because that's just bodies. They move and jiggle because you are moving. That's how that works. I really try to make sure that when I'm posting online, I'm showing you that too because not a single person stops me in the gym and says, "Hey, your belly." No one would ever do that, and I want you to know that.Virginia It's a lot like going to a public swimming pool in the summer and being like, Oh wait, it's just bodies. Everything we see online about getting in a swimsuit is actually bullshit because everyone's here just to cool off.Keri The more that I have found freedom in that, the more I realize bodies are so beautiful because they're different. That's what makes them so beautiful. Why would I be worried about looking like someone else? There's so much beauty in my body.The other thing that I was going to say about filming at the gym is my consistent showing up there has helped me make friends with people who don't look anything like me and have different goals than me. I posted a video about that a little while after the internet trolls started coming, about the fact that the people on the internet are not the same people who are inside the gym. The ones who are doing the work, who are showing up every day - they don't think anything like those trolls on the internet. I have a lot of really cool relationships with people who look nothing like me and have different goals than me, but we're there and we're working hard. You can work on your stuff. I'm going to work on my stuff and no one is rude or nasty in any way. The gym can be a safe place and I want people to see that.VirginiaI really need to hear this. I am a longtime home weightlifter and I definitely am getting to the point where the amount of weights I would need to buy at home is like, you know, the math is starting to not math. As a fat woman, I have a lot of gym fear. As a formerly very un-athletic child, all my physical education trauma kicks in. It's so real. I have had some not great experiences in gyms, although as we're talking about this, I'm realizing I've had those experiences fat and I've had them thin. Some of it is just being a woman in a male-dominated space. Anyone listening who feels similarly terrified of the gym, I really get it. It's so real. What you're saying is really helpful.Keri I'm glad. At the end of the day, just walking outside, unfortunately we encounter some characters, but I think that when you feel comfortable in a space because you know that you belong there, you're able to focus on you. For the most part, that's what everybody else in the gym is doing, too.If they're not, then that's a huge issue that has absolutely nothing to do with you. But if you are able to show up enough times to start feeling a little more comfortable there, then you won't be as worried about what other people around you are thinking, because nine times out of 10, they're only thinking, 'How many reps did I just do?' and 'Is my form right?'Virginia 'When do I have to leave to pick up my kid?' It's so true.It is the deep irony of fatphobia that all the trolls are like, 'We're so concerned for your health, we're so concerned for your health.' And yet also fat people are made to feel uncomfortable in health-promoting spaces. Which is it guys?Keri I had that happen literally today. I opened my Instagram and someone had commented on a video, "You're saying this is your favorite workout, but you're still fat." Yes. This is the body I live in. And yes this is my favorite workout. You literally just repeated what I said to you.But that's the thing, right? You're complaining that I'm not moving my body, and yet I'm showing you that I am.Virginia Literally right in front of you. It's just a reminder yet again that you'll never get anywhere with internet trolls, and that's not who we do any of this for.Keri Absolutely. That's right.Virginia On a related note to just all the things you are doing in the gym, I think thin people don't always realize, but fat people are very strong. I feel like often people would look at me and not realize how strong I am, but I can carry the 20 pound bag of cat litter down the stairs to the basement. I can carry my third grader up to bed, which is a real accomplishment at this point. What other misconceptions do you find people have about what fat people can and can't do, especially in fitness spaces?KeriIn general, there's a lot of people with the idea that fat people just aren't athletic, don't have the ability to be athletic. I'm in the same boat as you. I did not grow up as an athletic kid. I did whatever I could to avoid P.E.When we look at sports, and even the Olympics, when we see all of these bodies, some are fat bodies, some are smaller bodies, and they're all able to do all these amazing things. It's a reminder that the size of someone's body has nothing to do with their abilities. I think there are a lot of people who still don't realize that.Virginia I think gracefulness is another one. People don't think fat people can be graceful in the same way or coordinated in the same way. Something I've really appreciated about your content is I think you move really gracefully. I think it's a narrative that we're sometimes in our heads about, especially forms of fitness that require faster movements or things along those lines.Keri I'm thinking about jumping right now. That's a big one.Virginia People have a lot of fear of jumping.Keri Absolutely. And, you know, there are people in all sizes of bodies who experience joint pain. That's a thing that no one is exempt from. However, I think that when you learn what things your body likes and what things it doesn't, that's great because there are some forms of movement that you may choose to not participate in. I never want anyone to just assume that they can't do certain things. You don't know until you try. When you try, you also need to be able to learn how to scale up, scale back and figure out what feels right.Virginia You have a great reel about making child's pose work in a bigger body. Sometimes this assumption of, 'I can't do this type of movement.' It's like, 'Well, maybe that's because you've only seen a thin body do it.' Actually, you totally can. It just looks different for your body.Keri I love being the first person to show someone that a squat can be wider if you need some room for your belly because it's always such a light bulb moment. I'm sure it was the same for me when I first was starting out, but then when I actually widened my stance and was able to sit into it, it was like, Ah. It was amazing.Virginia It feels so good.Keri The realization that there's nothing wrong with your body. You just need to adjust.Virginia On the flip side, what you were just saying about joint pain is making me think how sometimes we assume body size is the reason we won't be good at something. It's actually nothing to do with the body size. You're stiff, but thin people are also stiff. There are other examples of that too, right?KeriAbsolutely. A lot of us are sitting at a desk all day long. We're hunched over a computer, hunched over our phone. All of these things create stiffness. All of these things result in maybe a little bit of joint pain for some people. There's also the genetic side of things and medications. This has nothing to do with the size of your body. It's depends on the person type of situation.VirginiaThat's really helpful for people to keep in mind. We're going to get into some listener questions, but before we do, I want to make sure we talk a little bit about rest, both literally and figuratively. Obviously, your body needs rest in between workouts, but in the world, especially right now, our hearts need rest, like we need rest. What is your relationship to rest like right now?Keri I do not play about my rest. As someone in a field where I'm constantly people-facing and every hour that I spend with my clients is one where I want to know what's going on with you, I want to be there for you both in the workout and also just in life in general, so I feel like I'm giving a lot. I'm happy to do it, but I also need a moment to refill the cup.I don't play about my sleep. I am asleep at about the same time every night. If there are times when I feel like I need to take more time for myself, I need a slower morning or I need to cancel some plans with a friend because I really need to be by myself, I do those things. I honor those things because I know that if my body is saying it, it probably means that it's been feeling that way for a little while, and now here's the little alert.Virginia It's so important to listen to those alerts and give ourselves permission. I have a 7th grader and we're getting to those years in school where the schedule is getting really busy with play rehearsal and activities. She came home yesterday after a super long day. I know she'd had a test she wasn't quite ready for, she'd had rehearsal and I just looked at her and asked, "Do you want dinner on a tray in your room in your bed so you don't have to talk to anyone right now?" And she was like, "Oh my God, yes." And I was like, yeah, you need like no people time. You need total chill time for an hour and we'll see you in a bit. Not that like my parents wouldn't have done that for me, but I just thought I like that I'm showing her, You pushed hard today. You didn't feel like going to school in the morning. You got there, you did the test, you did the stuff, but then you come home and you get to really prioritize rest as well.Keri I want to circle back to what we were talking about at the very beginning when you mentioned that post where I went to workout, even though I had a migraine. I'm definitely learning how to honor when my body needs rest. I think that rest is just as important as movement. There are some days where I have migraines and I decide I need to stay in bed. I need to put my headache cap on and no lights, everything's turned off. Then there are some days where I don't feel great, but I know that if I just go and I move slowly and I pay attention to what feels doable today and what doesn't, I feel a little better. I'm learning to not count the day where I don't go to workout as a failure.That's something that's tough for me, but I'm learning it because I'm honoring the fact that if I don't slow down now, I'm going to burn-out at the end.Virginia Recovering perfectionists unite on that one.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Listener QuestionsVirginia Let's do a couple of listener questions. A few folks in the Burnt Toast Chat had some fitness-related questions and we thought you will have great expert advice. First up, Sarah says:I have started and stopped a mobility exercise program 3 times since November. I get into a groove and I find it really makes my life in my body easier (putting shoes on, easing aches and pains) and then (typically when my PMDD kicks in 😔) I have no energy or drive to do it. It's only 15 minutes 4x a week, purposefully not too taxing a commitment. I have had a poor history with exercise and totally stopped about 10 years ago. But as I approach 50 I feel stiff and sore and everything feels hard. I have a million reasons to keep going but I'm not. Any thoughts on how to stay consistent or weather the ups and downs of motivation? I also notice that when I'm doing it, I'm more aware of my body and thoughts of body dissatisfaction creep in, when otherwise I have become pretty comfortable with my size.So, a lot going on there, but it definitely relates to this conversation we're having about rest and movement and when you need what.Keri I want to talk about the motivation piece for a moment because what we know about motivation is that it comes in waves. I've found there's that initial motivation when I've decided I want to do this thing, I want to move my body more, and then it starts to wane a bit. Then maybe it picks back up when you see the payoff.The payoff in this case being increased mobility. In that moment where you're not motivated anymore, it's really important to signal to our brains that we should still get the thing done. However, you should give yourself permission to scale it back. I think that four times a week for 15 minutes is amazing, but maybe you allow yourself to go for two to three times that week that you're feeling a little bit less motivation. It's important to do the thing because we see that it's making you feel better. However, maybe you're asking for too much in that moment where you're struggling.Virginia I think even if you are like, 'Well, it's only four times a week. It's only 15 minutes. That feels so doable.' Bottom line is it's not feeling doable. Three times, two times, even one time is better than zero times.Keri Absolutely. That's right.Virginia That all or nothing mentality is such a killer with this kind of thing. What are your thoughts about the piece where she says that moving your body more can make you more aware of your body and bring up some of those negative thoughts? I do think a lot of us, as we're working on body neutrality, whatever you want to call it, sometimes the easiest path through is a little bit of disconnection from your body because reconnecting can be painful when you're still working through some of that stuff.Keri What has been helpful for me and several of my clients is to focus on performance-related things. Maybe that means there's a goal you set for yourself, even in the mobility area. Maybe it's "Can I do an extra rep of something?" "Can I work towards doing an extra rep?" "Can I work towards feeling a little less winded after I do a certain exercise?"Paying attention to the progress you're making can be helpful. Sometimes we're only focused on 'This was so tough today,' or 'This was way easier two months ago than it is now, or two years ago than it is now.'I would really encourage Sarah to find ways to pay attention to what her body can do and not what it's not doing.Virginia When the shoes start to be easier to put on, that's a win. Celebrate that win.I'm also rereading your question Sarah and I just want to say that you said you've started and stopped the program three times since November. It's March, so that means for about six months, you've actually been doing more than you're giving yourself credit for. Maybe you took some weeks off, but the fact that you've done it three times since November seems good. It's not nothing.Keri Exactly. I work four days a week and usually those are the days that I work out. However, there are definitely days where the workout doesn't get done and that's just life. When that happens, when you know you've got to take care of the kids, or when work is just so stressful and you run out of time, that's not a failure. That's just life. We show up again the next day. It's never going to be perfect. But I agree with you. I don't want you to discredit yourself and think that you haven't been doing a lot because sounds like you've been working.Virginia Frame it less as quitting and like, this wasn't the week for it and now I'm back to it.Keri We're pausing.Virginia The next question is from Allison, who writes:I'm really struggling in my relationship with movement right now. I feel better when I move. I have more energy and less back pain. I know intellectually that moving my body regularly in some way is beneficial to me and yet I am just really struggling to do it. I started PT in September for my back pain and it went away so quickly once I was regularly moving. Now my PT is winding down and because my work-outs are less frequent, the back pain is back. I am so sick of this discomfort and yet even that physical pain is not enough to motivate me to even go for a walk around the block. I'm a sedentary person. I am content with that, but I also want the longer term benefits of being a person who moves regularly. I really don't know how to just make it happen. Any advice is welcome. What worked? What clicked? Or is this like cooking dinner for my family every night where I have to just do it even though some days I'd rather just walk into the woods and not come back.Very relatable about cooking dinner. I'll say that.Keri What has worked for me has been finding forms of movement that I've enjoyed. I also want to give Allison credit for reaching out to a PT. That's something a lot of people don't think about, but when there is something like back pain and it's affecting your daily life, that is super important.So kudos to you for doing that. I would see if you can explore some other forms of movement that you actually enjoy. Maybe it's dancing, maybe it's swimming, maybe it's yoga. Whatever it is, just finding something that is enjoyable, that really helped me to keep showing up.Then, even when I wasn't motivated, I was still just slightly curious enough about like, What else can my body do? That kept me showing up. We said it a little bit in the last question, but it is annoying and good at the same time that when you start moving your body and learning how to listen to it, it talks to you a lot.It starts speaking to you and emphasizing that we need rest and we need movement almost all the time. But like the whole cooking dinner for your family every night type of situation, every once in a while you're rewarded with the family sitting at the table and the meal's really good and the shoulders are bouncing as you're eating. That happens with our workouts, too. It's not every workout, but every once in a while you have a really good one where every once in a while you're kind of excited to go do it, and that is really what kind of has to tide us over until the next time we have a workout like that.Virginia It's so interesting how, I think maybe because of social media or different narratives we get, we expect every workout to be like a Rocky montage of huge accomplishment and triumph. It's like, no, it's just Tuesday morning. Like, I'm just doing this and then I've got to get on a work call.Keri Which is why it is important to try to find what you enjoy doing because most of them are definitely like, Let me just get this thing over with. I'm huffing and puffing and breathing hard.Virginia I was going to also add that I think PT is amazing, and I think it's very normal to get bored with it because they are very repetitive exercises. Trying something really different might be fun and invigorating. If you can combine it with being with a friend. For some of us, joy in the movement itself is difficult, but you can pair movement with something joyful, if that makes sense. That can be super helpful. I have a standing weekly walk date with a friend of mine and even if I don't really feel like moving, I want to see her. I'm going to show up.Keri I love that.Virginia It is a tricky thing. I think both these questions really underscore this idea we have that once you figure out fitness, you're going to do that fitness forever. There should be a set it and forget it option, and that just really isn't the case with bodies.Keri Not at all. Bodies require different things at different times. Also, our brains want different stimulation. It's ok to move around and find new things you enjoy. It's ok to be a beginner at said thing. It's ok to be bad at it, because as long as you are trying, that's really all that matters.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginia We end every episode of Burnt Toast with Butter, which is what I call our recommendation segment. I would love to know, Keri, what is your Butter right now?Keri It's women's sports. That's my Butter right now, in every form of it. I feel like we're seeing a lot more of women's sports being supported, which is so beautiful and it's so important, especially for young ones. I feel like if I had seen more women's sports being supported and spoken about when I was a kid, and seen all of the different body types playing all of these sports, I would've felt like I might've had a better relationship with fitness at that age, and also, more comfortable in my body at that age. It's so important to be seeing this right now.Virginia Who's your favorite athlete?Keri I love Ilona Maher. I'm also a huge basketball fan, so I'm loving everything women's basketball.Virginia You and my mom. My mom's hardcore. I like it too, but she's all in, except she can't watch games live. She's a Huskies fan and she gets too worried, so she checks the score and then she watches it later, if they win by enough.Keri I love that. I love that she knows herself.Virginia It's too much pressure. She can only watch if she knows they're up by 50 points.Keri Which is not hard for them.Virginia Exactly. Huskies, they're doing fine.My Butter, since we talked quite a bit about migraines, and you reminded me, I don't think I've talked about my migraine cap on this podcast yet. I have this - it's the dorkiest thing, but it's so great. It's this like black, thick, neoprene kind of fabric and it somehow stays cold, so you put it over your head and it covers your eyes. It stays cold and feels so good.Keri It's so amazing.Virginia They're game changing. They really are. I've had migraines since the '90s and I just got one of these last year, and I'm like, Where has this been all my life?Keri A client of mine gifted me one, and it does look so funny. It is a very funny looking thing, but I put it on, I put on an audiobook and I was just knocked out and it was wonderful.Virginia I often am like woken up by bad headaches, like early morning and I still want to get back to sleep, so I put that on and then I can like get another hour of sleep. It's good stuff.Keri, thank you so much. This was such a delight. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support your work, even if we're not in Brooklyn, although I might need to make a field trip.Keri I think you should visit. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at kharveyfit. You can also find me on the Form Fitness Brooklyn app, which we just launched a couple months ago. It's a strength training app that has workouts for three times a week. It's body diverse, so you get to see all of us doing the exercises that we're asking you to do, which is really cool.Virginia I'm downloading it immediately.Thank you so much for doing this. This was great.Keri Thank you. I appreciate it.Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at BurntToastPodcast.com.Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these.The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram and Threads at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies.This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Our video editor is Elizabeth Ayiku, who also runs the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders. Learn more and donate at melittlemefoundation.org.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your April Extra Butter episode!This normally where we would say "Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark, " but today we're saying, "Welcome to Extra Butter." Longtime listeners know that we used to call the Virginia and Corinne episodes "Indulgence Gospel" in honor of a troll comment. We still love the name and are having a hard time letting it go, but we wanted to make it easier to know what kind of episode you're listening to when you listen to Burnt Toast.Burnt Toast has three membership tiers:Burnt Toast free member 💛 (Free!)Just Toast member 🍞 ($5/month or $50 annually)Extra Butter member 🧈 ($10/month or $100 annually)And Today we have an Extra Butter Episode! If you're listening to this episode, you're part of the premium tier, which means you're one of our favorite Burnt Toasties. You can get behind every paywall! Your support makes all our work possible and keeps Burnt Toast and ad and sponsor free space. Today we are talking about:⭐️ Fat fashion. Is it getting harder to shop?⭐️ Virginia's bad boyfriend (J. Crew).⭐️ How the oversized fashion trend leaves out fat people.We're also answering listener questions about:⭐️ Skinny jeans, yay or nay?⭐️ Managing a wardrobe to fit weight fluctuations.⭐️ How are we wearing layers during perimenopause?To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Who doesn't want extra butter on their toast?Join Extra Butter!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 239 TranscriptCorinne: Today we have a very exciting (for me) topic, which is we're going to talk about fat fashion, spring edition.Virginia: Is it getting harder to shop?Corinne: I mean, quick answer: yes.Virginia: Absolutely. It's terrible out there. Is it the state of the world, is it retail, or is it both? We're going to get into how it's feeling like there are fewer plus-size options, and we're going to get into some of your practical questions.

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your March Just Toast episode!Today we are talking about:⭐️ The new, skinny American Girl dolls⭐️ Does taking a GLP-1 make you a better parent?We're also answering listener questions about:⭐️ The diet culture voice in your head⭐️ Colonoscopy prep and the feelings it brings up⭐️ Virginia's review of the Heated Rivalry booksYou need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month! Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Sign up for just $5!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 238 TranscriptVirginiaToday we are catching up on some things we are mad about in March.CorinneSome people have been annoying us.VirginiaWe have a list, and you may or may not be on the list. First up is ...

You're listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today is the second part of my conversation with Savala Nolan.Savala is a writer, public speaker and professor at UC Berkeley. Her brand new book, Good Woman: A Reckoning is out now. Her first book, Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender and the Body, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan Prize and celebrated as a “standout collection” by the New York Times. Savala's writing has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, NPR, TIME and more.Today is the second part of my conversation with Savala. In part one, we talked about bodies, race and gender. Today in part two, we're getting into sex, divorce and classy and trashy Butters. This conversation is for paid subscribers only, so go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith to join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You're not going to want to miss this one.One last thing! If you order Good Woman from my local independent bookstore, Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off if you have also ordered a copy of my book Fat Talk from them. Go to Split Rock Books and use the code "fat talk" at checkout.Here's Savala.You need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 237 TranscriptVirginia All right, we've got to talk about men a little bit.Savala  Do we have to? No, I'm kidding. I love them.Virginia  I really questioned whether we did. You write really well about men in this book. You articulate a lot about a certain kind of man that is going to be very familiar to a lot of our listeners. You call him the "voting booth feminist." Define voting booth feminist and tell us how that particular type of man, perhaps without realizing it, contributes to this narrative about what a "good woman" should be.Savala  Well, the voting booth feminist is alive and well, Virginia. I was married to one.

You're listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today my conversation is with none other than the beloved, the brilliant, Lindy West. Lindy is the author of four books, The New York Times bestselling memoir, Shrill, as well as the essay collections, The Witches Are Coming and Shit, Actually, and her brand new memoir Adult Braces, out now.Lindy is a former contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. Her work has appeared in This American Life, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Vulture, Jezebel and many others. She is the co-host of the comedy podcast, Text Me Back!!! and the author of the newsletter Butt News. Lindy was a writer and executive producer on Shrill, the Hulu comedy adapted from her memoir, and she co-wrote and produced the independent feature film, Thin Skin. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in rural Washington state. Lindy joined me to chat about her brand new memoir, Adult Braces. We get into her relationship to fatness, having people comment rather relentlessly on her marriage, why more best friends should start podcasts and so much more—including a quesadilla she invents in real time while we recorded. You are going to love this one. This conversation with Lindy is so juicy that we're breaking it up into two episodes! In Part 1 we’re talking about her brand new memoir, Adult Braces, as well as her eating disorder therapy, being a public fat person and having people comment on her body and her marriage.In Part 2, we're getting into non-monogamy, the benefits of being in a throuple, podcasting and so much more! If you're already a paid subscriber, you've got both parts of the episode right here, right now in your inbox! Everyone else: Join Burnt Toast today to hear the whole thing! Membership starts at just $5 per month and also gets you commenting privileges.One last thing! You will want to read Adult Braces after hearing this conversation. If you order it from my local independent bookstore, Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off if you have also ordered a copy of my book Fat Talk from them. Go to Split Rock Books and use the code "fat talk" at checkout.Here's Lindy West.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Virginia We are here to talk about your new memoir, Adult Braces. My producer Kim and I both read it. We loved it. Like, crying laughing, full body experience reading this book. LindyThank you so much!VirginiaDo you want to give us a brief summary of what the book is about?Lindy  The book is about a road trip that I took in 2021 from Seattle to Key West and back, which I decided to do when I was having a crisis in my life. I needed to get away from my house, and I needed to get away from my family and my responsibilities.I had found out a couple years earlier that my husband had a secret girlfriend, which was sort of illegal in our relationship, sort of not. That was quite a topic of conversation for several years, and we eventually figured it out. But then I was exhausted from a year of COVID and three years of non-stop couples therapy. I was like, I gotta get out of here. So I left and I drove to Florida in a van that I rented. I slept in the van. I just wanted to be out in the world and be brave and alive. The road trip stories are interspersed with chapters about my life before. A big message, at least for me, is that it's really easy to read my crisis as this monogamy/polyamory conversation, but when I think back on it, everything about my life was messed up before that. I had so many other problems, in my mental health, in the way that I managed my career, my life and my brain chemicals. I wanted to build a full picture of that, because I think the easy story is like, 'Oh, no good husband.' But it was a lot more complicated than that, and a lot of it stemmed from work that I had to do on myself, which is ultimately the only work that I can do. I can't do work on my husband.Virginia Nope. A lot of us learned that the hard way.Lindy  Right! That was actually one of my problems. I was constantly waiting for my husband to transform into the person that I had imagined would be my husband, and that's not how people work.Virginia It's annoying, but true. Lindy  It's very annoying. The book is about all of those figurative journeys happening at once, and also my literal journey. Virginia It's spectacular. The van alone. I'm obsessed with the van. There's a mural on the outside of the van. It's incredible.Lindy  The van has a big, scary rabbit on one side and then a big, anxious sheep on the other side. The van was named BAAA, like the noise a sheep makes. I think I'm going to make some social media content out of this. I'm trying to be an influencer in order to promote this book. I want the van. I want that van. I want it in my possession.VirginiaI was sad when you gave it back. LindyI know! Me too, and now the company has gone out of business. I tried to rent the van for my book tour and they don't exist anymore. Someone has that van. I think I'm going to do a social media campaign called "Help me find my van," so that I can buy it.Virginia Burnt Toast listeners, if any of you have a van with a rabbit on one side and a sheep on the other, hit us up. Even if it's a different van with that art, I think Lindy would be interested.LindyYes. I will pay upwards of $1,000.Virginia To get that van back. It was a sad moment. It was like the end of those movies with a person on a journey with an animal, and they say goodbye. It was like the volleyball in that Tom Hanks movie.Lindy  Oh, my God, yeah. I had to watch BAAA float away on the ocean. BAAA had really been there for me. BAAA is an old lady now. Maybe she doesn't exist anymore, because she already had 250,000 miles on her and then I drove her another 50,000.VirginiaShe was in her golden years. LindyShe was in her golden years. But I think those Ford Transit vans are built to last, so I think someone has her. It turns out all the van companies are going out of business because I had a really hard time finding a van. I called three different companies that had all recently gone out of business, because #vanlife is not that popular anymore now that people have #donthavetowearamasklife.Virginia They had a little Renaissance moment there.Lindy  I called this other company that was going out of business, and I was like, "Well, what are you doing with your fleet?" I know the all the terms now. I was like, "What's happening to your fleet? Can I buy one of your vans?" And he was like, "Yeah, they're $90,000." Sorry, excuse me?Virginia It doesn't even have a rabbit on it, sir.Lindy  This van is blank. I think that if there's any hope for me getting a van, it's got to be old lady BAAA. If you're listening and you know where BAAA ended up, please call me.Virginia I mean, I'm now picturing that BAAA probably has a new owner who also really loves her. There's going to be a complicated journey to restore BAAA to her rightful owner, which is you, but ...Lindy  Ok, now that you said that I don't want to take BAAA away from her new family.Virginia Well, maybe it could be a joint custody situation, you know? Let's be open-minded to different family structures.Lindy  That's true. You're so right. God, that was very regressive of me.Virginia But yes, I hope that you can be reunited. LindyThank you.VirginiaAlong with the story of BAAA, you talk about many vulnerable things in the book. One of them that I know our listeners will be really moved by is your exploration of having an eating disorder and starting treatment for that. It was just so relatable. Like when you wrote about reading through the list of nutritionists from your doctor, and only one doesn't mention weight loss. When you're looking for eating disorder treatment! Lindy  It's a snapshot of what most people are going to the nutritionist for: weight loss. That's what everyone's looking for, in every direction. So, I get it, but it was very frustrating. Luckily, the one lady that wasn't weight loss focused is the best person I've ever met, so it all worked out.Virginia What was it like working with someone who was like, "Actually, you don't need to lose weight. You need to eat more food?"Lindy  It's been amazing. I mean, it's frustrating, because you still have the diet culture voice inside your head, even if you've done as much healing as you thought was humanly possible. I realized once I started working with her that some tiny part of my brain had been like, Once you see the nutritionist, maybe you will lose weight. Not that that was my goal. But there's always this little, dee de dee dee, then your life will be perfect. It's really hard to deprogram that. Grace, my now therapist, just kept being like, "Your job is to eat whatever you want all the time." And I'd be like, "Yeah, but what if I want vegetables?" She was like, "That's fine, but you're not allowed to not eat candy." And I was like, "But don't you want to give me some kind of guideline for how to be perfect?" And she was like, "No, that's disordered."Virginia That’s the opposite of what we're doing now.Lindy  I find myself still searching for someone to tell me how to live so that I don't have to figure it out. Unfortunately, the answer is listening to your body and learning how to know yourself. So I'm doing that instead. VirginiaShe said joyfully.LindyAgain, I'm not trying to lose weight. I'm not on a weight loss journey. I think after so many years of living untreated in diet culture, I don't have any kind of a natural relationship with food. And it is a lot of work to figure out how to listen to my body. So even from a non-diet culture perspective, I was hoping that some part of this therapy was going to be her handing me a worksheet. Even if the worksheet said "One piece of cake for breakfast, one piece of cake for lunch, one piece of cake for dinner." I just was like, Making the choices is triggering to me.Virginia The decision fatigue! It's a lot of work, every meal. I have to, again, make the decision to eat and what to eat and how. All day long we do this??Lindy  I have to do the grocery shopping?Also, when you've been shamed your whole life for those choices, making the choices is stressful. Now I feel like, either direction, I'm doing something bad. I'm either doing diet culture by choosing to have a salad, even if I want one. I still am like, Am I betraying myself? Or the opposite, if I choose to eat something sort of indulgent or whatever, then I'm doing fat person. Which is fine.Virginia You have to negotiate it in both directions.Lindy  Yes! Except then I'm like, Well, but if I'm eating something decadent, is that just reactionary? Because I know I'm not supposed to do diet culture. So then do I even want this ice cream? I'm still, to this day, fairly lost. I'm way better than I was five years ago, and I've definitely figured some stuff out, which is just having routines. It's like, I have oatmeal. Done.Virginia One less decision.Lindy  In the morning, I have oatmeal, and then I have certain staple things I keep around. I'm so angry that my head has been messed with to this degree. You know what I mean? Virginia Yes. And you were trying to navigate recovery as a public fat person, which brings a whole other layer. I have had a tiny fraction of what you experience, and it's bananas. The amount the world feels like they can engage with our bodies and have opinions and theories and comments and all of that. You doing it, especially when you first started doing it, was such a gift to the rest of us. You were really on the front lines. Lindy  It's really hard, and that's the thing that I write about in the book. Obviously, the mean people are the worst. But there's a way that my fans feel an ownership over me that is a little bit ... not claustrophobic - I appreciate it, it's very loving - but also, I feel surveilled. I'm definitely being watched. People notice if my body changes, and that is confining in a certain way. It's hard to navigate, because you don't get to just have a private relationship with your body, which, to be fair, I voluntarily gave up because I said "I'm going to present my body for public conversation," basically.Virginia I don't know that we ever have informed consent around that though. I don't think you could have known when you decided to publish that first essay in The Stranger what this would be like. You know what I mean? I don't think you could wrap your head around where it would have gone.Lindy  I can't blame the fans, especially since so much of this stuff was grassroots on the Internet. I used to be a fat girl lurking on Tumblr, taking from other fat people who came before me. I don't want to build a wall around myself and say, "No, you can't look at me, and you can't feel anything about my body, and you can't have any opinions or connection to it," because I did the same thing. But navigating of it is hard, and complicated.Virginia It is complicated. I can understand, especially when navigating your own recovery and wanting to make choices for yourself, but feeling like people will feel let down. It's complicated. We all do it with other public figures all the time. Lindy  Oh, I don't like it when famous fat people lose weight. I don't trust it at all, but I don't say anything about it. You know what I mean?Virginia At least, not super publicly. Maybe in my own head.Lindy  Just to the group chat. "Oh, ozempic, got another one?" I'll send that text. I do have this fear that if eating disorder treatment and recovery did cause me to lose weight, because I changed my relationship with food in such a way that my body changes—which I don't know if that would happen or not, there's no way to know, probably not—but if it did happen, it's so scary to think that I could be perceived as having betrayed people, or that I'm one of those people that I look at and send to the group chat and say, "Oh boy." Which is why I shouldn't do that.Virginia Sure, fine. Now that you're putting it that way, I suppose.Lindy  It depends on the person. Look, just don't take me on your weight loss journey. I don't need to hear about your journey.Virginia That's really the key to me. People do what they do with their bodies, and that's fine, but I really appreciate it when a celebrity says nothing. If you start justifying and explaining it, odds are that you're causing harm to somebody.LindyIt's not that hard to not say anything.Virginia Yeah, just have your body. That's fine. You do you.Related to people dissecting your body online, another experience we unfortunately share is having our personal lives written about and commented on online, particularly in regards to marriage. In my case, my divorce. It made the Daily Mail, which is a real point of pride for me. You write really candidly about your marriage with Aham in this book and there are many difficult parts. Did it feel like you were taking some control back over the narrative to write about it? How do you feel about how people might react once they read what you've written?Lindy  I wanted to take control of the narrative. People react so intensely to non-monogamy. It's very scary to a lot of people, and I get it. You're sort of promised an equation for happiness, which is one person loving you obsessively for the rest of your life until you die. Just the idea that some people might choose a slight variation on that —it's threatening. And it's a slight variation. I am married to two people. It's just one extra person! There's just one extra. It's not really that different. If you think about it, being single is only one person away from being two people. Just one less.Virginia Right. Every single person is basically married. And every married person is basically in a throuple.Lindy  Is it that weird? People find it very weird. There was so much backlash, particularly directed at Aham, but also at me. My body was a big factor in it. The way that people perceive our relationship is never disconnected from the way people look at my body. So when people started to clock that we had a third person in our marriage—my partner, Roya. I shouldn't just talk about her like she's a mysterious, shadowy figure—so much of the response was, "Oh, we see what's going on here. You're fat and ugly and gross, so he doesn't like you. He needed a thin woman so that he can actually be happy."Virginia He had to trade up in some way. Lindy  He had to upgrade, as any man would, because, "Unfortunately, you're disgusting, and that's why we're here to defend you against this evil man."Virginia Yes, defend you —because this is from people who were your fans. That was what blew my mind [when you first came out]. I was like, But wait, you're a pro-Lindy person drawing these conclusions about her life. That doesn't make sense.LindyWhy are you being so mean to me?Virginia You're so mad on her behalf. But she didn't ask you to do that.Lindy  Right? And you know who's not saying anything mean to me? Aham. You guys are being way meaner. So, I don't know. It just felt like I wanted to get some definitive version down on paper, even though people are still going to do the same thing: take it and run with it, fill in the blanks. Everyone became a body language expert. People are obsessed with being the genius who read between the lines and could figure out what wasn't being said. We're in the age of conspiracy. I get it. But you can't actually just look at a picture of some people on the Internet and figure out what isn't being said. I couldn't even capture it in the book, because part of it is me and Aham sitting at the dining room table doing couples therapy over Zoom every week for three years. How do I put that in the book? It's so much work. People keep asking me, "Why are you so hard on yourself in this book?" Some people think I'm too easy on Aham. People keep telling me what my feelings are, and that I'm this naive person who's been duped. Or that I don't really understand, I can't really see, what's been done to me. I wanted to get my feelings down in hard copy. I can't excavate Aham’s feelings in my book. When I tried to, I cut it because it sounded like I'm begging the audience to co-sign that it was ok for me to stay, that I'm allowed to stay in my marriage. It feels like rationalization, and I don't want to do that. VirginiaYou don't actually need our permission. LindyI don't actually need anyone's permission. But what I can do, and what I have the authority and right to do, is put down in excruciating detail my process and the things that I came to realize about myself, and the ways that I had been a part of the toxicity in our marriage. The ways that I had been in denial, and the ways that I had not been taking care of myself, emotionally, psychologically and in a million different ways. That's what I have to work with. I'm also, in my personal life, a passive, shy person. I have this childhood wound of being talked over and not given the authority to speak on my own experiences, and not feeling capable of asserting myself. That's a lot of what this book is. I'm hard on myself because I found it fascinating. I found it so illuminating to realize all of these ways that my brain had been warped, and I thought it was rational. How interesting to come to a realization that these things that you thought were a given actually, maybe you were wrong. People read it as me being really cruel to myself, but to me, it felt really healing to excavate all those things and figure them out. I hope it's not a grind to read.Virginia No, it's definitely not. I found it more healing than you being hard on yourself. I mean, there are moments—and I think this is, you know, this is me being a fan for a moment—like we love you Lindy. We've been rooting for you for a long time. There are moments where I would think, Oh no, Lindy. I want to protect you. I don't like this. But then you would have this breathtaking insight about yourself, and I'd be like, Oh, shit. Ok, well, that makes sense. That was my experience of reading the book. These moments of feeling defensive or protective, and then being like, Oh, mind blown. Lindy  Thank you. I was just going to say, I do keep having this little feeling of, if you read the book and you're like, I can't relate to this because she's so hard on herself, well ... it sounds like you've never been fat.Virginia Or in therapy of any kind.Lindy  Congratulations on never having low self-esteem?Virginia Must be neat to always be so sure. Are you maybe a narcissist? A lot of what I saw in that narrative of "Lindy's the victim. He's trading up for the thin woman." is that this is so many fat women's core fear, right? So this was people projecting their own stuff of,  'This is what's going to happen to me. My husband's going to leave me for a younger, thinner woman.'Lindy  And that's rational, of course. That's what they do! I get it, because that was my fear. That's why I didn't want to do it. I was like, I know you're just waiting to upgrade. But in retrospect, it doesn't make sense. If what you were waiting to do was upgrade, why would you not just leave me? People talk to me as though, I'm still, to this day, being victimized. But to me, it was so healing to be brave and step through this veil into this other relationship structure and discover that Aham does not love me less. He didn't leave. I don't have less of him. He was telling the truth about, at least, how he feels about me. I was always so paranoid about that, and I always had so much doubt about it. People read it, and I get it, of course. Most people feel like they are barely holding their husband back from running off and being evil.Virginia But if that's the case, there is divorce. I just want to say to everyone in that box, there is this other path. You don't have to stay with that guy.Lindy  If you're worried about that, please get a divorce. You will love it. Virginia It's so great. It's real rad. Lindy  Look, I don't trust men either. I get it. I have the same wounds and the same anxieties. That's why I resisted so hard for so long. But I also didn't want to not be with Aham, because we have a really, really special relationship and I couldn't imagine ... I mean, I did eventually imagine, actually, there's a chapter cut from the book called "If I'd Left" about all the stuff I would have done. VirginiaOoh, I am intrigued. LindyI'll tell you about it, but mostly it was a list of the different animals that I would acquire. A big part of this whole journey—I've said "journey" so many times—Aham tried to do it right. He brought it up day one. He said, "This is non-negotiable if we're going to be together." I said, "Ok, sure." He tried to talk to me about it over the years. I avoided the conversation. I would throw a fit and cry and hyperventilate. I could not handle it. When I found out that he was seeing someone else, he said, "I think we want different things, and if that's the case, we need to not be together."🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Part 2 is for paid subscribers only. To hear the rest of our conversation with Lindy West, go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith and join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You don't want to miss this the second part of this conversation.Join here for just $5 per monthJoin Just Toast!Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these.The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies.This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Our video editor is Elizabeth Ayiku, who also runs the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders. Learn more and donate at melittlemefoundation.org.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. Today my conversation is with the brilliant Savala Nolan. Savala is a writer, public speaker and professor at UC Berkeley. Her brand new book, Good Woman: A Reckoning is out now. Her first book, Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender and the Body, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan Prize and celebrated as a “standout collection” by the New York Times. Savala's writing has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, NPR, TIME and more.I have a lot of conversations about bodies. I have a lot of conversations about gender. There is a lot that I thought I knew about race and bodies and gender in America. Reading Good Woman and talking to Savala blew my mind apart in ways that I'm still putting back together. This conversation is a must listen. This book is a must read.There was so much good stuff in this conversation, we are breaking it up into two episodes. Today in part one, we’re talking about bodies, race and gender. Part two will drop in two weeks, and that's when we're getting into sex, divorce and Savala’s classy and trashy butters. That conversation will be for paid subscribers only, so go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith to join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You're not going to want to miss this one. One last thing! Trust me, you will want to read Good Woman after hearing this conversation. If you order it from my local independent bookstore, Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off if you have also ordered a copy of my book Fat Talk from them. Go to Split Rock Books and use the code "fat talk" at checkout. Here's Savala.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 235 TranscriptVirginia Why don't we just start by having you tell listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do?Savala  I'm a writer. I was thinking about this question quite a bit, actually, because my very first instinct is to say I'm a mom, which makes perfect sense. Motherhood is all consuming. But I thought I'll start with something that doesn't include my relationship with another human being, just in the interest of practicing my own wholeness. So, I'm a writer and a mom and a lawyer. I direct the social justice program at UC Berkeley's Law School, which is really a privilege and gives me a lot of hope, because I get to see hundreds of law students every day who want to change the world and make it better. I'm also a former dieter. Like a hardcore, former dieter, which is what initially brought me into your world and your work. I was put on my first diet when I was two or three, and rode those waves up and down until I was maybe 36 or 37, so I've got a few decades under my belt. I include that in my biography because that experience of going on and off diets for so long, and of being almost pre-verbal when I was indoctrinated into that world of dieting, informs a lot of what I do, including as a mom, including as a lawyer, including as a writer. Body liberation, gender and race, they fascinate me endlessly, how they play together and kind of co-create each other. Most of what I write about, and definitely what I write about in Good Woman, stems from that experience of dieting, and then breaking free from dieting in my thirties.Virginia  That is the best intro I think anyone's ever given themselves on the podcast. SavalaOh, stop. VirginiaNo, really. I love that you are like, 'Let me own this part of my story. This is the origin point. And then now let's get into the conversation.' That's fantastic. We are here to talk about your exquisite new book Good Woman: A Reckoning. It is a collection of 12 essays about what it means to be a woman. It's this incredible blend of memoir, reporting and history. I would love you to read us the first paragraph, just to set the stage for everything we're going to talk about.SavalaI'll just take a quick second to set it up a little bit.I'm trying to take a critical and very skeptical eye to all the ways that women and girls are socialized to be good. Almost from birth, right? In our particular culture, good means agreeable, quiet, serving of others, all the things that probably would pop into any woman's head when she hears the idea of a "good woman" or a "good girl." I'm trying to unpack and destroy some of that socialization in my own life, and think about what lies beyond it. To kick the book off, there's this very short essay that's sort of a manifesto. I think of it as a huge bell that rings to open the book. Here's the first paragraph.I refuse to be good. This is a matter of survival, not inclination or mood. I refuse to be easy and I refuse others preferences. I refuse to be amicable and I refuse to appease. I refuse to go along and I refuse to agree. I refuse to do what I was trained to do. Instead, I choose whatever lies beyond my social conditioning, even if I'm still looking for it, still spurring it into being. This is work of the mind, cerebral and tough. This is work of new language, new concepts, new intonations and my thinking must expand to fit the scale of all existence. It is also body work, work that is nailed to my flesh. It is gestating of new bones, an anointing of muscle and fat. It is passing through the stomatous black opening of my own cervix to the bright field, waiting on the other side in the wilderness. It is a lot to take on. But I welcome the challenge and the mystery and the darkness. It was in darkness that the universe was made. It is in darkness that each day is made new.Virginia  Thank you. That was incredible. Really, it was.SavalaThank you. Virginia  I loved how you opened the book because it encapsulates so many of the themes that you then go deeper in in every chapter. One of the biggest themes of refusal in the book is around the body. You write about how Black women's bodies in particular are constrained, controlled and made not their own. I really, really want people to read this because we don't have time to talk about all the history you go through and it's so well done. You trace this narrative from Sarah Baartman and Sally Hemings all the way to Nicki Minaj, connecting so many dots. It's really powerful. What has and what hasn't changed when it comes to how Blackness and fatness are policed for women?Savala  I love this question. We could probably write a doctoral thesis or dissertation on this question alone. So I'll just sort of share what comes to mind, a sort of smorgasbord of thoughts that come to mind when you ask this question. The first thing is, there's an overlap when we talk about Blackness and fatness in this culture. The very first point to make is that everything here is cultural. Not all cultures treat women's bodies, Blackness and fatness the way we do. That's the page on which everything else is written. It's interesting to me that when we talk about Blackness and fatness, the stereotypes overlap, right? Both fat people and Black people are viewed in this culture as out of control, lazy, kind of greedy, having a hyper appetite. Either being hyper-sexualized or de-sexualized. You either have the kind of va-va-voom, or the 'friend, never the leading lady' when it comes to fatness. With Blackness, it's the same thing. You either have the video vixen - this kind of hyper-sexual Black woman in a music video - or the mammy.It's interesting to me that the stereotypes overlap so much, and maybe the most powerful way they overlap is that they're both undesirable. They're both things in our culture that you should try to get away from if you can. You should try not to be too Black or too fat in our culture. So to me, as a woman who's fat and Black, it's kind of a one-two punch. They work together. The stereotypes overlapping tells you there's some relationship in our culture between these two things. And as you say, it goes way, way, way, way back in this country. It goes to chattel slavery, where Blackness and fatness started to be policed together and associated together, very literally. I talk about this in the book - there's a magazine called Godey's Lady's Book, which you might consider the Vogue or Good Housekeeping of today. Sort of fashion, but also home-y stuff. It was the biggest magazine in the antebellum country. And they talked all the time about how white women should stay thin or else they might start to be Black, like they might start to be looked on as if they're Black. There's another article from that magazine that says, "If a white woman gets fat, she might as well put herself in Black face."You can't see it if you're listening, but there's a lovely eye roll from Virginia. Our culture has long braided these things together. That's the history when you think about what hasn't changed. I think they are still braided together. When we think about what has changed, from my vantage point, there was maybe five or 10 years where it felt more ok to be fat, and more ok to be Black. It was the like ascendance of Lizzo, you know?VirginiaA brief shining moment. SavalaIt was a shining moment. There was also the George Floyd moment. There was a political reckoning with Blackness that was refreshing. I guess maybe it wasn't even five years. It was a brief window. Now it feels like we're in a backlash. It feels a little bit like the more things change, the more they stay the same. We had this moment of a collective leap towards something like liberation. Because of politics and because of the capitalistic nature of the pharmaceutical industry in this country and GLP-1s being so, for now anyway, profitable, we're seeing a real backlash to both fatness and Blackness. That lands on women really hard, because of how women are tied to our bodies in this culture in a particular way. So I guess I would say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The silver lining being that because we did have these few years of something like enlightenment, the first sun rays coming over the mountain, there are a lot of people who have a much higher capacity to talk about what our culture does to fatness and Blackness than there were 20 years ago, right? So that's a silver lining, I think. VirginiaYes, I agree with that.We see these moments of women claiming their bodies and claiming control over their bodies, and then facing tremendous backlash. You talk about the Nicki Minaj album cover that she was taken to task for being too sexual, too graphic, etc.. She was like, 'It's my body.' Savala  'It’s my body.' Also, it's no worse than a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and everybody likes those. VirginiaYes, they sure do. But those are skinny white lady bodies. SavalaThose are skinny white ladies, not voluptuous Black women.Virginia  There are these moments where we have the conversation. Whereas if she hadn't had the album cover, we wouldn't have had the conversation. But I'm with you on how it's not enough. The backlash feels so brutal right now. But I do hang on to those moments.Savala  I do, as well. The comfort of a backlash is that you know you were doing something right. You can't make a quilt with one stitch. You have to put a lot of stitches in. So we have to keep stitching as far as our own liberation goes. The backlashes will come periodically, the tide comes in and out, you just try to keep inching it forward. I'm hopeful that we will continue, ultimately, to do that.Virginia  And keep reminding people where we've been. I really appreciated your post on Instagram this week. There's been so much talk about ICE as the gestapo and you were like, 'Guys, it's not the gestapo, it's slave patrols.' It's our own country. It's our own history that's coming up again here. I should note for listeners, you're hearing this in March, but we recording this at the end of January, right after all of the violence and murders in Minneapolis. Savala  I understand the urge to look to other countries and the violence in other places, and it's gestapo-like, you know. It's certainly fair to think about a comparison. But to completely ignore the fact that we actually invented this stuff.Virginia  That the gestapo guys learned it from us.SavalaOne hundred percent. Exactly.VirginiaThey've been watching what America was doing.Savala  Yes, and it's sad to own it, but it's a necessary step, and managing it and moving beyond it is to hold it close and see that it's our own stuff. It's like an individual who wants to grow and improve. They have to own their shit. 'Oh, this is my shit. I have to work on it.' It's the same. It's just at the level of culture.Virginia  As a country, we have to own our shit, and some of us are doing more of that than others. Well, on the level of the individual, you write a lot in the book about growing up as a fat little girl, being put on diets so heartbreakingly early and then continuing to pursue thinness throughout college and early adulthood. Now that you're on the other side of that, you write about how abandoning the pursuit of thinness feels like becoming a non-woman. I really was interested in this idea of the non-woman. I would love to talk about that a little.SavalaThere's a quote I love from a scholar, Sander Gilman, who studies fatness and gender. You might know this quote Virginia, some of your listeners might, too. He writes that dieting is a way that women show they understand their role in society. Part of the way that women remain and become legible in our culture is by practicing and performing privately and publicly dissatisfaction with their bodies and the pursuit of a better body, which generally means a thinner body, a more toned body, or a "healthier body."When you do those things as a woman, people get it. They understand you. They don't have to make any inferences. They don't have to wonder what you're doing. It's instantly obvious. When I talk about how much people rely on that sort of vocabulary to understand women. When I talk publicly at schools about this, one of the first things I do in my talks is post a before and after photo without the words "before" and "after." I ask people to raise their hands if they know what it is. The room could have 300 people in it and everybody raises their hands. They know exactly what they're seeing. That's what I mean when I say that the performance of dieting, or body improvement, or body shame, publicly and also privately, makes you readable as a woman to the culture. People can literally read it instantly, the way you can read a stop sign. When you stop doing that, when you stop dieting, exercising in ways that are meant to control the shape of your body, the weight of your body, all that stuff. When you stop using that vocabulary to bond with other women, when you stop policing what other people eat. When you stop doing those things, people don't get it. There's some level on which you're no longer performing the role of a woman. That's what I mean when I say that you become a non-woman. You become this other entity, that, let's be clear, exists in other cultures. It has existed in this culture to some extent, in various pockets of it, but that's what I mean. You step outside of the mold, and then people aren't quite sure what to do with you. Can I give a quick example? VirginiaYeah, please. SavalaI work with a fabulous team of people I love and adore at UC Berkeley. One of them had a birthday, so to celebrate, I brought in a box of fabulous French pastries. We have a little birthday party and we invite lots of people to come by and pick something up if they want to. Every single person, every person, who came in the room said something, and they all happen to be women, something like, 'Ooh, I worked out this morning. That's how I that's how I earned this.' Some version of, 'Oh, God, I shouldn't. I had a bagel for breakfast,' or, 'I'm gonna cut it in half because I think I'm gonna have a big dinner tonight.' I was the only one who didn't. At some point I said, "Come on, guys. Let's just let the food be food. We don't have to earn our food here."Virginia  You don’t actually have to publicly perform. Savala  You could have heard a pin drop, Virginia. VirginiaOh, I'm sure.SavalaIt was like I said something in a different language. People don't know how to read the moment anymore. They don't know how to read me anymore. It's so disruptive. So that's what I mean about becoming the non-woman. In that essay, I then go on to talk about the joy of being a non-woman. I don't mean this in the sense of gender identity, I mean it in a more metaphorical, philosophical way. I very much identify as a woman.Virginia  Right, but you're rejecting these expectations and this narrow definition of womanhood.Savala  One hundred percent. It's a little experiment. If listeners want to try that, I'm sure most of your listeners are already at least one foot in the door of not dieting anymore, but if they want to try performing something else and seeing how they become no longer instantly readable in the space, they'll know what I mean.Virginia  It's interesting because it's about how you simultaneously become more visible because you're doing this uncomfortable thing no one knows what to do with, and you're rendering yourself more invisible because you're no longer saying Yes, you can identify me as a sex object. Yes, you can identify me as young and thin and pretty and all the you know. So then it's like, 'Oh, we don't know what to do with her.'Savala  Totally. It's a spotlight. It's like, what's that? There's some rubbernecking that happens and you can be in the mood to deal with it or not. It's not like I always will say something when I'm around little pockets of diet culture. But in that moment, there were 12 or 15 people who came through and it was every single one. Virginia  Can we not just eat the pastries?Savala  Yeah. And if you don't want one for whatever reason, that's ok. Virginia  Don't tell us why. Just don't eat it. It's fine.Well, that's a great example too, because that's also the kind of modeling that I'm sure you're conscious of doing in front of your kiddo. There's a line in the book I really loved where you write:My child is my child, carrier of my histories, and I worry she'll be particularly vulnerable to dieting. In order to fortify her, I build a home life free from diet culture. This is, of course, a huge focus of my work. It's why I wrote Fat Talk.SavalaIt's the bread and butter, if you will.Virginia  It is the bread, yes. We'll get to the butter, but it's definitely the foundation of Burnt Toast. Deliberately, I'm more likely to say, 'Let's just eat the cake,' or 'Eat the dessert' when I know my kids are listening, because I've got to model the other way. I've got to model the non-woman for them.I would love to know what are some of the little things you do to get the anti-diet, parenting stuff in?Savala  Well, the number one thing, and this will be very familiar to the Burnt Toast crew, is I, myself don't diet. That's number one. I don't pursue intentional weight loss, and I haven't since my daughter was about six months old. That was breaking point when I started to look for a different kind of life. Not only do I not diet or pursue intentional weight loss, I never, not once, have ever spoken ill of my body or complained about my body in front of my daughter. It's funny when you're raising a girl because on the one hand, I want my daughter to feel beautiful and I want to speak a sense of beauty into her. "Oh, you're so beautiful." And I want to talk about myself through the lens of beauty for that reason, too. On the other hand, you don't want to over emphasize beauty and teach them that that is a super meaningful currency that they have to ... you know what I mean? Virginia  It's like, 'You are beautiful and it's the least interesting thing about you.' You're holding both of those with both hands all the time.Savala  All the time. So I speak well of my body, but try not to do it in a way that feels too "cover of a magazine" oriented. There are other little things like, we decant food in our house so most of it is not associated with "nutrition information."And we talk about nutrition information, because she picks it up in the world. But in our house, it's just in the container. I make a point of letting her choose how much she eats. I tend to take on the responsibility of picking what's on offer, and then she chooses how much. But we've mix that up as she's gotten older.I fill my home with physical media, like figurines, statues, posters, books that have all kinds of bodies, especially fat bodies, because I want that to feel normal and celebrated for her. I want her to see fat bodies depicted as beautiful, wonderful things, not just as things we try to move away from or punish. It's good for me, too. Almost anything that I practice for myself, I practice for her, in an age appropriate way. Including being really playful. It doesn't all have to be political. I talk in the book about this one episode where my daughter was probably about four or five years old, and she wanted some chocolate chips after she had already had dessert. Initially, I was like, "No, you had your ice cream. We'll have chocolate chips another time." And then I was like, I want some chocolate chips. I said, "Actually, yeah, let's have some chocolate chips." We each had a little handful, and she said, "I wish I could have more." And I was like, "I think one is enough." And then I was like, "Actually, let's have more." And we sort of did that playfully a few times. She still loves it. She remembers it was such joy. My goal there was to have a little fun, but also to celebrate appetite, and take this moment that we often are taught to read as personal failure - going back for a little more - and change it into something that was fun and goofy and totally fine.Virginia  Celebrating pleasure. Yeah, let's have more. It tastes good tonight. Let's do it and not feel like we have to put guardrails around that.Savala  Exactly. I look for moments like that, and I'll say, who knows what the future brings, but my kid has a really joyful, non self-conscious relationship with food that involves eating all kinds of things, including broccoli and kale, and with her body. Who knows what the world brings? Well, we do know what the world brings. We know what's coming, but she has a foundation that's much better than mine was.Virginia  Yeah, such a different foundation than what you had. And that has to do something. I have to believe that.Savala  Yeah, it has to. It has to. And I must say, obviously, your book inspired me and was part of my inspiration in how I approached feeding my kiddo.Virginia  I'm so glad it's helpful. Yeah, I mean, it's always a work in progress, but it is really rewarding when you see kids having that ease and not overthinking and not getting caught in those in those traps that we do. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterEditor's note: We're splitting Savala's interview into two episodes, so tune in to part two on March 19 to hear Savala's "classy and trashy" butters. Part two will be for paid subscribers only, so go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith to join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You're not going to want to miss this the second part of this conversation.Join here for just $5 per monthJoin Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈VirginiaAll right. Well, this was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Just tell folks where we find you and how we support your work.SavalaOh, it's been a serious joy to be here. I could do it all again. The best way to support my work is, of course, to buy Good Woman: A Reckoning and share it with the women in your life that you love, and maybe even the the men in your life that you love.VirginiaI agree with that. SavalaIf you can't buy it, you can get it at libraries, or borrow it from a friend. Obviously, as an author, I'm interested in book sales, but mostly I'm interested in the ideas in the book doing good in the world. So read Good Woman. If people want to hang out a little bit, I'm on Instagram at savalanolan. SavalaNolan.com is my website, which is another way to get in touch with me. I totally welcome that. I love doing book clubs, talking to readers, all that stuff, so if folks are interested, they should reach out.Virginia  Thank you, Savala. This was such a joy.SavalaThank you, Virginia. The pleasure was mine.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these.The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies.This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Our video editor is Elizabeth Ayiku, who also runs the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders. Learn more and donate at melittlemefoundation.org.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your February Indulgence Gospel!Today we are talking about influencers who show their expensive influencer grocery hauls, as well as people who spend A LOT OF MONEY on food delivery. (If you too had feelings about that ChrisLovesJulia reel...let's get into it!) We also talk about our own spending on groceries and food delivery....and our complicated feelings about both. 🥴You do need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Today our conversation is with Kim Baldwin, the newest member of the Burnt Toast team.Kim is the former digital editor for the Nashville Scene. Her culture writing can be found in places like the Nashville Scene, Parnassus Books’ Musings and on her Substack. Kim has interviewed folks like Sarah Sherman, Trixie Mattel, John Waters, Samantha Irby and Tess Holliday.Originally a blogger, Kim started The Blonde Mule in 2006 and later turned her popular interview series “These My Bitches” into a podcast called Ladyland. Kim writes a weekly newsletter about books and pop culture, teaches social media classes and is a frequent conversation partner for author events in Nashville.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 233 TranscriptVirginiaWe have a very fun episode for you today. We are introducing to all the Burnt Toasties, many of whom may already know and love her, our new podcast producer Kim Baldwin. KimHi, hi, hi. VirginiaWe are really happy you're here. Kim is doing a lot of things to improve our workflow. Yesterday she taught Corinne and me how to use Slack. Corinne, I think you already knew how to use Slack, but I sure did not. So that was exciting.Kim is joining us not just to teach us Slack, but to help with podcast production and make everything run more smoothly and efficiently. We are really grateful to her and thought it would be fun to do an episode where you get to know her.Kim  I'm excited to be on the Burnt Toast team, and excited to be here today despite harrowing conditions. VirginiaTruly harrowing.KimI'm coming to you live from a public library because my home does not have water or internet.Virginia  Yes, Kim is surviving the Nashville ice apocalypse, where, what 130,000 people have been displaced?Kim230,000.Virginia230,000 people have been displaced. So she has been heroically working on Burnt Toast while literally being out of her home, back in her home, but now working from the library. Yay, public libraries! We love you. Let's dive in. Corinne, why don't we take turns asking our questions?Corinne  My first question is, what is your fat radicalization story? How did you get interested in body liberation work?Kim  When I turned 40 I had to get a biometric screening for health insurance because over 40, you have to qualify for insurance. It was a really stigmatizing appointment. In hindsight, it was traumatic. My therapist was like, Enough. You have to go see someone now. That was 2018. I started working with an anti-diet registered dietitian. I thought I was going for one or two appointments, just for someone to say, "It's fine, you're all good." It became evident I had a disordered relationship, primarily with exercise, but also with eating. I went into what I now call recovery. It wasn't called that in real-time. It was just a chill, "Well, why don't you come see me every week for a while?"So I did that. I worked with Katherine Fowler, a non-diet, registered dietitian nutritionist here in Nashville. She's great. I knew nothing before her. She introduced me to anti-diet and Health at Every Size. She gave me a bunch of resources, one of which was Christy Harrison and Food Psych. I went whole hog. I listened to the back catalog of Food Psych, I read a bunch of books. I think Christy's first book came out around that time. It was so radical to me to think, Hold on, I can be fat, or, Hold on, I don't have to exercise this much. I was an Iron Man, so I was at that level of exercise.Virginia  Oh wow. Oh gosh, that's aggressive.Kim  When you exercise that much, for me, restrictive eating is just part of it. They really do go hand in hand. You control your food to try to control your outcomes and races and stuff. That's a long answer: back in 2018 I started working with registered dietitian, and she blew my mind and saved my life.Virginia  That's amazing. Yay, registered dietitians who do that work! Also, yay, Food Psych! That was a great podcast. Corinne, wasn't it one of your entry points, too? I feel like we've talked about this.Corinne  Yeah. I was a regular listener.Virginia  Just hearing people's stories over and over. The way Christy structured that was so healing and valuable for so many people.I've always been a fan of your culture writing. You always have amazing book recs, movie recs. Your newsletter The Blonde Mule is definitely one of my go to's for like, Ooh, what culture am I missing out on? Kim will know. So I would love to know who are some of your fat culture inspirations, icons, or just people you really love in that space?Kim  For sure Aubrey Gordon. She was an original, and back then, she was anonymous. Her Instagram posts back in the day - she still sometimes reposts those old ones in her stories. She still means so much to me. I learned about her early on. And then, of course, Lindy West. I had read Shrill, and because I worked at an alt-weekly, she also worked at The Stranger in Seattle, which is their alt-weekly, and we had similar jobs, so I looked up to her. She had this great essay in The Stranger where she came out as fat. In real time, I wasn't there yet, but when I got into recovery and started learning, I realized how ahead of her time - ahead of all of us - she was. And then, Virginia, you and people I found through Food Psych and through Christy. Back then we were all still using social media with wild abandon. You could learn about people through Instagram stories. Christy Harrison would repost all these people to her Instagram stories and I would click through and follow who she reposted. She'd repost something of yours, or, I can't even remember all the people back then. Oh, Ragen Chastain. I've been reading her stuff this whole time. I hope everyone reads her and knows what amazing work she's doing in this space. I can't get a sense of how many people know how much she's doing.Virginia  She does such deep dives into the research. She really is someone who is taking the time to take apart scientific papers, look at the methodology, look a what bias went into the research. I have learned so much from Ragen. I started following her back in probably the early 2000s when she was writing about being a fat dancer. I remember I interviewed her for a woman's magazine.KimOh right. I forgot about that, her original handle.VirginiaDances With Fat. Oh, you're making me nostalgic for this time. Now everyone's like, Body positivity is dead, and it was never really good, but there were these really good folks doing great work in the mix. Kim  There was an organic way to find, I don't want to say community in the way we say it now, but I didn't know anybody in real life going through what I was going through, or who was learning what I was learning. All I had, truly, was Food Psych. So if someone was on Food Psych, I would look them up. I would follow them. And then that reposting thing, that's how I found so many people.Virginia  Yeah, it's so true.Corinne  Kim, where does the name The Blonde Mule come from? Kim  Oh, this question.CorinneIf you want to skip it ...KimIt brings up a lot of embarrassment. I should address it. VirginiaIt's time. Kim, it's time. I don't know the backstory.KimIn 2006 I started a personal blog on blogspot because everyone was doing it. Back then it was the thing to have a cutesy name. No one used their government name online back then. Your email wasn't your name, your blog - none of that was your name. I'm a Taurus and I am actually stubborn, so "the mule" was kind of a nickname. There was this formula of a physical descriptor plus a nickname. All my friends had a version of this. I thought, Oh, I'll just do the blonde mule. I'll change it later, nobody cares. No one followed me. Then I had to buy my domain name and get handles on social media sites. So 2006 to 2026, how many years is that? Is that 20 years? So unfortunately, I'm locked in. Because now I own that name. I don't love it because I wish I hadn't self identified with my hair color. Especially because it's blonde and that means a lot of things that don't align with my values. Also, during the pandemic, I quit coloring my hair and so I'm not really blonde anymore.Virginia  A blonde-ish mule.Corinne  I would consider you blonde. Virginia  I still would consider you blonde. CorinneAlso Virginia, aren't you also a Taurus?VirginiaI am also a Taurus. I am also pretty stubborn.CorinneThis is an earth sign podcast. I'm a Capricorn.KimJohn, my husband, is a Capricorn.Virginia  I don't know what that means. KimWe're very compatible.Corinne  Yes, I also have a Taurus Moon.Virginia  Sure. I've been meaning to get one of those. I don't understand astrology. But I do relate to picking a name and sticking with it because now you're stuck with it. In many ways that is the backstory of Burnt Toast. So relatable. I named it on a whim. People are always like, What's that about? And I'm like, I mean, not a lot. But it is what it is. The Blonde Mule is sticky. It sticks with you.Kim  There are people who make me feel better. One is Samantha Irby because she is still bitches gotta eat. She also is from, like, 2006. There are a few of us that are locked in. What are you going to do? I literally bought this name.Virginia  I'm stuck with it. You might as well own it, for sure. Another part of your work life is that you work at the famous Parnassus Books, owned by best-selling author and icon Ann Patchett. I am a former bookstore girl. I love bookstores. Most authors, we love bookstores. So I really love talking about bookstores. I want to know, what's the most fun part of bookstore life? Also, does this bookstore have any pets?Kim  The bookstore has so many pets. We have shop dogs. Ann famously has a dog, Nemo. He appears in most of the videos. Before Nemo she had a cute little guy named Sparky, who I loved so much. There's a back office staff and they almost all have dogs and bring their dogs to work. VirginiaLove this. KimThere's one bookseller who has a dog, but she's on maternity leave, so we're a little bit short on dogs that are out on the floor, but in the back office, it's dog central. This is my second time working there. I worked there in 2019. I've mostly been self-employed and worked from home for a really long time. My mood was starting to get dark and my therapist suggested it would be nice to have some socialization and to leave my house one or two days a week. I was friendly with Parnassus, so I asked, "Is this a thing?" And they were excited, so they hired me to be a part-time bookseller back in 2019. Then the pandemic hit and they closed for a long time and it just didn't make sense anymore. I went and did a whole other job for a few years and left that job last year and went back to the bookstore. Same thing. I still work from home and I work at the bookstore one or two days a week. I do actually love a million things about it, but my favorite thing this round is everyone I work with is 24 years old, give or take. I love them so much. It is so invigorating to be around a whole staff of 24 year olds. They all love their parents. They have really good parents. They're mostly queer, which makes it extra nice that none of their parents were bad. Their parents are super accepting. They're all really smart and they're all funny. The things that are funny to them are so strange. There are all these long running jokes about, like, which Muppet are you? That's a fun thing for Gen Z.Virginia  That sounds delightful. I mean, I think bookstore people are just the best people and the most charming weirdos. And I love hearing that 24 year olds love their parents. Because even though my oldest kid is 12, and we have a ways to go, fingers crossed we'll get there.Kim  Yeah. Our generation, not so much.Virginia  It's not a given. Let's put it that way. It's not a given.We're going to do a lightning round of fun, goofy questions so we can all get to know you better. Corinne, why don't you kick it off?Corinne  All right, first question. Tell us about your pets.Kim  Ooh, I have two official pets. I have two cats. They came in at different times. They're both street cats. One is Nomi. He's kind of a Siamese cat. The other one is your regular striped street cat. His name is Benny.VirginiaAnd you have an owl in your backyard. KimI have an owl. I live in the country, so we have deer, turkey, owls, hawks, a skunk and a lot of snakes.Virginia  Nice. Favorite hobbies? I know from Instagram you are into collage making and you are into puzzles and I'm here for both of them.Kim  Yes, you are part of my puzzle journey. I knew that you got that table and you were doing them, and I thought, Ooh, that seems relaxing. We moved into this house last year, and I thought, Who am I going to be in the country? I'm going to be someone who does puzzles, and I'm going to get a puzzle table. And I did.Virginia  It's so relaxing. The best.Kim  The collage thing is new. I went to a divorce party and we were doing blackout poetry collages. I had never heard of any of this. I had the time of my life and my friend was like, You can just do this at home. And so now I do.Virginia  Corinne was nodding because Corinne is cooler and of course she knows what black out poetry collages are. I do not. CorinneI think you do, as well. VirginiaIs it like what Kate Baer writes? Like blacked out words? Okay, that is cool. I love that.Corinne  Kim, tell us your favorite comfort food or snacks.Kim  I've needed a lot of comfort this week. My go-to is chicken tenders and mashed potatoes. You do need carbs when you're this stressed out because your body's trying to slow you down and get you to rest and sleep. So there's been a lot of tendies in my life.Corinne  Are these from a specific restaurant? Or the freezer section?Kim  This week they're from a grocery store. There's a proliferation of chicken stuff here - the Nashville hot chicken. Truly, everywhere you go, there's hot chicken and there's tenders. The driving force of Nashville is chicken tenders.CorinneSounds like heaven.VirginiaBurnt Toast retreat in Nashville?? We just eat chicken tenders for three days? Start planning it now. That sounds great. Favorite thing you wore recently, and what makes it your favorite?Kim  Let's talk about jeans. I don't know what we're supposed to be wearing anymore. I am still comfortable in skinny jeans. VirginiaIt's okay. This is a jeans safe space.KimI'm locked and loaded in those high-rise, skinny jeans. But that is not what we're supposed to be wearing anymore.Virginia  They're real mad at us for still wanting to wear them.Kim  Let me tell you what the people I work with wear. It looks like I work with the Insane Clown Posse. They are wearing jeans so big and baggy it blows my mind. So I thought, Let me try. I bought a pair of - everything comes from Big Undies - I bought these Old Navy barrel jeans and I feel nuts in them. But I wore them to work and everyone was like, That's what you're supposed to look like! I've never been more uncomfortable in my life than when I wear these jeans. Corinne  You realize you're going to have to send us photos, right? We're going to be texting your co-workers to take secret photos of you. KimOh, my God.Virginia  We're going to need a photo.Kim  I went to a museum recently and wore those Old Navy barrel jeans - light wash, I will add - very uncomfortable.Virginia  You went right into the deep end of that swimming pool.Kim  I went in. And then I have this Universal Standard shirtdress. They have them in white and black. It's just a button up, floor length thing. I wore that, obviously unbuttoned from the waist down, and then I have those Crocs Dylan platform clogs.Corinne  My God, this is very chic outfit. KimI have the ones that are like clown shoes.CorinneThey're platform Crocs. Kim  I wore that to the museum and I think it's the coolest I've ever looked, but it's the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life.Virginia  So cool though.Corinne  Dying to see it. KimIt's my only outfit. Everything else is workout clothes.Virginia  You have one outfit. You're set. I mean, jeans are a whole conversation. That silhouette and changing from how we've been programmed, I feel you. But even wearing something where you're like, I know this is cool, but it feels so different from what I like. The way the trends have changed. I do feel like that is one of the oddest things about getting older - suddenly realizing the clothes are so unfamiliar. Corinne is the baby of the podcast, so she might not be able to relate to that.Corinne  Kim, how old are you?KimI'm 49. I turn 50 this year.Virginia  Ooh, exciting. When's your birthday? KimIt’s a whole thing. I'm working through it.Corinne  Wait, what if you guys have the same birthday?Kim  I'm May 20. VirginiaI'm April 30. KimOh, you're an April Taurus.Virginia  And that means a thing?I feel that it is a whole thing about clothes. You're just like, It's making less and less sense. I'm trying, but I don't know.Kim  It's hard. I think we're just supposed to feel stupid.Corinne  Well, not to change the subject, but how do you feel about brownies? Are you an edge, corner or center of the pan person? KimCenter. I can't deal with the edges.Virginia  Same. KimIt needs to all be the same texture.Virginia  You've got to pair up with your edge people so that you can get the brownies you want.Corinne  Following up that groundbreaking question, peanut butter in the fridge or pantry?Kim  Pantry. I didn't know anyone put it in the fridge. But during the storm, we stayed at a hotel for eight days, and then we moved into someone's empty house, and they had their peanut butter in the fridge. I was like, are we supposed to be doing this?Virginia  Yes, that's what the Lord intended. I am.Corinne  I am also a fridge peanut butter person.KimAre you supposed to?Virginia  Not from a food safety perspective, but it spiritually feels correct to me. It feels like it should be cold. I threw this in here because it was a recent poll on Burnt Toast and the people were against me on this. CorinneOh, wow. VirginiaWhen my boyfriend moved in, he was like, Why is the peanut butter in the fridge? What's happening? You're insane. And I was like, well, let's check with the public, assuming that my Burnt Toasties would rally around me. Instead they were all like, What are you doing? Corinne  The only open stuff in my pantry is crackers and cookies. Open stuff goes in the fridge. VirginiaIf it has a lid, it needs to be cold.KimBut what about hot sauce?CorinneFridge.Virginia  Yeah, in the fridge.KimWe do, too. But I have started to think i'm not supposed to because, at restaurants, it's just on the table. CorinneThis is true. Virginia  You have a good point. I'm not saying it's correct, but I'm saying it's correct. Another favorite Burnt Toast question that a reader submitted that we think is very fun to ask people is, which liquids would you want shooting out of your fingers? If you could have fingers that shoot liquids.Corinne  Each finger can be a separate liquid.Virginia  But also, if you don't want to think of five, it's fine. If you're like, I just want a Coke finger. That's all I need.Corinne  It could also be a liquid that's not something you drink.Kim  Like what?CorinneGasoline. That's my new best answer. I would want gas to be able to shoot out of my finger.Kim  I did just had to buy a generator. I hope this episode doesn't give me PTSD when I listen to it in a month and remember how traumatized I am from the storm. I'll be like, Why did I keep mentioning generators and hotels? Ok, I think it would be iced coffee, like a cold brew; Pamplemousse La Croix; honestly, orange juice. Love orange juice. Love an acid. That's it. Those are my three. I'm not a soft drink person.Corinne  Well, are you an electrolyte person?Kim  Oh, my God. I've been dying to talk to you about this. No, they're fake science, Corinne.Corinne  Well, fake science works for me.KimNo, I'm not. I used to be.Corinne  Talk to me when you come to high elevation.Kim  You know what? Honestly, that's fair. I have been in your part of the country a lot the last few years. We have to go to L.A. a few times a year. During COVID we couldn't fly, so we started driving, and now we are obsessed with driving cross-country.Corinne  Oh, wow. We really should talk.Kim  I didn't know you yet, but the last time we were in Albuquerque I told Virginia I wanted your phone number to ask you where to get a breakfast burrito. CorinneOh, my God! Yeah, you should have!Virginia  Corinne always has that intel.Kim  But no, the high altitude, that's legit.Virginia  I'm excited to have another electrolyte skeptic in the podcast. That's going to be helpful for me.Virginia  The beverage I will never be needing less of is Diet Coke. Are you pro or con Diet Coke, and if you are not pro Diet Coke, what do you drink?Kim  I'm pro Diet Coke, especially with pizza. I drink one on the days I'm at the bookstore. I just need one halfway through to keep going. I do love Diet Coke. I just wake up and drink coffee. That's typically it for the day, but if I'm out to eat or if I'm at work, I drink a Diet Coke. VirginiaYeah, it's a nice little treat.Corinne  I just learned that there's a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero.Virginia  Obviously! There's a huge difference!CorinneBut what is it? No one can really articulate it.VirginiaThe taste.Corinne  But why are they making two zero calorie Cokes?Virginia  Diet culture.Kim  I think it's gender. I think they think women want Diet Coke and men do not.Virginia  Men are drinking a manly Coke Zero? That doesn’t sound more masculine.Corinne  But what is the difference? Is it different sweeteners?Virginia  I am Googling it to get to the bottom of this. "Coke Zero aims to replicate the classic Coke taste using a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium." Diet Coke uses only aspartame.Corinne  So it is the sweeteners. They both have caffeine?Virginia  They both have caffeine. They both are calorie-free and sugar-free. Diet Coke is where you want to go for that pure aspartame hit, which is what I'm looking for. Corinne  Speaking of Diet Coke, any other diet-y foods or habits that you've reclaimed?Kim  Recently, I've started eating Uncrustables, which I hadn't had for a long time. When I was doing Iron Man training, that was what you'd take on a long bike ride. So I've associated that with needing to refuel during workouts. But I've started eating them again.Virginia  They're so good. A great purse snack. I like to have one for errand running.Kim  I've also started doing that. I just throw them in there. They're great because the purse thaws it out.Virginia  Yes, exactly. I put it between my sunglasses case and my wallet. It gets nice and toasty.Kim  And honestly? Yogurt. I quit eating yogurt for a long time, but it turns out you can have yogurt for fun.CorinneYogurt is good.Virginia  Especially if you can have the full fat yogurt.KimOh, my God. Game changer. I bought it on accident because they were out of the one I buy. I was like, Oh, it never occurred to me to switch.Virginia  The one thing RFK, Jr. and I agree on is full fat yogurt. The one overlap in our otherwise completely disparate Venn diagram circles.KimThat disgusting, broken clock of a man.Virginia  Any diet-y foods or habits that you'll never touch again that you're like, Nope, that ship has sailed?Kim   Turkey bacon and turkey sausage. VirginiaLet that go. Just, why?KimI'm just going to eat pork if I'm going to eat pork. Oh, Lean Cuisine. Never bringing that back. All kinds of snacks. I could never eat a pretzel again for the rest of my life.Corinne  Oh, wow. I love pretzels.Kim  Or unbuttered popcorn. All those zero point foods.Virginia  The ones that I hear people fully reclaim are cottage cheese, but again, pivoting to full fat cottage cheese. Rice cakes surprisingly have a lot of devotees. That's one where I'm like, No thanks. People like the crunch. I don't know.Kim  The exercise stuff I remember more. All of that has just gone away. Corinne  Never going to do another Iron Man? KimNo, I am not. I just take little walks.Virginia  So much better.Corinne  Do you have any current favorite TV shows?Kim  Oh, my God. My favorite topic is television!I am watching The Wire for the first time. I watched season one and I'm obsessed with it. I'm going to start season two as soon as I have internet in my house again. I am a middle-aged white woman, so I love RuPaul's Drag Race. I am its main demographic. I'm watching that right now. There's a new season. And I'm watching The Pitt.Virginia  I can't watch The Pitt because of medical trauma, but I do think I would like it. I need a website that gives me spoilers, so I can pick and choose which episodes, then I can do it.Corinne  Our last question is what are you reading right now?Kim  Ooh, I'm reading Lindy West's next memoir that's about to come out in March. It's called Adult Braces.Virginia  🎉 Spoiler, but Kim did get Lindy to come on the pod soon. So get excited, folks!Kim  I've read all of her books. I think this is her fourth book and second memoir. Man, it's blowing me away. I love her writing, and this is beyond anything she's written before, not to disparage her other books, but this is a whole new level of vulnerability. It's so good. I'm reading Heated Rivalry, also. CorinneOh, fun!Virginia  I have both of those on tap to start as soon as I finish what I'm reading right now. I can't wait to read Lindy, and I can't wait to read the Heated Rivalry books, which I ordered from your friend's bookstore, Tropes & Trifles. Kim  That's awesome. My friend Lauren owns that bookstore. She's great. Her bookstore is great.Virginia  It felt like a really good way to support Minnesota, and also my own need for more gay hockey after Corinne got me into Heated Rivalry.Corinne  Finally! It took so long. Virginia  It did. People were so mad.KimIt took longer than it needed to.VirginiaI know. I just missed it somehow. And then I was like, Okay, I'm here. I get it.Kim  I'm in a romance group chat. One of the people in the group chat is Lauren, who owns Tropes & Trifles. The first episode hit HBO, the group chat lit up. They all just said, "All of you, watch it now."Virginia  Like, just stop what you’re doing.KimWe have to talk about this collectively. So I watched it in real time. It was a mandate.CorinneAmazing.VirginiaDelightful.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginia  Well, this was so fun. I'm glad we got to chat with you more. Before we wrap up, of course, we have to get you to give us some butter. What do you have for us?(Editor's note: my mind went blank, so we skipped to Corinne and then came back to me.)Corinne  I'm going to recommend a book that I'm reading right now and really enjoying. It's called Long Bright River, and it's by Liz Moore, who wrote God Of the Woods that a lot of people read last year. I've been listening to the audiobook version and it's great. It's kind of a detective/crime situation, but there's a lot of twists and turns, and finding out things about the main character that you didn't know at the beginning. I'm really enjoying it. I'm also not quite done, so if something crazy happens at the end, don't blame me. I think I have only an hour left, so I feel pretty confident recommending it.KimDo you know it's a TV show, too?Corinne  Oh no, I didn't, but that makes so much sense. I was listening to it and thinking it would make a great show. What is the show?Kim  Same name. It has Amanda Seyfried in it.VirginiaOh, I love her. KimIt's a great cast. It's actually a great show.Corinne  I'll have to check that out.Virginia  I love that book. Kim, do you want to go next?Kim  My butter is boba. I somehow had never had it even though there are great places all over Nashville that have it. But back to chicken tenders, near the place I live now, there's a little strip mall and it has a chicken tenders restaurant and a boba place. They're the only two things there. I went over there and they were so nice. They had me taste a bunch of stuff and they made me an iced coffee boba with a brown sugar top off. I'm obsessed with it. Anytime I'm there - it's actually across the street from where I am right now. Will I get one today? Yes, I will.Virginia  I think you need one after our morning.Kim  Why did I wait so long for boba? It's so fun and delicious.Virginia  I have to confess, I don't think I've ever had it.Corinne  This reminds me that there's an amazing TikTok of some guy trying boba for the first time. Virginia  I will endorse an item of clothing. It's fast fashion, which we know makes for a problematic butter, but I know I'm going to stand by this one because it is the third time I've bought this cardigan. It is the pranayama wrap from Athleta. I wear the 2x. It's roomy on me, but it only goes up to 3x. It's not a super size inclusive brand, but Corinne just said she doesn't care.Corinne  I never said that. I feel like a wrap is a flexibly sized item of clothing.Virginia  I agree. Athleta is a brand that frequently makes me mad because Old Navy is making plus sizes. You're the same company. The same as with Gap! I am at the point in winter where my perimenopausal self is cold and hot at the same time, and I can't wear my sweaters because I'm so sweaty. It's a real thing. You just get to a point where your sweaters are too warm, but it's still cold, and what are you going to wear?I've been getting more into the sweatshirt space, but even some of them are too heavy. This wrap is a really good one. It's lightweight, but it's warm, and it comes in different colors. I got this purplish-blue color on sale and I'm living in it. My butter is a layer that you can actually be warm, but not die in.CorinneAmazing.KimI support that. Virginia  Thank you, but I do acknowledge that it is not a great brand, and I would like them to make larger sizes. Kim, this was a delight! Tell folks where they can follow you, at your website and the name you don't like.Kim  The Blonde Mule everywhere is me. As I mentioned, I bought that name.Virginia  She owns it.Kim It’s easy to find me. TheBlondeMule.com is my newsletter where I write about books and pop culture. When I've got the bandwidth, I write essays. And then @TheBlondeMule on all the platforms.Virginia  You'll also find her in the Burnt Toast comments and Big Undies comments. And know that she is working a lot of magic behind the scenes here. You'll probably hear from her more every now and then, as well. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these.The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies.This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule.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!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your February Extra Butter episode! Listen to hear about:⭐️ Anti-diet GLP-1 life⭐️ Who gets left out when the tradwife aesthetic takes over influencer culture⭐️ Interrogating the ableism of not wanting to be on medication your whole lifePlus, serious stuff, like:⭐️ Corinne in a prairie dress⭐️ How long Virginia will last in a zombie apocalypse ⭐️ Why hot cheese is in for FebruaryTo hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.Join Extra Butter!

You're listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today my conversation is with Dr. Lauren Muhlheim. Lauren is a psychologist, a fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, a certified eating disorder specialist and approved consultant for the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. She's also a Certified Body Trust Provider and directs Eating Disorder Therapy LA, a group practice in Los Angeles. Lauren is the author of When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder and a co-author of the brand new The Weight-Inclusive CBT Workbook for Eating Disorders. Lauren joined me to chat about how she and her colleagues have been working to make eating disorder treatment less fatphobic, because, yes, that really needed to happen. We also get into why it's feeling harder than ever to treat eating disorders, or live with one, in this era of RFK, Jr., MAHA and GLP-1s. Plus what to do if your child is hiding food, lying or otherwise showing signs of developing an eating disorder. When do you intervene? And how do you do so in the most supportive way possible?If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscriiption is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 231 TranscriptVirginiaI am really delighted. We have been, I guess I would say, colleagues in this space, or comrades in this space, for a long time.LaurenComrades, for sure. VirginiaI've interviewed you for articles over the years. We're both in the fat activism world in various ways. You're someone I learn so much from. I'm very excited to have you here today. We are going to talk about your new workbook that comes out this month, called The Weight-Inclusive CBT Workbook for Eating Disorders. Do you want to give us a little background on how this workbook came to be? Then we're going to dive into my list of questions.LaurenI should introduce CBT for eating disorders. CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy for eating disorders, which is one of the leading treatments. I was trained in it back in the 1990s by one of the two main researchers who's credited with developing the treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy looks at what's maintaining a problem in the present. It looks at the relationship between thoughts, behaviors and feelings, and helps to sort out ways to solve problematic behaviors related to eating. Fast forward to present day, we've learned a lot more about eating disorders than back in the '90s when I was trained in the model. When I was trained, it was very weight-centric, focused on primarily low weight and "normal weight." You know, thin-ish white women, and that's who was largely studied. But now we know so much more - that eating disorders affect all people, all genders, all ethnicities and all body sizes. As I've evolved as a clinician over the last 20 years, I've really become influenced by the weight inclusive movement, Health At Every Size and listening to people with lived experience who have experienced harm from traditional weight-centric treatments. So I have evolved. And in my mind I had modified what I was doing, and when I went back to look at the manuals, I was horrified to remember what was still in there that was really weight-centric. This has been a passion project for the last eight years. I've collaborated and talked to different people about it. I ultimately teamed up with two colleagues who were as passionate as I am, and we came up with the idea of modifying CBT to be weight inclusive. We coined CBTWI to be weight inclusive, and we took the 30 year old manuals and updated them to be relevant to today and to speak to people in all size bodies. A lot of people come to us in bigger bodies and the old manuals were so harmful. You know, focusing on about being the right weight and other elements that were just not conducive to people in larger bodies when they go through this work.VirginiaCan you give a specific example? For folks who've never been in eating disorder treatment, or just don't know the world well, it's like, 'What do you mean eating disorder treatments are not weight inclusive? Isn't that where you go to feel better about your body?' Give an example of what CBT used to do that was harmful, and how you've updated it.LaurenWhen I was trained in CBT, I always thought it was a non-diet approach, because the focus is on regular eating and including all foods. So the center of the model is still good. But some of the fatphobic elements that were in the original treatment were - one was this insistence on regular weekly weighing and the client knowing their weight. And that if the therapist refused to weigh the client weekly, it was the therapist's own anxiety and avoidance of tolerating the client's distress over being weighed. But if you're in a bigger body, being weighed is more than just exposure. It can be traumatic. VirginiaYeah. LaurenWe don't need to put people through that, where every week they see their weight. So that's one of the first things that we eliminated. The other thing, there's behavioral experiments with a focus on challenging what they call the broken cognition. The broken cognition is this belief, and again, this was developed on primarily thin, white women who had the belief that if 'I eat a cupcake, I'll gain five pounds.' The behavioral experiment was to have them eat a cupcake, weigh them before and weigh them the following week, and prove that they didn't gain five pounds, but that's also hugely fatphobic. Because you're trying to prove to people that it's all in their heads, that weight stigma is not a thing.VirginiaWell, and you're saying, 'Look, the scary, terrible thing didn't happen.'LaurenWhich reinforces that that's the scariest thing.VirginiaEven what you're saying, weighing folks in bigger bodies can be traumatic, not because inherently it's bad to be in a bigger body, but because if you're in a bigger body and you've been weighed in medical settings, you've had that number weaponized against you for so long. That's the trauma you're alluding to. LaurenYes, exactly.VirginiaI see, so it was a lot of methodology around weight numbers meant to reassure thin women that 'Don't worry, you won't get fat.'LaurenExactly.VirginiaWhich really leaves out any fat person with an eating disorder, and doesn't really do the thin women any favors either.LaurenRight. Because it just reinforces this fear that weight gain is the worst thing that could happen to somebody.VirginiaThat's fascinating. It sounds like a lot of very much needed updates and a really terrific resource for folks. I saw in the back of the workbook under Resources, you listed Burnt Toast as one of the newsletters with an online community dialogue. It means a lot to have us spotlighted in this way. We do work hard to have our chat rooms and safe spaces in the comment section for folks coming for support. You also listed a lot of folks that we love and look to as leaders in this space: Christy Harrison, Ragen Chastain, Rachel Milner, Sabrina Strings, Bree Campos, Chrissy King, etc. How do you think about the importance of community in the work you do with your clients as you've been reframing CBT in this way?LaurenWe are big fans of yours and all the people you've named, and it was really important to us because here we are, three white women with privilege doing the updating of CBT and we wanted to take it further. It was really important to us that we learned from people with more marginalized identities. We negotiated with our editor to have sensitivity readers and we had people advising us on some of the things that we might not have been as aware of, like food insecurity, gender considerations, and the experience of people in larger bodies. As references, we tried to include some of the thought leaders that we've really learned from. Community is super important in this work because we're asking people to go against the grain of society. Many of the people that come to us for help with eating disorders are people in larger bodies who have been told by medical doctors and people in their lives to lose weight. And then they come to us and we say, 'Well, you're not eating enough.' And they think we're kind of crazy to say that. It really helps when you're asking people to do this work, which is so hard, to have other people in their lives who are supporting this. Many people don't have people in their personal lives who are anti-diet. Where do you find those people? A lot of it is online and in podcasts. I always tell people it helps, even if it's you and me and the person listening to the podcast. They're hearing the interviewer and the guest and there's two other people who are in this world with you. VirginiaThat's right.LaurenIt helps a lot. And I do think that is the missing piece for people in bigger bodies who experience disordered eating - they don't have the support.VirginiaEspecially right now. We're in a really dark cultural moment. You know, just like a swirling vortex of badness in a lot of ways. So it feels even harder, because what the federal government is telling us, what we're seeing in the news, etc, etc, is also running counter to what will actually promote healing. To that end, I'd love if we could talk a little bit about how you're thinking about your work in this dark time. We just had RFK’s latest USDA dietary guidelines come out. Lauren, how are you feeling about the new food pyramid?LaurenSadly, I feel like I am not going to be able to retire anytime soon. The culture just propagates and perpetuates disordered eating in so many ways. Obviously eating is so much more individualized than just following a guideline, but what I can say is that I have never seen a person with binge eating who was not restricting their carbs. VirginiaThat’s really interesting.LaurenCarbs are basically the building blocks of what we eat, and they should be. A lot of the people who complain of what has now been popularized as the term "food noise," are not eating enough, and especially not eating enough carbs or starches. I expect that we'll see many more people coming in saying, 'I'm preoccupied with thoughts of food,' or 'I'm bingeing,' or 'I'm emotionally eating.' In our work, and what our workbook focuses on, is 'Are you eating enough regularly throughout the day? Are you including the various food groups? Are you eating enough starches and fats?' That's the mainstay of recovering from an eating disorder.VirginiaFeeding your brain.LaurenYour brain needs glucose to think logically.VirginiaYeah, and not just at the tiny bottom point of the pyramid, but throughout the day. This is something I've learned from you that I want to make sure we say really clearly, because I think it's something people know but lose track of in their own work on these issues. Often folks come to you and say, 'I binge eat. I'm out of control with food.' When you start working with them your take is quite different.LaurenRight. All the eating disorders are really driven by restriction or not eating enough, and it's true that most people come to us and think they're eating too much. They're complaining about emotional eating or binge eating. As a cognitive behavioral therapist, one of the things that CBT therapists do is ask people to keep records. Early on I was taught to have people record what they're eating, and that really offers an insight into what's going on. In my group practice, we do a lot of training of more junior clinicians, including graduate students. It's really exciting to me when I have a graduate student who's been with me for a couple months, and I say, "Well, what do you think the diagnosis is?" And they'll say to me, "Well, I'm waiting to see the food records because the person's complaining that they're eating too much." But they know from having been through this a few times, that when you see what someone's eating, you see a lot of restriction, a lot of skipped meals, a lot of very sparse meals. People really do think they're eating so much because the culture is so focused on eating these very low intakes, and that's been kind of normalized on social media by wellness culture. People are really shocked when we tell them that they need to eat more, and that is the biggest part of it. Regular eating is kind of the antidote to all disordered eating. In our workbook, we're always like, 'Are you sure you're eating enough?' And I don't want to reinforce dieting by teaching someone strategies to prevent binge eating when they're not eating enough because I'm not going to be successful at that. Because that's the hunger drive and that's what keeps us alive. People may have short term strategies that work, but I definitely don't work on stopping the binge eating or the emotional eating until someone is really eating enough.VirginiaEating enough to support the idea that you would eat less at this one point in the day.LaurenAnd then most often, a lot of the binge eating and emotional eating decreases once people start to eat more regularly at meals and snacks. The food noise goes down.VirginiaLet's talk about food noise. The rise of GLP-1s has really popularized that concept, but also, I would say, as you noted, misdefined it in many situations. How is all of that discourse impacting your work with your clients right now?LaurenIt's definitely impacting us. We are seeing a lot of people coming in on GLP-1s, or contemplating GLP-1s. We always need to distinguish people who are on GLP-1s for medical conditions versus people on them solely for weight loss. One of the problems with being on them for weight loss is that they're on higher dosages, and that's where you get more side effects. We do get some people who come in complaining of binge eating or emotional eating, and then they're on a GLP-1 and they suddenly have no appetite. It's harder to get them to eat enough throughout the day.VirginiaRight. If you're trying to go back and say, 'Wait, let's look at where you're restricting,' and now they can't access any appetite to eat.LaurenOr they're nauseous and throwing up. VirginiaOh, God.LaurenWe have been successful in a number of cases in helping our clients advocate for their doctors to actually lower their doses. Sometimes that helps, but there's a lot of nuance, right? I think we don't know enough about the full impact of these medications. Might there be some benefit for people with eating disorders in certain circumstances? Maybe. But it's a scary thing, and it definitely makes our work harder when we're focused on trying to get people to eat regularly throughout the day.VirginiaThat concept's been getting a lot of media attention, GLP-1s as an eating disorder treatment. But it sounds like you have major reservations about that idea.LaurenBecause it does the opposite of the work we're trying to get people to do. Cognitive behavioral therapy is the best validated treatment. It was developed in the '90s and there's a lot of research to support it. The model is regular eating, including all foods, not being restrictive. And symptoms typically get better. We know that with weight loss, most people don't keep weight off long term.VirginiaRight, and most people aren't able to stay on these drugs long term is also what we're seeing in a lot of research now.LaurenWe do see some people who have been on GLP-1s and then they go off them and their weight is increasing and maybe the binge eating is coming back and starting again. It's a bit of a quick fix. That doesn't solve the problem.VirginiaIt's just rooted in that old thinking of binge eaters must eat too much, take away their appetite, solve binge eating, as opposed to what you've been steadily making the case for. And all the evidence is showing binge eaters are responding to restriction. And so a drug that encourages more restriction, how would that long term solve binge eating? I would love to also talk a little bit about managing eating disorders and disordered eating in kids. You specialize in teenagers. Whenever I have a reader or a friend, as I now parent a middle schooler, reach out with concerns. I'm always like, 'Check out. Dr. Mulheim's work. This is your first stop.' You're a big proponent of Family Based Treatment, FBT, for adolescent eating disorders. On your website you wrote, "I do not believe that parents cause eating disorders, but I know they can be an important part of the solution. Hence, I'm an advocate for the inclusion of parents in the treatment of their children."Let's talk a little bit about how parents can help. What behaviors and symptoms do you take seriously? How do you be part of that solution?LaurenThe first thing is that eating disorders in children and teens is harder to spot than you think. My advice to parents is, if you have concerns, definitely check them out. Some of the signs we see are stopping eating certain foods, eliminating dessert or not eating meals and saying they've already eaten. We may not see weight loss in in a child or a teen. They may just fail to gain, because remember, they're supposed to be gaining over time. Sometimes they're growing and they're not gaining, and that's the equivalent to weight loss in an adult. We also see things like social withdrawal. What looks like depression, poor sleep, or loss of interest in activities. It can look like depression or anxiety. Or complaints of stomach aches. A lot of parents go down the gastrointestinal route, trying to figure out what's going on. It can be very confusing. Family based treatment is a wonderful evidence based treatment. It was developed at Stanford and it's a manualized treatment that basically allows teens to recover in the home. Because traditionally, teens were pulled out of the home. Parents were blamed. There was this saying about how it was always the mother's fault.VirginiaOf course. Clearly.LaurenClearly following on the trend of the schizophrenogenic mother, the autistic mother.VirginiaWe cause autism. We cause eating disorders. LaurenThat has really perpetuated. I still meet people who say it must be the parents. I try to remember we're all in this culture and parents are doing their best. Parents are getting diet messages from all these other health professionals in our culture. I try to remember that they become the messengers of the cultural message. There is often dieting in the home, but does that cause eating disorders in itself? No. And we see that because not all siblings develop an eating disorder. A lot of parents diet and their kids don't develop eating disorders. We have to give parents a chance. The great thing about FBT is it's done through family meals and normalizing eating all foods. It's a great chance for families to come together. I find it very powerful when the parents are unlearning their diet culture with their teens. They're able to do that. Sometimes it's a little bit of a hard wake up call, but most parents can get on board pretty quickly. It's really powerful when you see a whole family change the way they've been eating. It gives the parents a chance to learn the information. Whereas if the teen goes off to residential, the family doesn't come along and then the teen goes back into that home, so it's challenging. It's a lot of work for parents because they become the treatment team. VirginiaIt is a lot of sitting at the table with a kid who doesn't want to eat, which, any parent, regardless of whether they've managed an eating disorder, can tell you that's a nightmare. That's really hard to do and often it can feel counter to some of the other messages we get. If you're looking at the Ellen Satter model of feeding kids, it will be very much not forcing kids to take bites, and in FBT, when you have a kid refeeding after a lot of restriction, you do have to require them to eat. And that feels really strange. Some of the interviews I've done with families who've done this, it is so moving to hear the parents work through their own stuff and come together in a different way to support the child. It's pretty transformative. For parents who are noticing some of the early symptoms, like hiding food, or kids may be lying about what they're eating, how do you recommend parents manage things in those stages? Like, okay, I'm keeping an eye. I'm probably going to talk to the pediatrician. Probably going to, you know, do I need to level this up? And also, how do I react in the moment to some of this stuff?LaurenWith as much compassion as they can, and in a non-shaming way. If you think that you know your kids are lying about what they're eating or hiding food, we really want to just encourage them to eat more with you. Which, again, this comes back to all eating disorders require people to eat more. If someone's hiding food, maybe they're not getting enough at meals. If someone is refusing to eat meals, they're not getting enough at meals. It's a good chance for parents to be more watchful, to try to make sure that meals are eaten and that teens and children have access to a variety of foods. That they're getting their nutritional needs met. A lot of parents, again, because the cultural messaging is so intense, think people should be eating less. If you've taken care of a growing teen, you see how much they need.VirginiaHow much your grocery bill has increased.LaurenParents may not be aware that their teens are supposed to be going through growth spurts. I do some trainings with Rebecca Peebles, who's an amazing pediatrician, and she emphasizes how teens are supposed to gain about 50 pounds as they go through puberty. Where are you going to get that weight if you're not eating enough. The growth pattern for a lot of kids is to grow out before they grow up. There's supposed to be this weight gain. We observe teens who are starting to gain weight to fuel this growth, and then someone panics, whether it's the pediatrician or a parent or the child themselves, and they start to restrict. That's the prime time for when anorexia can strike. If they had been left alone, they would have just gained and grown. Now you have to do all this work to get them back to that weight so that they can start to grow again. VirginiaI think that's so helpful to normalize. This is what we want our kids to be doing. I'm parenting middle schoolers and I am shocked sometimes how fast a group of 12 year olds can empty the snack cabinet or the ice cream freezer, but this is what we want them to be doing right now. When you see that hiding food behavior, parents often think they need to correct that behavior, instead of stepping back and thinking about what led to the hiding. And is this a food that you've given a message they shouldn't have as much of? Or as you're saying, are there other parts in the day where they're not getting enough? I also think a lot about the schedules these kids are under. They're at school all day, then they're going to sports or play rehearsal. My kid was out of the house for 12 hours yesterday. She was starving when she got home, and if you are coming with a diet mindset, you might be alarmed by that. But it completely makes sense that she didn't have enough time to eat during her school day and needed to make up for it. LaurenYeah. VirginiaWell, this is so helpful. Your work is reassuring and grounded. Whether folks are dealing with an active eating disorder or not, if you're parenting teens, if you're working on your own stuff with food, Lauren's work is an incredible resource. The workbook is really great, so thank you for that.LaurenThank you. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginiaSo we wrap up every episode of Burnt Toast with butter, which is our recommendation segment. Do you have any butter for us today?LaurenI've been having a lot of fun with gardening fruit trees in Los Angeles. It's been really fun. I just recently pruned a peach tree to get it ready to hopefully bud and produce fruit. Peach trees have to be shaped in a certain way. You don't want the central leader you've got to have key branches. So I studied, and then you have to reduce the fruit, which is very sad.VirginiaOh, you have to cut off baby fruit. LaurenYou have to cut off baby fruit because otherwise it just produces too much. You want to select which peaches are going to get bigger. That's been fun. And I'm growing an avocado tree. Pretty soon I have to go outside and spray it with sugar water to encourage the bees.VirginiaAmazing.LaurenTo hopefully pollinate it. I love that. I've been hand pollinating my passion fruit vine, which is a whole other thing.VirginiaI am so jealous that you can do all of this outside. I am currently raising a indoor orange tree because I live in New York and it is 20 degrees today. It is stressful. I have to tell you, Lauren, I don't think she's living her best life right now. I mean, who among us is in this time of year, but I just added a humidifier because I got a hygrometer. She was starting to lose leaves and her humidity was only 22% because it's so cold, even inside my heated house. It's so cold and dry. So my butter is going to be my humidifier for my orange tree. I'm hopeful, because she's got fruit on her, and it's starting to ripen, but she's dropping leaves because the air is too dry. It's high stakes over here right now with the orange tree.LaurenBeing able to grow outside. VIrginiaIt's more logical than what I'm doing, but I just love the idea of fruit trees. We do have, in my garden outside, blueberry bushes, raspberry bushes, all that stuff. But I wanted year round joy.LaurenIn California we have to get the no freeze hours berries.VirginiaIt's a whole different world over there. Fascinating. Well, yay! Here's for fruit trees for everybody! I don't know if I want to recommend everybody get an indoor fruit tree, because it is quite a project, but she is bringing me a lot of joy, as well as I'm stressing and over there filling her humidifier twice a day.LaurenRight? It’s a lot of work to take care of these trees.VirginiaBut I'm on it.LaurenI'll be back spraying my avocado tree with sugar to invite the bees.VirginiaYou know what? There's also something to be said for an obsessive hobby right now to just give you a little thing to focus on. I can do this. I can spray this tree with sugar water. Because there's a lot we can't control. So you know what? Fruit tree farming seems like a great use of energy. LaurenAnd then you get to eat them. VirginiaYes, exactly, and that's what I'm really excited for. And make delicious beverages and whatnot. Lauren, tell folks where we can find you. How we can support your work.LaurenMy website is https://www.eatingdisordertherapyla.com/. That's where my group practice information is, and my books are listed there. I have blog with a lot of resources for people with eating disorders, and for parents. My books are available wherever you buy books. They're both by New Harbinger Publications and The Weight-Inclusive CBT Workbook for Eating Disorders is available now.VirginiaAmazing. We'll link to all of that. Thank you for being here.LaurenThank you so much for having me.Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join. Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these. The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies. This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule. 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!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for a BONUS January Indulgence Gospel!This episode is free for everyone. If you enjoy it, consider a paid subscription to Burnt Toast! It's the best way to support our work and keep this an ad- and sponsor-free space. You'll also get behind some of our most popular paywalled episodes like: 🧈 Why is Katie Sturino Working for Weight Watchers?🧈Don't Go On the Pete Wells Diet🧈The Mel Robbins Cult of High FivesAnd more! (Find every Indulgence Gospel episode here.) Never miss another episode! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This episode may contain affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 230 TranscriptVirginiaSo today we are just catching you up on some general January news. These are things that are happening in our lives and the world. And then we're going to answer a few listener questions. CorinneThis is kind of my favorite type of episode, VirginiaSame. Do you want to go first? Do you have an update for us? Some news? CorinneOne thing that I've been dying to ask you, and I've kind of been holding back on is... have you watched Heated Rivalry. VirginiaI haven't watched it. CorinneOkay, but do you know what I'm talking about?VirginiaWell, I'm just going to Google it real quick.CorinneOh, my God. No! Don't even Google it. This is what you need to do this weekend. Wait, do you have a kid-free weekend because it's not kid-friendly.VirginiaOh come on, it’s a sports thing! CorinneThere is so little sports. Let me just tell you.VirginiaOkay...CorinneIf you're watching it for the sports, you will be disappointed. There' is no sports, okay? No sports. Basically, if the camera was one inch lower, it would be porn. VirginiaOh! Okay. CorinneIt's based on, like, gay romance novels.VirginiaOhhhhh it's the gay hockey players! Yes, alright. Watching. I am kid-free and I will be doing that this weekend. CorinneAnd I think Jack will like it as well. So I recommend you watch it together. VirginiaObviously.CorinneIt's very horny. Whoa. And I will say: I watched like, half of the first episode, and I was like, I don't think this is for me. And then it was, like, popping off on the Internet. So I was like, all right, I gotta give it another try. And now I'm, like, obsessed with Connor Storrie.VirginiaSo okay, is it like you're watching it because it's so absurd? Or are you invested in the characters? CorinneI'm invested. VirginiaYou're invested.CorinneIt's just like a romance novel. They're both different kinds of sports tropes. One of them's kind of like a tough guy from Russia, and the other one's a little softie Canadian. It's very sweet. And I think that the actors have a lot of chemistry. And you see their butts a lot.VirginiaWell, I'm in. We'll watch this this weekend. I mean, I have read many a hockey player romance novel. Some of them were gay.  CorinneThen you've probably read the novels.VirginiaI may have read the novels. Although I don't like hockey, I have to say, I'm never going to be a pick me girl for hockey. It's a confusing sport to me. CorinneThere's like, basically no hockey. Having watched the whole thing I can tell you nothing about hockey.Virginia You have learned nothing.Corinne There's like, cup that you can win? That's all I know.VirginiaOh yes. Wait. I want to call it a Stanley Cup? But isn't that the water bottles? Or is there also a hockey Stanley Cup?CorinneI don't know, Virginia and I don't care. Gay hockey forever.VirginiaDelightful. This is an amazing update. We are actually watching the second season of Bad Sisters right now, on your recommendation. So we do have to finish that up. I didn't think that it could pull off a good second season, but they really are delivering. And then in my parenting life, I'm continuing to work through Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my 12 year old. It's a delight. I really do feel like you maybe need to consider a Buffy watch at some point.CorinneNext time I have 47 hours unscheduled weeks.VirginiaI mean, you can chip away at it too. It's on Disney Plus! Oh wait, you probably don't have Disney Plus. CorinneMy bad. VirginiaNo that's fair. Well, it's been very fun we're in season four now for the Buffy fans in the audience. And it's going to start getting a little more violent. I'll have to feel it out. But I think we're, at the point of no return. That's a good TV update. Have you been reading anything good? I read a book that I think you liked, and I don't think I liked it. But I think I'm in the minority. CorinneWhich book?VirginiaHeart The Lover by Lily King.CorinneOh, my God, you didn't like it?!VirginiaNo. What am I missing? CorinneWhat didn't you like? VirginiaI felt like they were all so annoying and pretentious. Is it because I was an English major, so I don't like English majors? We're just pretty annoying, with all the literary references. Okay, we get it. You are boys who read books. I was just like, why would you sleep with either one of them? I don't get it.CorinneOh, fascinating. I mean, I was just sobbing for the entire second half.VirginiaIt does get sad in the second half, but I didn't like him, so I didn't care?CorinneYou weren't invested.VirginiaAnd it's not hard to get me invested in a health journey of any sort! I'm not going to spoil it for anyone, but—okay, spoiler alert! We're going to talk about it with spoilers, so that we can really get into it. If you didn't read that book, you'll want to skip ahead about a minute and a half. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈SCROLL TO NEXT SET OF BUTTER EMOJIS TO AVOID SPOILERS!Okay, I thought it was real weird that she gave a kid up for adoption, and then was just like, "But I know she's fine. It's fine. It's all fine." And yet she was so worried about the kid she did have who had health issues. I mean, of course she was worried about him— but she had just mentally been like, that one's fine. I picked good people. They had a nice photo. So I know she's having a great childhood. That was really weird to me. CorinneI mean, I felt like that seemed like the decision of a young, stressed out person,VirginiaYeah, maybe. And how she keeps talking about it is meant to be a trauma response?CorinneIt was a questionable young person decision.VirginiaYes, definitely. But it felt weird that she would never reflect further upon it as she got into her own motherhood. I'm not saying she was wrong to give the baby up for her adoption. I also think abortion exists, and that would have made sense. But I'm not saying she should have kept the child. I just thought, don't you think you would have gotten any more nuanced in your feelings about it as the years went on?CorinneThe book is her getting more nuanced about it. Right?VirginiaNot really! Not about the baby. She's like, Yeah, she's fine. I mean, she finally tells him about it, but.CorinneI don't know. I think she was kind of in denial about it, or just avoiding it, and then the book is her coming to terms with it. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈END OF SPOILERSVirginiaWell, I just felt like everyone was pretentious and unlikable. And it feels like everyone loves this book so much, and I don't know what I missed. CorinneHave you read her other books? VirginiaNo, this was my first Lily King, CorinneOkay, because there's also, like a connection to one of the other books. VirginiaWell, I'm not going to read it because I didn't like any of these people. But Corinne loved it, guys, so if you love it, if you've read it, let us know in the comments! I was just surprised. This is the first time I've ever not liked one of your book recs.CorinneI am a little surprised, but I think maybe I'm primed to like those college, academic group of kids books. That's a genre I really like. Virginia I think it's a genre I don't like. I think I actively dislike reading about people in college.CorinneYeah, it's interesting, because I'm not like, looking back fondly on my own experience at that time. Yeah. I think I just like, enjoy the dynamics. Did you read A Secret History? VirginiaNo, CorinneI love that book. So I feel like, this was maybe tapping into that.VirginiaI think I just think academia is very pretentious? CorinneIsn't one of your parents a professor? VirginiaYes I was raised by professors. CorinneSo maybe there's something there. VirginiaThree out of four of my parents have worked as professors. So yes. I grew up in academia. CorinneOkay, well, none of mine have. VirginiaWell, I am now reading The Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. It's about this woman, who's sort of lost  in her life and moves into a convent. And I keep thinking "Corinne would really like this book." CorinneIt does sound good to me. Virginia I don't know if I like it, but I do think you would really like it. Usually I'm a big do not finisher if I don't like a book. And I will say Heart The Lover was a snappy read. So I kept going. Because I was like, well, Corinne loved this book, so I'll keep reading to find out when I'll love it. And that was never, but it was a fast read, and this one is too. I'm moving through it quickly, but I think I do need to really root for the characters.CorinneThat's funny. I have a conversation like this a lot with my mom, because she doesn't like books where the characters are too flawed. We always say it like, if she doesn't like them, she, doesn't want to read it.VirginiaI am okay with flawed, but they have to be flawed and likable.CorinneThey have to have redeeming qualities,VirginiaAnd maybe some awareness of their flawedness in a interesting way?. I don't know. I don't need them to be good people, but I guess, endearing? And in these two books, I'm not finding anyone that endearing. But they are interesting, all right. CorinneWell I'm also extremely curious to hear about your 30 Day Strength Challenge.VirginiaOkay, yes! So despite the fact that in our New Year's Day episode, I was like, "We're not doing any January fitness challenges!" Three days later, I was like, Oh, I'm doing a fitness challenge. It's a challenge created by friend of the show, beloved podcast guest, Anna Maltby, who writes the How to Move newsletter. And she has a 30 day strength training challenge going on this month. And I saw it, and I love Anna, but I wasn't going to do it. Because I was just like, oh, I'm not going to do that. And then my friend Mary texted a bunch of us and was like, "I really want to do the strength training challenge. Who's in?" and I was like, "Oh, all right, sure, I'll do it with you!" And, it's very fun. It's getting me to work out consistently five days a week, which I never do! Oh, let me pause and say, we're going to talk some specifics on weights. If you don't want to hear numbers, skip ahead. Man, I'm just getting people to fast forward through this whole episode! We're done with book spoilers, but we might mention weight numbers. So if you don't want that... skip ahead again.CorinneAnd just to clarify, you mean weight lifting numbers. Not body weight numbers. BUTTER EMOJIS AROUND WEIGHT TALK🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈VirginiaNo, no, no, no. This has nothing to do with body weight. I am not doing this to lose weight. I am doing this to support my friend who wants to do the challenge, and because I kind of liked the idea of seeing what it would feel like to increase my weight training for a month. CorinneSo, my question is: It's a 30 day challenge, but you're not doing strength workouts every day for 30 days, right? VirginiaNo, Anna makes her programs very customizable, so you could really do anything. You could do one workout a week and be like, "This is my 30 day challenge." She lets you make your own plan. She does include a suggested schedule, which is six workouts a week, but only three of them are weights. It's three days of weights, two days of cardio and then a Pilates day. I'm trimming it down to five days. [Post-recording correction: It's actually 2 days of weights, plus a "core and conditioning" HIIT workout where only one move involves a weight. Plus 3 suggested cardio and Pilates days.]And my main goal for this is to see: Is this helping me reliably carve out a few more workout windows in my week? It's getting me to try out days when I wouldn't normally do a workout., and see, does it make sense with the schedule? If so, when I'm done with this challenge, then I'll reflect on, do I want to keep this schedule? Do I want to do go back to two days of weights but do a little more cardio? I'm kind of just using it as, a see how it feels to do more weights and more workouts. To see how it feels to do more movement, and then think about what kind of movement I think I want to keep doing. CorinneCool.Virginia Yeah. it's been fun so far. I did print out the little calendar and write down my plan, and I've been giving myself little stickers. So we love that. I'm only a week into it at this point, so it could all fall apart. But I think Anna's so good at creating challenges that aren't about losing weight. She says this is more prescriptive than her usual work. She is encouraging you to make a schedule and stick to a schedule, to give yourself some accountability, which I think can be interesting. But there's no weight loss goal. She really wants people to feel empowered to develop weightlifting workouts they do on their own, not with the aid of a video. And I love you Anna, but I'm not going to do that. I just want you to tell me what to do all the time. CorinneTotally. VirginiaI don't want fitness mental load, but I am following her advice to, keep track of how much weight I'm lifting. And then to see over the course of the month, if I can increase that weight. So right now there are some moves where I only use 10 or 15 lb weights. Can we go up to 20 or 30? We'll see! CorinneI spoke to someone else who is doing this challenge. They were very sore!VirginiaYeah, I'm pretty sore. Yesterday, we did a weights workout, and there was one move that required bands, and we didn't have bands. And two of my friends came to do it with me. So we substituted side planks for those moves, and it turned out to be quite a lot of side planks, and my obliques are real unhappy, But, you know, it's like, the good kind of sore where you're like, Oh, I did a thing, yay. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈WEIGHT LIFTING TALK OVERWhat about you? How's power lifting going these days?Corinneit's going good. I kind of haven't been going very much, because it was just December. Like, did I go at all in December? I feel like maybe just the first week or two.Virginiabut then you were driving to Oregon and back.CorinneYes, my mom was here and we traveled. So I'm kind of, getting back into it after a little break. And that's always a little hard. For the first couple workouts back, you're like, Oh, I'm weak. VirginiaOr I like to reframe it as, Wow, I can really feel like I got a hard workout without doing too much.CorinneSo that's where I'm at. Beginning again! VirginiaWell, it is the time of year for that. And also, I support everyone not doing workout challenges. One of my friends who's doing this challenge, as of this recording, has yet to do a workout even though we're six days in because she has Covid, poor thing. So I think it's really good to do these things, but not do them in a overly obsessive way. Oh and I have a low key goal for myself this year of improving my flexibility. I really would like to have an easier time getting off of the floor. CorinneIs that related to flexibility or not? VirginiaI think it's a combination of flexibility and strength. If I think more about my glute muscles, I can get off the floor more easily. But there is also some reaching involved, and I don't know there's mobility, for sure. And I feel like as I've been getting stronger, I've also been getting a little stiffer. And getting off the floor is hard. CorinneYeah, it is.VirginiaAnd it's not a moral imperative, but I end up on the floor a lot because I have kids, so I would like it to be easier to get out of that position. CorinneMaybe you need to get rid of all your furniture.VirginiaThat's the thing. That's what we'll do. CorinneBecause sometimes I sit on the floor when I'm watching TV. I don't know why. I'm just more comfortable. So maybe I should just get rid of all my furniture.VirginiaProbably that's the next logical step. CorinneI am not sitting on the couch while I watch TV. VirginiaBut make sure to keep it in your neighbor's house or your in-laws house. CorinneMy auxiliary house. VirginiaSo you can go work on it during the day. For folks who are like, what are they talking about? This is a reference to an episode we did where we looked at is everything a diet, and we looked at an article from Dwell by a man who had given up all of his furniture in service of his family's health. And we're here to say you don't have to do that. Chairs are great.Okay. The other thing I wanted to tell you about is my new orange tree.CorinneWow. This is an indoor tree.VirginiaIt's an indoor tree. It's my favorite thing I got for Christmas. My mom got me an orange tree, and my eight year old has named it Olive Piper. So it is Olive Piper, the tree. CorinneOlive the orange tree. VirginiaDon't overthink it. But it has two oranges on it! They're green, but I'm tracking them turning orange. My mom has an orange tree, and she's been getting lots of oranges off it. And I think she has better light than I do, but I'm really optimistic. It's an exciting new thing to obsess over.Corinne That's really exciting.VirginiaAnd if we do get oranges, how thrilling will it be?CorinneIt seems like an orange tree would smell good.VirginiaIt doesn't smell like anything right now, but I think maybe once the fruit ripens. CorinneOr I guess I was thinking of flowers,VirginiaOh yes, Well if anyone does indoor citrus, hit me up with your tips. Because I don't know a lot about it's life cycle, I'm worried about how much to water it, all that kind of stuff.CorinneI wonder if in the summer, you can put it outside.VirginiaWell, my mom strongly advised against it. She tried that and it was like an orange tree crisis. I guess citrus trees are prone to bugs and funguses and so if it's happy, just keep it where it is, just keep it happy. It's pretty big, too. CorinneShould we do some questions?VirginiaLet's do some listener questions.CorinneAll right. The first one is, What should I say to a friend when they are complaining about their own body?VirginiaOh, these are always such annoying moments. Truly, just annoyed for you. CorinneI think there are two sides here. One side is: It's clearly bothering you. And the other side is: Can you empathize with your friend who's clearly having a hard time. So I think you kind of need to balance how much it's bothering with you, with, how much it's bothering them. Do you want to just set a hard boundary? Like, "I'd rather not talk about this." Or do you want to be like, "That's really hard, my body bothers me sometimes too." VirginiaHow much do you think the relative body sizes of the friends matters here?CorinneI think if it's someone smaller than you, it might be triggering to you in a different way. And you might want to just set a boundary, versus if it's someone who's bigger than you complaining about their body. VirginiaYeah, I think it does matter. I think if it's someone smaller than you, it's okay to say, Hey, I'm sorry you're having a hard time, but I am not the person for this conversation. Wish you well with that, but I'm not the person for this. If it's someone bigger than you—I don't want to invalidate your own struggles with your body, but can you understand it more from the perspective of they experience bias and stigma that you don't deal with, and find empathy for it is harder for them to navigate seating or doctors or clothing access, etc. I think that has to play into it.CorinneThere's also layers of privilege with this stuff though, that you might not know about. Like a thinner person could also be more disabled, or a transgender person or a person of color. VirginiaGood point. CorinneAlso, there are no details in this question. Like, what are they complaining about? VirginiaI assume weight, if they sent it to us! CorinneYes, but maybe they're complaining about, my butt is too big for this chair, or people stare at me when I do XYZ thing, versus, just like I have flabby muffin top, right?VirginiaThat's interesting. I think if someone is just denigrating their body, that is harder to absorb as a friend than someone who's like, "I'm talking about what's difficult in my lived experience of my body." CorinneTotally,VirginiaBut on the other hand, of course, people do really struggle emotionally with feeling negative about how their body looks. So I'm not saying they don't deserve a place to vent about that. But if they're venting requires the use of anti-fat language, that's a problem. If your best friend is New York Times restaurant reviewer Pete Wells, I think you should set a boundary and say, "Pete, I don't want to hear about how you lost the weight of a basset hound." If the only way they can talk about their struggle is to invoke anti-fat rhetoric and language, I think you should set a boundary. CorinneI think that's a good way of talking about it. Like, what are they complaining about? Is it anti-fatness, or is it something else.VirginiaThe next question is a very fun one. Please tell us about your pets, including their names and origin stories.CorinneI'll go first because I only have one pet.  I have a dog named Bunny. I've had her for almost 10 years, and she's around 11. I got her from a shelter in Albuquerque when I moved here, or not long after I moved here. I had been knowing I wanted a dog, and I was living in a bunch of situations where I was not allowed to have a dog. So as soon as I entered a situation where I was, I got a dog. She's a pit bull. She was a scrawny little shelter dog. And now she's kind of entering her old ladyhood.Virginia11. Wow.Corinne I love her. She's also kind of bad. She's, not great with other dogs, not great with, like, smaller creatures in general. But yeah, she's my dog, so! VirginiaShe's allowed to have preferences and feelings about the world. I admire Bunny from afar. When Corinne drives to Maine, and I'm always like,"Come and stay on your way to Maine in New York!" She's like, our dogs can't be friends. So we haven't figured that out yet.CorinneAlso, also chickens. VirginiaWell, the chickens are in a coop. I mean, it's easy to keep Bunny away from the chickens. I promise, okay. Speaking of, yes, I have chickens.CorinneHow many pets do you have? Would you say?VirginiaI currently oversee? Manage? I manage a flock of 13 animals. CorinneWow. Does that include the chickens?Virginia That includes eight chickens. I would like to underscore that I am a cat person who would be happy owning one cat. One to two cats is, to me, the correct number of pets. I do like dogs. I am much more of a dog person now that I have a dog. But they are so much more work than cats. It's not even funny. It's not the same conversation at all. So if I had a different life, I would be a one to two cat person. However, I have a child who is an animal whisperer. Like truly, that is her love language, that is her passion, that is her whole world. And you're supposed to really try to encourage your children's interests. And so somehow, now I have 1000 pets. When the kids were born, we had, at the time, three old man cats that were dying off in their early childhood. And then once we were down to one cat, we got the dog. So we have a Bernedoodle named Penelope. And at that point, in 2020, we also had the dog, a cat named Walter, and a fish tank. And when we divorced, I said, I will keep the dog and Walter the cat who hates the dog will go to their dad's house and the fish tank went to their dad's house too. Oh, I'm sorry we also had a leopard gecko at that point. So I kept the gecko. And I've talked before on the podcast the story of Blue the gecko. I won't go into it now, but Blue the gecko did disappear for a while. So we adopted a second gecko, and now we have two geckos, Blue and Kat. And the dog, Penelope. CorinneWhat is the lifespan of a gecko?Virginia it's like 25 years. It didn't know that when I got a gecko.CorinneAre you kidding me?VirginiaNo. Blue and Kat and I are in it for the long haul. They can live a really long time. But I will say they are very low maintenance pets. When they're not lost in your house, they just sleep in their tanks all day, and you feed them wax worms every couple of days. It's no work. Compared to a dog, it's fine. They're less work than a cat. So for a while, we were a household of just dog and geckos, and then the kids convinced me to adopt two kittens, so we added Licorice and Cheese, our two cats. And Cheese is my favorite of all of the pets. And I tell all the other pets this all the time, because I'm always hoping to inspire them to be more like Cheese. Cheese is the most laid back cat. He's like, You do you. I'm fine. I'll come and curl up next to you, but I'm not in your business. I don't create drama. I don't create interspecies drama. Like Penelope and Licorice are always working stuff out. Cheese is my favorite child. Everyone knows this. And then after we were really at indoor pet capacity, I would say, with the two geckos, the two cats and the dog, Jack, came into our lives, and he really encouraged my 12 year old's passion for chickens, and now we have the eight chickens. CorinneWow. VirginiaAnd the chickens do have names. Let me see if I can do it. Pom Pom, Turkey, Shiva the destroyer, Lord Peanut of Doom, Peggy, Alex, Lily and somebody else. Oh, Thomas J Finnegans. CorinneWill you be getting any other animals. VirginiaNo. CorinneAsk your children.VirginiaI say no, okay, but I cannot with confidence. I mean, for sure, if we have a casualty, there will be a strong argument for replacement. I have held firm on no second dog, because as much as I love Penelope, they are so much work. Dogs are like adding another child to your home. And I don't want that. And I don't think anyone wants another cat, because, I mean, we make Jack do the cat litter now that he's here but none of us were real enthusiastic about litter box cleaning. So that’s the one downside of cats. And for anyone whose kids are pet curious: I don't think reptiles are actually great pets, because they are not very interactive or interesting. This is an unpopular position, but I think if you're inclined to go reptile and you live in a neighborhood where you can do it, chickens are a better option. They are also tiny dinosaurs and you get eggs, and they're more fun and interactive, CorinneThat makes sense. VirginiaAnd it's about the same work wise. They're not a ton of work. Also, just be a cat person, though. I mean, it's fine, nobody needs this many pets. But they do bring us a lot of joy.CorinneAll right. Well, on to the next topic. Question, do I need to buy a sex pillow? Instagram keeps making me think I do not sure if they are size inclusive.VirginiaI think you do. You don't need to buy one off Instagram. But we learned from Brianna Campos, when she came on to do our fat sex episode, that they are definitely size inclusive and, a really good option for fat sex. CorinneI feel like, if you're wondering about it, why not? At the very least, you have something to try out.VirginiaSee if you're into it. I wonder if Instagram keeps sending this person the same one they send me, which is like a very high end linen sex pillow. CorinneOh, wow. VirginiaCalled Tabu. CorinneI'm not getting advertised this. VirginiaWell, you will now. I've been curious about it. I've been, seeing the ads.CorinneI would definitely look into whether it's size inclusive. Maybe see if there are reviews from anyone? Or how strong the foam is? VirginiaAre we worried about it getting flattened? Are we worried about width? Like, you don't want to feel like something's narrow? You don't want it to feel like a yoga block underneath you? So maybe check some measurements. But I think there's got to be some good, fat-friendly sex pillows out there, because the sex wedge is really helpful for working it out with bodies with bellies. It gives you new angles to get to. We say go for it and report back and let us know. CorinneGo for it. VirginiaOkay, I will read the last question: Hi. I am wondering if you find that personal responsibility vis a vis sustainability to be a diet ever? For example, pledging to do something to help the planet in absolute terms. Like, I will never, ever drink bottled water. I will never buy a new article of clothing, etc. It seems blasphemous to say personal responsibility, efforts towards sustainability is a diet, but I'd be curious to hear your and Corinne's thoughts on it. I do think it's great and necessary to take steps to reduce, reuse, recycle, have a smaller footprint, use resources responsibly and sustainably, but sometimes the rigidity of people's rules around this and the moralizing feel familiar to diet culture.CorinneI do think it can be a diet. it's one of those things where you kind of have to find the sweet spot between it feeling like a restrictive diet, and not being so jaded that you do nothing. So it's not being like, I will never, ever drink bottled water, but also not throwing every plastic bottle you encounter in to the landfill.VirginiaI think anytime we're absolute about something, we start to enter into a perfectionist territory, which goes diet-y, fast—if by diet we mean using a set of external rules to judge yourself, setting high standards that are impossible to achieve, and deciding there's an arbitrary standard of goodness by which to measure yourself. Those are all the main components of how Burnt Toast defines a diet. And I can see them showing up here. But it doesn't mean like you're saying that the actual impetus to want to live more sustainably is problematic. I think it's that we are so used to feeling like if we're doing something, there's one right way to do it. That's how we apply a diet lens to this topic. And it's sort of ironic, right? Because the whole goal is to live more sustainably. And there is nothing less sustainable than a diet.CorinneI've definitely, felt this way about the sustainability fashion conversation sometimes where people are, like, "There's absolutely no excuse for shopping from fast fashion brands." VirginiaBudget, accessibility...come on, guys. CorinneHave you ever been a size 26 and needed a pair of pants immediately.Virginia I can think of so many reasons why folks need to shop fast fashion at least sometimes. And I just think anytime we remove the possibility for gray areas we remove the ability for something to be sustainable, I also think a lot of the steps that people take towards sustainability and get really obsessive about doing "one right way" are not necessarily the things we most need to happen to save the planet.What we really need is, big legislative change, industry regulation—all these big things. And it's not to say that personal choices don't matter, but you becoming overly rigid about bottled water is not going to make or break anything. So how is it useful? How is it getting you towards the goal? And at what cost? If we're always kind of moving the goal post on what's enough here, that's not useful. Which is not to say, don't do some of these things. But the absolutism, I see it all the time, and I think a lot people start those projects and are not able to sustain them. And I say this to someone who regularly feels like she's not doing nearly enough for the planet. So I'm not saying I've got to figured it out. There's certainly more I could be doing. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterCorinneWell, I think we made a podcast.VirginiaI think we did that! What's your Butter today?  CorinneOkay, my Butter is something which I also just recommended on Big Undies, but it is called Ponaris, kind of guessing on how you say it. And it is a nasal emollient. So it is like a little glass bottle with a dropper that is filled with oil and minty herbs or something.Virginia Beef tallow. CorinneAnd you drop it up your nose and it immediately drips down the back of your throat and clears everything out. VirginiaOhhhh....so not beef tallow. CorinneIt feels amazing. Someone recommended it on the Big Undies Fall Must Haves. And last week, I just, reached a tipping point where I was like, my legs are scaly. My sinuses are scaly. VirginiaI am becoming a lizard. It's too dry. CorinneIt was like a desert inside of me. And so I ordered a new lotion and some Ponaris. Anyways, apparently it was developed by NASA for astronauts to use in space as. part of their first aid kit. VirginiaOh, my God. Oh, my God. CorinneSo that’s science, if you've ever heard of it. VirginiaIt's good enough for the astronauts noses, guess it's good enough for my nose! CorinneIt's a little bit weird. But I do feel like it's really making a difference.VirginiaWell I totally want to try it. I also totally want to say that this is your second MAHA-adjacent recommendation.CorinneIs this one MAHA? I was thinking this was more like the solar shield. VirginiaWell it's in the woo, woo supplement territory. CorinneOkay, well, yeah.VirginiaWe're getting into ear candling vibes. People are going to be like, I love ear candling.CorinneIs that MAHA?VirginiaI don't know. CorinneI don't know that it is. Ear candling is, crunchy hippie, right?VirginiaBut it's the crunchy hippie that then circles back around to MAHA. I'm just saying, we're concerned and we're tracking. CorinneThank you for your concern. VirginiaWell, to make you feel better, my Butter is also going to be a weird nasal supplement.CorinneOh, amazing. Wow. We did not plan this. VirginiaIt's also perfect because this is the pets episode! Mine is a weird supplement that I'm giving my cats so I won't be allergic to them.CorinneWhoa, does that work?VirginiaI can't believe I'm saying this, but... yes, it seems to be really working. Question Mark?CorinneWhat is it? VirginiaOkay, it's a brand called Pacagen. It's a chicken flavored powder, and you sprinkle a little on the top of your cat's food. And they claim, I guess this too, is science. Question mark? They claim that it changes the protein in your cat saliva, and that's what we're allergic to. And cats lick their fur everywhere. So that's why you react to cat fur. I, despite being an avowed cat person, am allergic to cats. I live in a lot of denial about it, because I love them and wish to have cats, and don't wish to acknowledge the cat allergy that I live with, but I was reaching a point last fall where I was like, I mean, I am definitely, really allergic to my cats. Every time I pet them, my eyes were streaming and, you know, I wake up with a stuffy nose all the time. Is it sleep apnea? Is it cat allergies? Who knows? Anyway, someone on Instagram influenced me to try this because she claimed it totally worked for her. And I was like, whatever, we'll try it. And both Jack and I, within like, two weeks, were like, oh my god, we're really a lot less allergic, and I can pet the cat now and not have an immediate reaction.CorinneWow, that's amazing. VirginiaNow, couple of caveats.It's quite expensive. I'm locked in now, but it's like 60 bucks a month, or something. Like, it's not nothing, especially because I have two cats, so I need to buy, like, multiple things, and itcomes in these little, teeny bottles. Also, my family, who are all much more cat allergic than me, when they visited for Christmas, were like, You're crazy. We're still allergic to your cats. So I don't know what level of allergy severity it works for. I would have described my allergy as mild to moderate. But also I don't know, maybe they were having colds or something. Nasal stuff is very mysterious. It's very hard to nail down what's causing it. So we don't know. But it's working well enough that I'm going to keep buying it for the lifespan of these cats, I guess, and as long as I feel like it's still working. It's something to try, because otherwise I was like, am I at the allergy shot stage? And that felt like a whole big project. I hope this is helpful information for anyone else whose nose is dry and stuffy. You can put oil in it, and you can feed your cat something weird.CorinneAmazing. VirginiaAll right. Thank you all for listening. We would love to know what is new with you and what you're putting in your nose. Take that in whatever direction you want! Tell us in the comments. Make sure to rate and review us in your podcast player and tell friends where they can listen for breaking news about nasal substances. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies. Our producer is Kim Baldwin who also writes The Blonde Mule. 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!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your January Indulgence Gospel! Today we are talking about former restaurant critic turned diet crusader Pete Wells—and why the New York Times always spends January turning into a women's magazine from hell. CW for discussions of intentional weight loss and lazy fat jokes (from Pete), including some that are offensive to both humans and bassett hounds. You do need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month!Join Just Toast!Don't want an ongoing commitment? Click "buy for $4!" to listen to just this one.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈

You're listening to Burnt Toast! I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with the one and only Melani Sanders. Melani is a digital creator and the fearless founder of the We Do Not Care movement. If you are a woman in your 40s, 50s and beyond, you are very likely already in this club. Melani's viral club meeting videos, where she runs down a list of everything "We just do not care about anymore," are the kind of thing that my friends are constantly sharing and dropping in our group chats, and I'm sure it's the same for you. Melani perfectly articulates the pressures we're under, and when she names it, it feels easier to let it go. So I loved this conversation. Welcome to the Burnt Toast chapter of the We Do Not Care Club. Let's get this meeting started.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 228 TranscriptMelaniHello and welcome to all members of the We Do Not Care Club. I started this club for all women in perimenopause, menopause and post menopause. We are putting the world on notice that we simply just do not care much anymore. This is a special body liberation edition. Yay.VirginiaI'm so thrilled to have you here. I just love your work, and I'm a huge fan. So thank you for doing this.MelaniThank you for having me. VirginiaWell, you just kind of exploded into all of our lives in the last year. Where did the We Do Not Care Club come from? What's the origin story?MelaniThis was something that happened by chance. I was at Whole Foods in the parking lot. I was waiting on Whole Foods to open up because I was out of ashwagandha. Ashwagandha has been a huge part of my perimenopause journey. It is my prerequisite to life, that and coffee and a few other things. I got to have that. It helps me to feel more stable. I realized I didn't have any more. I woke up, and I keep it on my nightstand, and I turned the bottle over to look for some. And I pulled the cotton stuff out, and I said, 'Oh, crap.' And it was about seven something in the morning. They weren't open until eight. I was in the parking lot when it opened. When I got back in the car, I popped open my ashwagandha. I took the ashwagandha, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I honestly just didn't care much anymore. I didn't comb my hair. Everything was unstructured. I had on a bra that was half the size of my boobs, and it was, it was all out of order. And I didn't care that I didn't care. And I thought, I'd been a creator for a while, for over four years. And I said, 'You know what? Maybe I could start a club called a We Do Not Care Club.' And I hit record and I asked, "Did anyone else out there feel the way that I did, and if so, join me. Join the club." And sure enough, by the time I got home from hitting that record button, my phone was blowing up. It was blowing up. The notifications: "Absolutely, I want to join, I want to join. I want to join." Yeah, I'm in it, I'm in it.And sure enough, my platform grew to maybe about 500,000. The WDNC is at 6 million now, across all platforms. VirginiaUnbelievable.  MelaniI was gaining hundreds of thousands of followers per day. VirginiaOh, my God. How are you? Because that's a huge shift in your life.Melani Yes. In the beginning, I was very scared. I've freely shared emotionally what this is doing for me, mentally, all of it. I'm just openly sharing because I'm just a girl in perimenopause, and I hit record as it was happening. I didn't quite understand it, because when you get new followers, it's like, 'Oh, I got 100 new followers. Yay. That video did well.'But when you look and you're gaining hundreds of thousands of followers per day, it's like, 'What is going on?' I was trying to be sure, like, did something else come up besides this video? But then, typically, I'll post and I’ll post on several platforms at one time, and they were all going viral. They were just going. So it scared me. And honestly, in the beginning I ran because I wasn't the content creator that showed up every day doing a lot of content. Sometimes I don't post for a week or so. VirginiaYou're living your life. MelaniYeah, I'm living my life. I'm not stuck to my phone or to social media. I got very nervous, because look at me running my big mouth. I started a club and now I'm not even all there. I don't even know who I am most days. So how's this going to work out? I think I've migrated from scary to just a bit nervous. You know, this is the internet, and there are so many things that are so out of the box. It's very surreal. Very surreal.VirginiaWell, I feel like it blew up because you voiced something that so many of us are experiencing and didn't know how to voice. It's a good kind of blowing up. You're giving voice to this thing, women's experiences in our 40s and 50s and beyond are not talked about. It's not made visible at all. But I can imagine it's, yeah, coming with quite a cost to you personally. So thank you for your service on behalf of all of us.MelaniWell, thank you. The one thing I do want to add is that I feel as time has gone on, I've felt like I was meant to do this, if that makes sense. As I cry openly. I cut my computer off for a while. I really just examined everything that was going on in the sisterhood, all of the comments like, what do they see? What do they hear? And to your point, just being able to say things out loud. I'm getting stronger in that. But before this happened, balance was something that I really, really, really tried to master, if that makes sense. And just paying attention to Melani and what it is I need. I was on this journey before WDNC started. So now that I'm here, it's like I can apply all of those things that I have been trying to do to make my life better. I'm able to take that and put it into WDNC.VirginiaOne of the themes of your content that resonates with me really deeply, and I think with the Burnt Toast listeners, something we're always talking about is how to let go of perfectionism and these expectations that are put on us as women, as moms, especially around cooking and other domestic labor. One of my favorite entries on the list recently was 'We do not care if we said we were cooking dinner this morning. That was this morning's energy, and this afternoon is different.' And I was like, yes, that is how I feel today. Thank you. MelaniAbsolutely. That was when the coffee was hot.VirginiaDoes naming these specific things that you want to let go of, does that actually help you let go of those expectations for yourself?MelaniYes. The announcements are comprised of me and my thoughts, but also the sisterhood. I take a lot of the content from that. So collectively, if our sisters don't care about that, then we don't care about it either. And yes, it definitely does. What really helps is just we are all high fiving each other, and it's like, like you just said about the kitchen and cooking and all of that. Yeah, it feels good to know I'm not the only one.VirginiaWe're all not cooking dinner tonight.MelaniIf you're hungry, the kitchen's not locked. Figure it out. Figure it out. We got stuff to figure out.VirginiaThe main thing at Burnt Toast that we don't care about is diet culture. We are trying to make peace with the bodies we have now. We are trying not to keep chasing the dreams of the bodies we maybe used to have, or never had, but thought we should have. What are some of your favorite body related things to stop caring about?MelaniOne, and I speak about this in the book, in The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook, is my arms. It's one thing that I have been so… I've kept my arms covered up, no tank tops, for years. I have a 24 year old, and when I when I got pregnant with him, my body stretched out a lot, and I got a ton of stretch marks on my arms, and then I ended up having surgery some years later, under my arm, so I just felt like it just looked bad. And I covered it up for a very long time. And after starting the We Do Not Care Club, I really just started to take inventory to be sure that I'm living up to what I'm saying. And I said, 'You know what? I'm about to go put on one of them tank tops, and I'm going to go to TJ Maxx.' And so I walked into TJ Maxx with my tank top on, and I looked around, and I'm trying to figure out who you know. I know they're looking, they're judging, and nobody really gave a damn about my arms. I'm the one that cared so much. So now it is what it is, darling.VirginiaEverybody deserves to not be hot and sweaty. Tank tops are great. MelaniEspecially in midlife, tank tops are life. You look at how many years--my son is, 24 years old, and I went through all of this time, and it was in that moment where it's like, 'Girl, don't nobody care. You better show your arms.'VirginiaYou have a right to show your arms. It’s just a body. MelaniIt sounds so easy, but mentally for many of us, it's not. We know we will judge ourselves. We're waiting to be judged. We're comparing ourselves, and it's like the hell with all of that. VirginiaIt's true that there are times body things do get commented on. One of mine is the way I gain weight. I get mistaken for pregnant quite often. I carry my weight in my midsection and it's this awkward moment that for years, I was like, 'Oh God, am I going to look pregnant in this dress? Someone's going to say something. It's going to be this weird conversation.' And then I was like, 'Well, that's on them for saying the rude thing to talk about.' If they feel uncomfortable in that moment that is not my problem to worry about. They're the ones commenting on someone's body when they shouldn't be. And that really turned that around for me.MelaniYeah, exactly. The one thing that I really focus on now as I study the sisterhood is empathy. I have this saying, and the saying is, 'If our sister's coochie is dry, then we all have dry coochie.' And it pretty much means that her story is our story, and not everyone has that quick confidence or that ability to just turn it off. You know how some things just come so easy to some people, and it's like, it sounds so good, but then it's discouraging, because it's like, 'Damn, why can't I just let go of these insecurities?'I'm okay with being vulnerable. I'm okay with it. It's fine, although I still do have my insecurities, such as showing my arms. But I think together, just being able to share this stuff, we get stronger together. You know what I was going to do, and I might still do it. I think I'm going to go live and I'm just going to sit up there and show my arms, my under arms. VirginiaI love that. MelaniYou think? Well, seriously, I think I'm going to do that, and then, or maybe I can start a challenge or something, and it's like, post what you're most embarrassed about? And then I'm normalized, yeah, let's not, let's normalize it. How about it? Yeah, wow. I had coffee earlier, so I'll probably just wear out in a little while. But the inspiration is there now. No, seriously.VirginiaWe're recording at 9 A.M. There are a lot of big dreams.MelaniYeah, by 5 P.M., it's like, 'No, not doing it. Get out my face.'VirginiaDon't want to show the internet my arms today. MelaniThat's dumb.VirginiaBut I love the intention behind it. And you're right. I think it's making space for 'we are allowed to show these parts of our bodies and not feel shame' and not downplaying actually how difficult that is in a world that's been throwing us these messages our whole lives. You didn't think of the idea that you should feel bad about your arms, that's a society wide message that you've been fed since you were a little girl. So it is really hard work to stand up against that, and not every day is a day to challenge the patriarchy in that way.MelaniYeah, exactly. No. I was joking, but I do think I am going to do that. I think I'm going to start a challenge, and I think that that's going to be good.VirginiaI think it's a great idea. So you mentioned the book, The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook. Would love to hear a little more about this. The main thing I know is that the dedication is to the asshole who told you you had a computer box booty. So I read that and was like, 'Okay, well, I'm ordering it for everyone I know.'MelaniYeah, that was the intention behind it, for sure. And I wanted to preface it with that, we can have some words in it, but it's a bit of fun. It's what Melani is, and what I'm comprised of is there's a very humorous side to me, there's a very serious side to me, and then there's this educational part to it. So I think that we have to be sure, as we're going through this stage of life, in perimenopause and beyond that we can definitely say what we don't care about, but then we also need to have intention about what we do care about. Let's have fun with it. Let's have fun with it and talk about why we do not care what the back of our hair looks like. It's the front that matters. That's what we can see, and being able to be okay with that. But then, we have to still just kind of pay attention to how that affects us mentally. Like, we do not care if our room is junky, but at some point we want to be able to clean up that room and to dive into it a little bit. So it's just bits and pieces of some fun. Some pieces where it's like, 'Come on, girl, let's get up girlfriend.'And I'm sharing this through my own personal journey, from childhood to where I am now, and how I put over the years, a lot of expectations on myself, and now that I've reached midlife, it's like, as we said, the kitchen is not locked. That was a priority when I was raising a family and trying to be that perfect wife and make sure things are together. Now, it's like, 'Baby, I'm in survival mode. I don't give a damn about what y'all have going on over there right now.'Reprioritizing is where we have to be, and be okay with it. We're at capacity. We're at capacity. Don't add anything else to our plate. If anything, take something off. So that is the gist of The We Do Not Care Club Handbook. VirginiaI think a lot of what you're articulating is this larger inequity. I don't see a man launching a We Do Not Care Club. I don't think they need it in the same way. I don't expect a midlife dad to because he's been getting to say 'we do not care' his whole life.MelaniSince birth.VirginiaRight. He's been allowed to not care. And I think what I love about what you're saying there is, like, we're allowed to say we do not care about these expectations. But we can care about ourselves. We can care about our own values. And it'll benefit us to clean up the room at some point. But doing it because people are coming over and they're going to judge us, that's a different conversation.MelaniThat is exactly what the We Do Not Care Club is. Because we just have to come to a reality, you know, and be honest with ourselves. Because the pressure is real. Nine times out of 10, most things that we're doing in life is like, we do it because of what it looks like or feels like to others versus how it looks or feels to ourselves. Just being able to just migrate to that mindset of not caring if my house looks like this. And you want to come to my house? This is how my house looks. If you have judgment, don't come. But if you want to clean up, go ahead, get the broom. But before this, I would be like, 'Oh no, they're coming over. Let me run and do this, and run and do that.' And it's like, why am I driving myself crazy? Yeah, I'm already not all there sometimes. VirginiaAnd if they're really your friends, they'll come and sit with you with the laundry basket, like they don't care. That's the other power of the sisterhood you're building is we're all saying to each other, 'Oh, wait, you don't care about that either. Oh, great. We don't have to be more expectations on each other.'MelaniThat's right. It feels so good when you can just be around someone and you're not worried about them judging you or comparing yourself to them, or vice versa, and just live. There's such quality in those type of friendships.VirginiaMy group of friends now in my 40s, is just everything. These are the women who, like, have held you through so many hard things in your life, who are like, we're showing up for each other, and especially now in this life stage with parents who are sick and dying, or teenagers going through their big feelings, just all these really, real things. I do not have time to care if my house is perfectly decorated for the holidays.MelaniI'm so happy that you have those friends. I would say that I do, too, but so many of us don't. And hopefully in this sisterhood, we can find that connection with other like-minded sisters. And it's like, 'Hey, you can find your tribe here.'Because we end up - the pressure, the stress of caring so much - many of us internalize that. I was reading about this with suicide. As far as the suicide rate, it's because there are all these bottled up feelings of comparison, rejection, and not being accepted, all of those things. And I just hope that this is opening up the door to be able to be okay with who you are, where you are, and what season you're in. It's okay.VirginiaPart of the expectations game has been that you don't talk about what's really hard, right? Someone asks, 'How you doing?' You say, 'Oh, I'm fine.' 'Oh, hanging in there, you know.' And you don't really get into a real conversation. I think women are taught that we have to protect the marriage, protect the image of the perfect family, to the degree that then we don't let people in when things are hard and that's really dangerous.MelaniIt really can be. It really can be. And like you said, we're the nurturers, we're the protectors. Men are there, and thank you so much, men, but we have to really be the ones to keep it all together. And we're the ones typically that are falling apart.VirginiaIs there anything you've let go of? You talked about the arms. I'm interested if there's any other things that you used to really put pressure on yourself to do that now you're like, 'I've fully stepped back from that.' And 'Wow, I can't believe I used to care so much about that.'MelaniI think I'm a work in progress as it relates to not caring. I think it's more of a reminder, because subconsciously, I think we do a lot of things that we don't even realize that we're doing. Then it's like, once I sit with it, the quieter I become, the more empowered I become, and also the more aware I become. I think with me, body image has definitely been one. And maybe the clothes. I'm not really chic and aesthetic and I'm about to go on this tour. It's like, what am I going to wear? Because I got some jogging suits in there that I could throw on, you know? And I'm okay with that. VirginiaBe comfortable. MelaniYeah, be comfortable. Some things I'm extremely vulnerable. I don't care. But, like I said, subconsciously, I don't even pay attention to some things that I might be a little bit ashamed about, or worrying what people think of. I was trying to think of an example. A lot of it comes around, like, cleanliness around the house. Like, my baseboards. I looked at them the other day, and I'm like, 'Good lord!' And then I kept walking.VirginiaI don't consider the baseboards to be my business. They're on their own journey. MelaniThey are. VirginiaThey are not for me to know what they're doing. MelaniYeah, that's their life. This is our life. VirginiaMy eyes are up here. I'm not down there looking at them.MelaniYeah, stay in your lane. We stay in our lanes. And so that was a lane that I definitely bypassed and kept going because I can't care. One day.VirginiaFair enough. So you're publishing this book in January, and January is honestly, historically, a time of, like, so much caring, right? Like, this is when people are like, I'm going to start the diet, I'm going to start the new workout routine, I'm going to be a perfect, healthy individual and organize every closet. Was that deliberate to publish in January, to give us a little bit of an alternative? It’s like, you're giving us a really useful counter name, right?MelaniThis is going to be real helpful, right? VirginiaYeah, I think people need to hear it in January most of all. No, you don't have to go so hard, like, pace yourself.MelaniYeah, pace yourself. And it's so funny. The word "pace." I started therapy last year and my therapist, she wanted to come up with a word with me. And every session I would go, I go weekly, every session I would go, and I could not come up with that word because a lot of them were so cliche, like "intentional" or "growth," or "finding," whatever it is. But when she came up with the word "pace," I said, 'That's it.' I mean, for sure, this year, I have told myself so many times you have to pace yourself, pace it. So, unintentionally that word is my word. But as it relates to the intention behind the date? Nope. This book got started in June. Harper Collins, they are under the Harvest imprint. They crashed this book. They crashed it. And it's like that, 'We need it. We want it bad. It needs to get out here.' And I was like, 'Okay, I don't know the first thing about writing a book, but I can run my mouth.'VirginiaI'm not surprised they crashed it, having been in book publishing for a long time, I had a feeling that's what happened to you. It makes sense they want to get it out here right now, in this moment where we're having this conversation about your work. But I actually think the January timing is very smart. MelaniYeah, I like that you said that.VirginiaUsually by the end of January, everyone's exhausted because they spent the whole month trying to, like, not eat sugar and not drink any alcohol. I mean, maybe some people should not drink alcohol, but, like, they don't necessarily serve us to put all that pressure and external expectations on ourselves. So for you to be publishing a book that's like, 'Hey, here's another way to go.' I think it's brilliant timing.MelaniI'm so glad. It's funny because I did not put those two together. Yeah, January is definitely the year to start over, new me, new year, new everything's going to be perfect. And then by February, it's like, okay, let's scale that back a little bit. Did I say that?VirginiaJanuary is morning energy.MelaniYeah, right, it is! I like that. January is morning. So, what is February? February, I think around noonish, we're on that decline.VirginiaMarch is dinner, for sure. March is, we're ordering takeout. It's like, oh my god, winter's not over yet. And yeah, this is brutal. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginiaWell, to wrap up Burnt Toast, we have a segment we call butter, which is where we each talk about something we've just been really loving lately. Like, what is buttering your toast right now? And it can be a TV show or a book or something. It can also just be, like, a color I love, or, something funny someone said, like, anything that's brought you a lot of joy recently.MelaniSomething I would say that I'm loving right now is Melani. When this journey first started for me on May the 13th of this year, I was extremely fearful, and I doubted myself, and I said it so many times, 'I'm not enough. I'm not enough.' I had to decide, Melani, if you're not going to be enough, just go sit down. Girl, just go sit down somewhere and be quiet.Or it's like, you know what? Let's dive into this a little bit. And so I've decided that that is what I'm going to do. I'm not used to being at the front of the class. I'm used to being the person that's in the back of the class, or I'll be the one to get things together and definitely put that quality aspect behind it, and to be sure that we meet whatever goal needs to be met. I say I'm the sister that will hold the door for you and grab your pocketbook while you go up on that stage and do your thing. That is me. But I have had to to turn into this to do something different, and I'm being forced to challenge myself. And I wish that I had have had this kind of mindset, or this type of where it wasn't so forced some years ago, because that definitely would have been beneficial for me. What makes me happy now is my mindset towards where I'm going. And you know this sisterhood and collectively how I mean when you go through the comments and you see things, it is the beauty. It's the beauty in high fiving each other. Nobody cares what color you are, what religion you are. What kind of car you drive, what kind of pocketbook you have, what size your waistline is. Who cares? And so it makes me so happy to see that without judgment. So the whole We Do Not Care Club, and I guess myself, and today on this show, actually - it will be the first time that I'm going to give myself my flowers.VirginiaI love that you're giving yourself your flowers. You need them!MelaniI'm going to cry a little bit. I mean, I am really. I am just, no, just really thinking. I'm so thankful. You know, I'm thankful, and I'm understanding my value more. But I'm frustrated a little, just because it took me being forced into the situation. And it's like, damn, I'm 45 you know? If I had to do this at 30? So I pray that younger generations like have that. You don't necessarily have to be forced in situations, you know? If you have that inner feeling or whatever, bring it out girl. Go stand at the front. When you're in the back, get out the back. Go get on that stage. Speak up. Speak up. VirginiaYou don't always have to be the one who organizes behind. Yes, you actually get to have the moment too.MelaniYes, have that moment. And so I'm going to embrace this time. I'm going to do it scared.VirginiaI just think, like, on behalf of everyone who admires you so much and feels like you've given us this gift. We want you to have this moment. Enjoy it. Like, enjoy it for all of us. You know, because you deserve it, and you've really created something super special that we really needed, so thank you.MelaniI'm curious to hear yours.VirginiaWell, I've just been thinking because I was coming to talk to you, and thinking about again, about the sisterhood and the power of all of this. I've given this one in the past on the podcast, but I'm going to give it again to my book club, which is my kind of core group of ladies. We just had book club last night, and one of our members, her mom just passed, and she was coming back from the celebration of life for her mom, and it just felt so good that we could be there to welcome her back with a lot of cheese and a cocktail. Because that's what she needed. It’s been a time, and that we could all like, be together. So I think female friendship - your best friends in your 40s, which is, I'm lucky to have a whole, tier of those people. MelaniYes. And preferably within the sisterhood, the WDNC sisterhood, the bigger this movement becomes. I want to see us everywhere. In different rooms together. And as long as you hear WDNC, you know that this door is open and you can walk through it and you will not be judged.We're all in this together. We're like I said, 'If our sister's coochie is dry, then we all have dry coochie.' It's her story. It's our story. We're in it together.VirginiaYes, I love that. Well, Melani, thank you so much. This was an incredible conversation. I'm so glad to have gotten to, yeah, get to know you and talk with you.MelaniAbsolutely. This was definitely an honor to even you know just everything that's happening, but to even be able to sit here with you, I definitely appreciate it, and I feel empowered like what you got a little magic power over here on Burnt Toast. What is that about? Good Lord.VirginiaThe Burnt Toast is where we're a small group, but we yeah -MelaniYeah, small but mighty, right? And any ideas or anything within the sisterhood? I want to welcome ideas. This is only the beginning. So if you have ideas, sisters, the We Do Not Care, Club dot com, there are going to be places where you can go and just put your ideas in. I'm having teams being built right now because I want all of us to be - just feel heard. Yeah, so, and I'm trying. I am trying my darndest. VirginiaAwesome. Well, we are rooting for you, and everyone needs to go get the book, The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook. And if you're not already following Melani in all the places, obviously, make sure you do that too.MelaniAt (@) Just being Melani. "Just being Melani" across all platforms.Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.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!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for our annual Ins & Outs Episode! This is what we do every New Year, instead of making resolutions or setting problematic body change goals. It's deeply unserious but still satisfies that urge to reflect and make some (fun) plans for the year to come! Listen to hear... ⭐️ The pants Virginia forgot she was wearing. ⭐️ The food trends Corinne is SO OVER. ⭐️ Virginia's new religion!!To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.Join Extra Butter!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Happy 2026!!! To celebrate—and kick off the most diet-y month of the year!—we are here with a roundup of the very best anti-diet fitness advice in the Burnt Toast archives. If you find this useful, consider a paid Burnt Toast subscription! We're way cheaper than a gym or a diet app membership, and arguably better for your health too. And in addition to getting behind paywalled episodes and essays, Burnt Toasties get to join our awesome chat rooms like Team CPAP, Anti-Diet Ozempic Life and Fat Fashion! You'll find so much practical support, inspiration, and fat joy. Join us here! Don't diet, come hang with us! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links!Episode 226 TranscriptVirginiaHappy 2026! We made it. It's a whole new year. CorinneThank God, honestly.VirginiaSee you later, 2025. Excited to be here in a new in a new chapter.CorinneTo celebrate, we're bringing you a helpful episode to kick off the most diet-y month of the year: A roundup of our favorite anti-diet fitness advice.VirginiaI'm excited for this. I hope this is grounding to people and helps prevent you spiraling off into some new thing that doesn't serve you. We're also holding space for the fact that a lot of people do like fresh start culture. We will be coming to you next week with our annual Ins and Outs episode. So don't think we are immune from resolution culture! That's the Burnt Toast version of it. It's coming. All right. First up, we have an excerpt from an episode called “We Have Only Recently Acknowledged That Female Athletes Need to Eat.” This episode aired October 19, 2023. It's an oldie, but a goldie. And the guest was Christine Yu, author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes. And one of the main things Christine wanted us to understand was carbs are good for you.VirginiaI also want to spend some time on your very excellent chapter about diet and sports. This was so well done. It feels like nutritional science, athletic research— all of this research—has only just recently given women permission to eat as athletes, and to eat enough to support their sports. This feels really staggering to me, that there has been this underfeeding of women athletes for so long.ChristineConsistently. All the time. And I think it’s in part because of just general diet culture in our culture and society and these ridiculous expectations that we have or we place on girls and women in terms of what their bodies need to look like. And then you have the sports performance side, you have this idea that certain body types are the ideal athletic body types. It’s almost no wonder that we create this perfect storm and a way for disordered eating and eating disorders and all these other problematic behaviors to take root. Especially because bodies are so central, obviously, in sports and performance. And we focus so much on bodies and how they look, what their body composition is, and all of these different things, the shape of you, all of that.It’s wild to me that it’s only been recently that we do acknowledge the fact you just need to eat. We talked so much about nutrition and sports as this idea of fueling your body, which I think was at first kind of helpful in the way of reframing food within this context. Your body needs fuel to be able to do all this stuff, in order to start to give folks a little bit more permission to eat or feel like they could eat what they needed. But that, I think, even still creates this idea that there’s a certain kind of fuel that you need to be eating in order to be an athlete, in order to fuel your body correctly, if that makes sense.VirginiaIt’s, again, mind blowing, but makes sense that we had to first embrace the idea of eating, period, as opposed to eating being the enemy. You have so many heartbreaking stories from athletes in this chapter talking about feeling like they were so tapped out at the end of a practice that they couldn’t function and that when they started eating enough, they were like, wow.ChristineTurns out!Virginia“I can do a 90 minute workout without a problem!” The fact that they were performing at all when they were being asked to do it while starving is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous what they were being asked to do. Then seeing that immediate and logical shift that if you feed yourself, you can perform better. But then from there, this idea of food as fuel can also become very limiting because, of course, athletes are human beings, as well. And food is more than fuel for all of us.ChristineIt’s really easy within sports and athletics to look at food as almost a hack, in a way. Like, as a way to like fine tune your performance. Oh, I need more iron, or whatever other very specific thing that you need. And again, I think it dissociates food from what it actually is. I think that also just makes it really ripe to encourage a lot of these behaviors that aren’t always helpful or healthy.VirginiaYou also do some amazing work in this chapter dissecting a couple of the modern big diet trends: Intermittent fasting, keto, and you even look at some of the less extreme ones like the Mediterranean diet, and show how they underserve athletes and especially women athletes. I wondered if we could just spend a little time talking about your findings there, because that felt super important to me. ChristineIn the last several years, we’ve seen things like intermittent fasting and keto pop up within athletic communities as this way to make your body a better machine. Especially, I think, within endurance sports, it’s this idea that your body can run longer or you can somehow create these these efficiencies, if you will.But the body likes to be in homeostasis, it likes to be in balance. So anytime energy levels start to dip, your body starts to send out these flares that are like, “Wait a second, hold on. Are we going to be starving real soon?” Because if so, I need to make some adjustments, physiologically. So with a lot of these diets, you’re actually ended up with these long periods of under-fueling your body. With intermittent fasting, you’re not eating for anywhere between eight to many, many hours. So you’re leaving your body in this huge deficit of energy so it starts to freak out and starts to shut down these non essential systems.And the thing with women is that our bodies are much more sensitive to these downturns in nutrition. It starts to send up those flares a lot earlier, it starts to make those those physiological changes a lot earlier. That can have repercussions on things like your menstrual cycle and all the hormonal things that your body does. Similarly, with keto, this whole idea of eating a lot of fat and very few carbs might seem like, Oh, I’m really full, I don’t need to eat as much. But it’s the same idea that you end up inadvertently underfueling your body. But more importantly, especially for women, by not eating carbs, it sends up those same flares to the body. Women’s bodies, in particular, need carbohydrates in order to function well, in order to do all the things it does. And when we don’t have carbs, the body starts to send all these warning signs.We tend to see intermittent fasting or keto “work” in men because it seems like male bodies can get away with that under-fueling a little bit more than female bodies. But when women tend to try these diets they end up feeling, unsurprisingly, really flat, really fatigued, a lot of brain fog. They don’t see this performance boost and then they wonder what they’re doing wrong because all the podcasts, all the influencers, say I should be intermittent fasting. This is going to be how I’m going to lose weight. This is how I’m going to cut time on my race. This is how I’m going to improve performance, improve body composition, all the stuff. But I’m not seeing that. I’m feeling flat. I’m not seeing all these other positive benefits. It’s because your body is essentially saying, ah, this isn’t working for me.VirginiaJust because it works for Peter Attia does not mean—and question mark on if it even works for these guys? Thats the other thing I just want to interject. It might improve athletic performance, it doesn’t mean it’s not having other consequences on their mental health or their relationships with food and body. But that’s fascinating to realize specifically, if your goal is improving athletic performance—one of these diets is not going to deliver for you the way you’ve been told it might. ChristineEspecially the idea around carbs. I feel like carbs still have like a bad rap. People are still really afraid to eat carbs and I just want folks to know it’s not a bad thing. Your body actually needs it. It wants them. CorinneI mean, what can I say? Perennial wisdom.VirginiaPerennial wisdom. Really important. And it's just absolutely wild —the science she gets into about how little female athletes in particular, were allowed to eat for decades, and how much better everybody performs as a human being and an athlete when they eat carbs.CorinneYeah, this makes me sad. Okay, next we're going to hear a clip from an episode called It’s Time To Free The Jiggle. This one aired on December 14, 2023 and our guest was Jessie Diaz-Herrera. Jessie is a body affirming dancer, health and wellness influencer, and fitness enthusiast. You might know her on Instagram as curves with moves or from her Free The Jiggle classes. Jessie's advice is so helpful if you're thinking about starting about starting any new kind of workout or entering a new workout space, especially as a fat person.VirginiaThe first question is:Do you have any tips for focusing on how you’re feeling in your body versus imagining how your body could look? This feels especially hard with dance.JessieThis is a very honest and vulnerable question, but also very real. Especially in any group setting, whether it’s group fitness, group dance classes, there’s always this like, “How am I perceived by other people? How am I looking at myself in the mirror?” and that can be really hard. But dance is an art form, right? So let’s relate it to art, right? Let’s say our bodies are paint brushes. If I’m a paintbrush and you’re a paintbrush, you may have slightly different widths right. And my strokes are not going to be the same as yours, right? But we’re still creating art. We’re both still moving. We’re both still working through this. I think sometimes we like to compare ourselves to other people. Like, “I don’t look like the instructor.” But the instructor is more of a facilitator, right? They’re there to help you and guide you. Obviously, in more fitness classes, there’s a form and there are things that you want to make sure that you’re doing safely. But if it’s a feel good class, if you’re like in a cardio dance class where you’re just there to feel the rhythm and dance or like a Zumba type class and there’s nerves, bring a friend and laugh. Be in the back and laugh.Like, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been nervous about a class and I’ve taken a friend and we’re like, “We’re just gonna be in the back and try our best but also just laugh at each other if we’re a hot mess.” Let’s give ourselves permission to say, “We’re probably going to mess up and that’s going to be totally fine because we have the intention today of laughing at ourselves and being silly with with ourselves and trying something new.” And you’re just not going to look like the next person, so get that out of your head. Because this is your body, this is what you’ve been given. And how you move in this world is different. So sometimes, especially in dance, when it is an art form, I say own it. Own how you dance. Own how you move. It does not have to look like the the instructor or the person next to you. If you feel good, if you are feeling the energy. I know when I dance, there’s a weariness that goes away. There’s this feeling of “Yes, I just feel so good.” Like, I’m sweating. This is my favorite song. Tap into those other things, too.Maybe you’re not there yet with your body journey. Maybe you’re like, “I can’t stop comparing myself.” Well then maybe you’re thinking about other things within the class, like is this your favorite song? Are you hitting those basses? Can you get that move? Or is the rhythm really hype? Do you want to cheer on the person next to you?  I tell people at the beginning of class, “Hey, if you don’t want to dance, cheer for the person next to you.” Take a water break and just encourage them. VirginiaI also want to say to this person, do some of Jessie’s online videos. Because I am someone who has no dance experience. You know, white girl dance moves—that’s what I’ve got. It is what it is. JessieAll of those are safe here.VirginiaAnd especially being in a bigger body, I would feel self-conscious going into a group dance class. But what was really fun for me was doing Jessie’s videos in a room in my house without mirrors, because then I wasn’t constantly looking at myself and critiquing how I looked. I could just be in my body and I was able to tap into the joy you’re talking about because there wasn’t an audience. I was just doing it for me. If you’re someone who really doesn’t have a dance background, maybe try that first before you do the group class where you’re just going to feel really intimidated and depending on the context, maybe less welcome.JessieI teach kind of a myriad of different classes, but one of our mainstays is called “Free the Jiggle,” and we purposely jiggle. We purposely do things that we would say, like, I’m afraid to do this, we will do it. Kind of to laugh and also in spite of and really to say, why not?VirginiaIt’s a body. It’s moving. JessieYeah, exactly. Bodies do jiggle.VirginiaI really love this. I love embracing that bodies move and jiggle—and everybody's does, straight size, plus size, doesn't really matter. I think this is really powerful. And if you need to do that in the privacy of your own home for a while before you're ready to do that out in some group setting—that is valid, too. CorinneTotally.VirginiaOkay. Next up, I want us to hear from Disability Rights activist and author Emily Ladau. This is from an episode we did last year called I Don’t See Myself in Fat Liberation Spaces.Emily is a wheelchair user, and we had a great conversation about how ableism shows up in fat liberation work, but also in fitness spaces. And a cool spin-off from this conversation is that Anna Maltby, friend of the show, who we'll hear from later in this episode, developed a wheelchair friendly workout for her newsletter How To Move, after hearing this interview and connecting with Emily. Which I love. I love seeing fitness professionals taking wheelchair friendly workouts more seriously. And the big piece of fitness advice I want us all to take away from the conversation with Emily is that sitting down is not going to kill you.VirginiaOne 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.Cool beans, NYT.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.CorinneSuch great advice. Important.VirginiaEmily made me realize how much that anti-sitting agenda is everywhere, especially in the New York Times, for some reason. They're weirdly obsessed with standing desks there. And it feels similar to wanting to go back to a time before smartphones. Like, okay, maybe it's not ideal that so many people sit so much, but it's the way the world is now. It's what work is now. Unless you're preparing to completely overthrow capitalism and have us all spend our days doing different things. Regardless of ability, most people are sitting so what if we stopped being ashamed of it?CorinneI feel like this is just one of those moments where if you weren't aware of it, now you're suddenly aware of the way that we talk about certain things and how it's really fucked up for a whole group of people.VirginiaFor sure. CorinneNext let's hear from Lauren Leavell, a weight inclusive fitness professional with an awesome online workout program that Virginia is obsessed with. Lauren has been on the podcast twice, but joined us last summer to talk about some TikTok drama that erupted when a thin Pilates trainer made a video saying you shouldn't be allowed to take Pilates if you weigh over 200 pounds. This episode was called Stair Masters Are the Mean Girls of Cardio, and this conversation is a great reminder that you don't have to have the right body for any type of exercise or be really good at any particular sport. You're allowed to just do things because you like them.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.VirginiaYes, I love Lauren obviously. I'm obsessed with Lauren's workouts. but I also just really like how she thinks about this stuff, and I think it shows up a lot in how she teaches fitness. I mean, this idea that only certain bodies should do Pilates or do any sport, is absolutely wild. It's problematic at every level, but especially since most of us are not doing any of these activities with a hope of being the best version of that in the world.CorinneThis one is crazy too, because that was such a huge controversy, and then I completely forgot about it.Virginia It's a good reminder that the Internet is forever, but also these things do blow over. I can't even remember the name of the girl who made that stupid video. We're over it. You can obviously do Pilates if you weigh over 200 pounds. I did some last week. Last we're going to hear from my girl, Anna Maltby, who is an amazing anti-diet trainer, Pilates instructor and health journalist. Anna writes the newsletter How To Wove, which features weekly workout videos, which is what I do when I'm not doing Lauren's videos. Basically, my workout program is Anna and Lauren on repeat, and it's amazing. Anna has also been on the podcast twice, because whenever I find smart fitness people, I do like to keep bringing them back. And she came on last December 2024 to unpack some internet discourse that was happening then about whether core workouts are a scam. And what we distilled is: Strong core muscles are not a scam. They're really helpful for all the things we need to do with our bodies. But if you hate traditional ab workouts, you probably don't need to do those exact exercises to get a stronger core. And more importantly, you don't have to have flat abs to also have strong, functional core muscles. So this episode is called A Pudgy Belly Can Be A Strong Core, and I suspect that is really useful for a lot of us to remember right now.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.CorinneThis is a great episode. Anna Maltby is so smart.VirginiaAnd just like Lauren, se really helps me reframe some of the toxic messages. I had a really troubling relationship with core workouts for such a long time because of diet culture. But as someone who's really prone to back issues, they are super important for me to do. And being able to do them and appreciate the non-aesthetic benefits of them has been really helpful. So I really appreciated this reframing. All right, any final thoughts, any words of wisdom about how you're going to be navigating January Fitness culture? Is the entire month of January a diet, Corinne? Shall we skip it?CorinneWell, I would not like to skip it, because my birthday is in January.VirginiaThat's right! Corinne is turning 40 this month!CorinneYes, I'll be turning 40 and I will be not starting any new fitness programs.VirginiaLove this for you. I'm very excited. Do you ever start workout stuff in January, or do you just, like, kind of try to opt out of that whole piece.CorinneWell, it's funny because I just kind of passed my three year anniversary of starting to go to the lifting gym that I go to. And so I did start that in December, which is very close to January. But yeah, I don't think I'll be starting anything new. VirginiaYeah, same.Corinne It wasn't like a New Year's thing.VirginiaThat'sjust when you went. I don't have any new goals. Maybe this is the year I'll learn to do push-ups? We can always hope, right?Corinne Yeah, why not? VirginiaI don't have any plans to set out specific goals towards them. I feel like in the last year, I did a pretty good job of keeping movement in my life, even when my life was chaos, and that is new for me. Like, often I would have long periods of like, life is chaos, so I don't have time for that, and then my back would go out. So I feel like, if there's anything I want to maintain this year, it's just to keep doing things I enjoy and keep enjoying the benefits of having movement in my life—to whatever extent that makes sense for my life at any given point.CorinneJas your back gone out this year?VirginiaIt did go out over Thanksgiving. That was a bummer. But not as extremely as it has in the past. I was able to get it back on track in like, three or four days. Whereas I've had times where it's like two weeks of I couldn't stand up. It was just like, oh, okay. It's, you know, it needs some extra attention. And I think it was a stress response. ButterVirginiaMy Butter for this episode is that I'm lifting heavier weights now! That has been really exciting. I historically thought of myself as not a strong person. CorinneWait, really?!VirginiaEmotionally strong, whatever. Like, psychologically strong, yes, like, I'm a powerful woman. I know that. But I didn't think of myself as physically strong. CorinneI'm just like.. all fat people are strong. VirginiaWell, okay, I didn't start out life as a fat person, Corinne, so it's taking me a while to step into my power. I still had an inner skinny girl who thought she wasn't strong. But you're correct. And, you know, getting into weightlifting because of Burnt Toast, really, like you being a power lifter got me interested and meeting Lauren and Anna and all that, you know, like, a lot of it has to do with, like, conversations on burnt toast that I got into weightlifting and, yeah, upgraded to a heavier. I actually got kettlebells, two heavy kettlebells.[CW for numbers talk if that's not good for you!]CorinneWait, I want to know how much.VirginiaMy previous heavyweight was 20 pounds, and like when I do deadlifts, or--Corinne20 pounds in each hand?VirginiaYeah, I could do 20 pounds in each hand for deadlifts. So like, 40 pound deadlifts, 40 pound RDLs, 40 pounds for lunges, or farmer carries. And I have even been able to use the 20 pounds with some upper body, like, sometimes bicep curls. I can do that. And so I got two 30 pound kettlebells.CorinneWow.VirginiaI can definitely do both of them for a deadlift and an RDL. I'm working on a farmer's carry, like a grocery carry type of thing. I'm working on them for some other stuff. Just playing around with this idea of oh yes, you can lift heavier. CorinneAwesome.VirginiaIt's super satisfying. CorinneI love that. VirginiaWhat about you? CorinneWell, now I feel like I should have a fitness related Butter, but I don't have one. I'm also going to show you my Butter, and I just have to grab it. VirginiaI'm excited. CorinneOh, okay, this is a Butter that was also sent to me. It is a Butter that I'm giving to my little baby nephew.VirginiaOh, I'm excited to see this.CorinneIt is the cutest little sweater I've ever seen in my life.VirginiaI mean! There's a sheep on it.CorinneIt's from the brand Misha and Puff. This is an expensive baby sweater, let me tell you. It is nearing $200. It's also the softest thing I've ever felt, and it has a sheep on it.VirginiaI mean, so no pressure to your sister, but she has to have like, five more kids so that that sweater can get enough use. Because the thing about baby sweaters is they fit for five minutes. CorinneI know. It's 18 to 24 months. Virginia That's a good range. He'll be able to wear it for a while. But I'm just saying, like, she's got to have more kids now so you can have more cute babies in that sweater.CorinneYeah, yeah. I want to say, like, I was kind of skeptical of, like, a wool sweater for a baby, but it's just like, it's so soft.VirginiaI will say we are very lucky, I have several knitters in my family. So my kids had some hand\knit sweaters, including some handknit sweaters that my grandmother made for me when I was little, that we had handed down. So I think it's a totally great investment. Knitting is an incredible talent and worth supporting. All right, well, I hope this has everyone feeling good about the new year and what's coming up for us. I want to hear about people's fitness goals or lack thereof! We support it all.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈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!

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Happy Christmas if you celebrate! If you don't, happy Thursday where everything is closed! Either way, today we're taking a look back at your five favorite episodes of the year. If you enjoy the snippets you hear here, why not give yourself the gift of Burnt Toast? In addition to getting behind paywalled episodes and essays, Burnt Toasties get to join our awesome chat rooms like Team CPAP, Anti-Diet Ozempic Life and Fat Fashion! Join Burnt Toast for 2026! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links!Episode 225 TranscriptCorinneSo we dropped an episode on Thanksgiving Day, and we're back with another holiday episode. This time we're going to be looking back at your five favorite episodes of the year.VirginiaThis is so fun for me to put together every year. I think this is our second or third time doing it, and it's just really satisfying. Plus the top episodes are not always what I would have predicted! Some are, but some aren't. So a little background before we start: Since we moved platforms—we went from Substack to Patreon-—it was actually incredibly difficult to compare all the usual stats. The way Substack tracks episodes and the way Patreon does it—it's not an apples to apples situation. So this isn't the most scientific ranking. But I tried to find the different metrics we're interested in as podcasters —and I found the most popular episode for each of those metrics. 1. The Episode You Shared Most: Dr. Mara Will Not Sell You A Weighted VestVirginiaSo this one got the most shares on Substack Notes, on Instagram, etc. This is the one that people sent to other people as much as possible. CorinneI was recently recalling this episode because one of my friends texted me to say "What do you think about weighted vests?" And I was like, weighted vests have not gone away. VirginiaDid you say I wear a weighted vest all the time? Because that's what I say.CorinneMy weighted vest is my body. Yeah, I feel like we had a little chat about it. it's one of those things people have got to try for themselves. if you're interested in weighted vest then me being like, "eff a weighted vest" isn't gonna deter you, necessarily.VirginiaNo, no. Well, and they're not harmful. Dr Mara, who is a weight-inclusive doctor and writes the excellent newsletter Your Doctor Friend, was definitely not saying they were harmful. It's just this idea that as a perimenopausal woman, can never be not strength training. it's okay to just go for a walk as well, right?CorinneWell, and also, just the thing of, you need to be at least as lean as possible, but put the weight on your body. Just not as part of your body,VirginiaYeah, only weight you can remove. That's the deep irony. Let's listen: 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.VirginiaSo the excerpt we just listened to is Dr. Mara talking about urinary incontinence. The listener's doctor was implying that it was because of their weight. And we were just getting into how many health issues, especially in perimenopause and menopause, you're gonna hear that explanation for. And that's just not always true, and even when weight is a factor, there are almost always other treatment options besides weight loss. CorinneIt also makes sense to me that this is the most shared epsiode, because I feel like menopause is such a hot topic right now.VirginiaOh, it is. And we will continue to see this theme as we talk about our most popular episodes.CorinneOh, interesting, yes, for sure.2. Episode With The Highest Open Rate: You Can Count Your Protein And Still Be Nice to PeopleVirginiaSo for folks who don't know: "Open rate" means the percentage of people on the Burnt Toast newsletter list who actually open the email each time. It's okay, we know you don't all open the emails all the time. But it's helpful for us to know which emails get more or less opens than average. This podcast episode, when it got emailed around, had the highest open rate all year. It was the Indulgence Gospel episode where Corinne and I both talked about the diet-y or diet-adjacent behaviors we still participate in: VirginiaDo you personally have any diet-y somethings, Corinne?CorinneI struggled a little bit to think of some, but I actually feel like I have so many!First of all: Right now, I am wearing a fitness tracker.VirginiaOh my God.CorinneI wear a Fitbit. I love wearing a Fitbit. I am not one of those people who gets into a certain type of headspace about steps. I almost never look at the steps. What I love it for is the sleep tracking. I like waking up and getting a grade on my sleep, which might be—VirginiaYou like being judged first thing in the morning?CorinneYeah! It’s like, good job I did great. Or I find it kind of validating sometimes, like, if you wake up feeling like shit and you’re like, Yeah I didn’t get enough REM last night.VirginiaThis is a big revelation, because I have written pieces critiquing Fitbits, which you have edited and never told me.CorinneI go in and out of it. I will wear it every day for months, and then sometime I’ll take it off and just not put it back on. And this is part of where, like, I’m not addicted to it.I like getting the grade on the sleep. I like the watch element. I’ve never been a watch wearer, but then when I started wearing it and was seeing the time on my wrist, I was like, “h this is actually helpful to not be pulling my cell phone out to look at the time.”VirginiaYes. What must that be like?CorinneSometimes at the gym, I will use the stopwatch thing.VirginiaSure.CorinneSo it has a few elements that I like using that I could use my phone for, but it’s easier to just have on my wrist.Also, I would say I’m very susceptible to supplements, which feels diet-y to me.VirginiaThis I did know about you, because you are an electrolyte girlie.CorinneI’m an electrolyte girlie. I like electrolytes. I like fiber. I’ve dabbled in creatine, which is another gym one.PLUS: CorinneThat one we’ve talked about before because you’ve written about protein girlies or whatever, the growing popularity of people kind of tracking their protein and gotten a lot of pushback on that. Then I’m like, “Virginia, you eat protein powder.”VirginiaEvery day! Every day I have it for breakfast unless it’s like the weekend and I’m making eggs or something fancy. But yes. I am a morning protein girlie. I couldn’t tell you how many grams of protein is in it, but I do know I feel better and more functional if I have a significant amount of protein in the morning time. I have high protein needs then.Another of mine that’s maybe a little more of a mental game I play is when it comes to my exercise routines. As you know, I mostly lift weights, I do resistance training videos, and I walk the dog, and I always have a goal that every week, four of those workouts will happen.But if I know it’s a busy week and I’m not going to get in all four workouts, I think the math I do to decide which workouts I’m going to skip is often rooted in a diet-y place. For example, I’ll never give myself permission to cut the easiest workout.I’m like, “Well, you have to do whatever’s feeling hardest right now in order to feel like you did enough this week.” This is definitely a diet culture holdover, because why not just do whatever workout makes sense for my schedule, or it sounds interesting, and trust that over the course of life, it’s going to be enough? But I’ll feel this pressure that whatever I’m enjoying the least, I still have to do. I don’t know, but I have a weird sort of punitive attitude towards it. Which I often recognize and talk myself out of, but, that’s the starting point. So that’s more of a mindset than a specific habit.CorinneI think when we look at these individual behaviors, sometimes we’re reclaiming legitimately useful things that the diet industry stole from us—VirginiaLike Diet Coke!CorinneLike Diet Coke. So in these scenarios, reframing the intention can change a habit from diet-y to a form of genuine self-care.VirginiaLike you using your FitBit for sleep, not for weight loss.CorinneYes, I remember this episode.VirginiaDo you remember my being scandalized when you shared that you were wearing a FitBit while we were recording?CorinneWhen did this come out? Because you know what actually happened since is that my FitBit broke. It just stopped working. And I think I tried to replace it, and then that one broke, and I was just like, fuck this. So currently living FitBit-free. VirginiaCorinne is showing me her FitBit-less wrists. CorinneI do miss having the time on my wrist.VirginiaWell, they make watches. CorinneI've never heard of that. VirginiaYeah, this is an episode from last January, and we deliberately did it in January because January is peak diet culture noise time. And we were like," let's talk about some of the diet-y things we do," because we wanted to reduce the stigma. Because it's okay that you do some diety things, you can still stand up for fat liberation. We're all just flawed people. And sometimes you can reclaim a diet practice or product, and do them in a non diet-y way! Like, your FitBit relationship really did not seem diet-y to me at all. You could pick it up and put it down again. CorinneOkay, well, before we listened to the clip, I could remember what mine were, but I had completely forgotten what yours were.VirginiaDiet Coke and protein powder! We also talked about how I have a thing where it's hard for me to give myself permission to do an easier workout. So if I'm trying to decide which workout to do, I think I should always do the one that sounds the least fun. I think I've actually made a lot of progress on that issue this year! I really feel like I'm getting a lot of joy out of my workouts lately. So that's good. CorinneThat's awesome. VirginiaI would love to hear which ones other folks are either struggling with. Like, yeah, this is a little diet-y, but you know what? It's fine. It serves me in other ways. I think it's an interesting conversation, and it's good to be honest about it. 3. Episode With The Most Comments: How Much Did You Pay Your Pumpkin Stylist?VirginiaOkay. Next up we have the episode with the most comments, and it's really interesting to see what generates the most conversation. Would you have a guess about which episode it will be, before I say it?CorinneLet me think. I would think it would have been, like, maybe the Mel Robbins one?VirginiaWell, we'll get to Mel Robbins. But no, the episode with the most comments was the one where we talked about my love of porch pumpkins.CorinneWait, that was such a recent one.VirginiaIt was! It's because this was the episode where we talked about our problematic favs. And people really liked sharing their problematic favs. CorinneThat makes total sense.CorinneIs this just like putting a pumpkin on your porch?VirginiaNo, it's putting piles of pumpkins on your porch. CorinneOh, okay, I have seen people do that.VirginiaWait, there was a Wall Street Journal article. I'll find it.CorinneWhen I see people do this, I'm like, I'm tired. I don't have the energy to be stacking pumpkins on my porch.VirginiaAccording to the WSJ, "Families are paying north of $1,000 to create Insta perfect tableaus for porches and yards."CorinneOkay, so how much did you pay for your pumpkin stylist?VirginiaLet me tell you about me and my porch pumpkins. I've been craving this look for a few years, ever since Julia Marcum first posted it. And she bought fake pumpkins, which she just keeps on hand and brings out every year to make her pile of pumpkins. And I was like, well, that's actually a more like responsible way to do it, right? To buy and reuse your pumpkins every year?Except then I priced out her pumpkin collection, and it was like, $800 and I said to my then-husband, like, should I buy all these pumpkins? And he said, no.CorinneAnd that's why you got divorced.VirginiaExactly, yes. No — he was right. But every fall, I'm like, I kind of wish I had that. It looks pretty. I'm not going to spend that money, but it does look cool. So then this year the kids wanted to get pumpkins. And so Jack and I took them to a little local pumpkin patch, and I discovered the trick is to go the Saturday before Halloween. The pumpkins are on deep discount. And I now have 14 pumpkins on my front porch that I spent only $70 on.Corinne14 pumpkins is a lot. VirginiaIt is a lot! They just kept giving us more. I paid $70 for maybe, like, seven pumpkins. And I was still like, well, $10 a pumpkin. We'll feed them to the chickens. Jack's like, I can bake something with this cheese pumpkin. I was like, it's it's fine. And then they were like, here. Take more. Take more. I was like, well, now the pumpkins are basically paying me to be on my porch.CorinneSo funny. VirginiaI think it looks delightful and harvest-y, and I like that. It's a trend that works for both Halloween and Thanksgiving. So you can leave it up for a while. And then you could feed the pumpkins to your chickens, or bake with them, if that was the type of person you were, or throw them in your woods and let the deer eat them, which is what I would also do. CorinneWhen I was at my mom's house in Maine, we did get a pumpkin for her front steps, and it immediately got eaten by squirrels.VirginiaAnother reason to wait until the Saturday before Halloween. So you're not trying to make this trend last all fall. I think it's also like, at this time of year, I'm getting sad about the leaves falling. I'm getting sad about the coming cold, anything that makes me like anything better. It's a pile of pumpkins. They're pretty, that's all.CorinneThey are. The pumpkins in this photo are very beautiful.VirginiaYeah, no, that's the key. You don't just get orange pumpkins, you get the Cinderella pumpkins, the fancy gourds and whatnot.CorinneAnd also, how is this WSJ article/photo, leaving out the fact that there are 14 foot tall skeletons in the background?VirginiaYes, in that photo, they are also doing the very tall skeletons, which is a trend I'm not on because I don't know where to store it. Where does one store the 12-foot skeleton the rest of the year?CorinneI don't know. And those are also like $500, I think.VirginiaThey're not cheap. That's like $2,000 in Halloween decorations just on their porch. It's a commitment. And I didn't go that route, but I just enjoy it. That's all.CorinneDid you put them out and step back and rearrange them? VirginiaI sure did.VirginiaNow that I think about it, this episode is very similar to the episode where we talked about our diet-y habits. People just like us to talk about problematic stuff, I guess? CorinneThey like us to be three dimensional people with flaws.VirginiaI'm here for it. These are the most fun episodes to record, too, I think. So we need more ideas on this theme! I definitely would re-do problematic faves in a year or so to see if we have new ones. What are other what are other ways you want to hear about our flaws? Tell us in the comments. What else do you want us to fess up to? We'll think about it. 4. The Episode That Converted The Most Paid Listeners: Mel Robbins Has a PHD in Diet CultureOkay, now we get to Mel Robbins! The episode that converted the most paid listeners is a very important metric for us as podcast business ladies. Paywalled episodes exist to convert new paid subscribers, and that is how we pay all of our bills, and survive this lifestyle of making internet content. So I'm not shocked this was our biggest converter. Well, I guess my only surprise is that I honestly wasn't super aware of who Mel Robbins was before we did this episode. But then I realized she was, like, a pretty big celebrity, so it makes sense that this converted a lot.VirginiaDo you want to talk us through the morning routine post?CorinneSo, “this is the morning routine that’ll supercharge your energy all day.”Virginia“Backed by science,” that’s what she says.CorinneStarts with getting up when the alarm goes off. Once again, it’s not bad advice. Like, yes. But also is Mel Robbins telling you to do it going to make you do it? I don’t know.VirginiaSometimes you’re just not going to do that, and you might still have an okay day. It doesn’t mean the whole day fell apart because you didn’t get up the second your alarm went off.CorinneThe next thing, making your bed, tidying your space—another very common self help tip!VirginiaIt’s “the simplest way to practice discipline,” Corinne. “A promise kept no matter what.”CorinneI’m going to be honest, I feel okay with the first two. Number three, “high five yourself in the mirror.” Like, no. I’m never going to do that. I hate that. I really hate it.VirginiaI can’t stop laughing. She’s so serious in the photo. She has a selfie of her high fiving herself, and she’s so serious in the photo. Like she is earnestly high fiving herself.CorinneLet me tell you, “giving yourself a high five in the mirror rewires your brain to focus on self love and positive reinforcement.”VirginiaThe science behind that is all in her book, The High Five Habit. So there you go. The PhD level science that she’s done to confirm. I just imagine saying to someone actually struggling with depression or anxiety, like, “why don’t you just high five yourself in the mirror?” And, like, I think they would be justified in throat punching you. Like, “I’m sorry your mom just died. Have you tried high fiving yourself in the mirror?” Like, fuck you.CorinneThis is the thing, right? This is what we talk about. It’s like, exercising does make us feel better, but you can’t tell someone struggling, “Just exercise.” Like, this advice is good. Like, get out of bed, have a glass of water. Exercise. And, no one needs that advice. Everyone knows that.VirginiaHigh fiving yourself in the mirror I’m going to say is not good advice. Like, I’m going to say for most of us, that’s not going to be transformative in any way. It’s just going to be dumb.CorinneI have been surprised to see how much staying power her book has had. I'm still seeing people talking about it! And one of the things we talked about in this episode was the scandal around it being...VirginiaPlagiarized, question mark? Allegedly plagiarized? Certainly, some lack of clarity about source material and original authors? CorinneI just kind of thought that would make people stop paying attention to that book. But it really has not.VirginiaNo, does not seem to have made a dent. Also, I would have thought people would have stopped paying attention when she told everyone to high five ourselves. And yet, here we are. Have you high fived yourself yet in the mirror?CorinneAbsolutely not, have you?VirginiaAbsolutely not, never will. Truly terrible advice. And frankly, very patronizing towards anyone struggling with actual mental health issues. This is the last thing you need to hear, in my opinion.CorinneI think I agree with that.5. The Most Downloaded Episode of 2025: Is Dr. Mary Claire Haver Making Menopause a Diet? CorinneOh, back to the menopause.VirginiaBack to the menopause. This was a great episode we did with Cole Kazdin, 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. It's a really great resource about the industry of eating disorder recovery. And then Cole emailed me and was like, "Can we please talk about menopause and why it is a diet, and why I think so many millennials are going to get eating disorders in the season of life because of the diet culture being created here." VirginiaAll 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.ColeIt'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.VirginiaI think Dr. Mary Claire Haver is very similar to Mel Robbins in a lot of ways. I mean, she is a medical doctor, Mel Robbins has no relevant credentials to tell people what to do with their lives. But they have the same kind of energy on social media. They are both tiny women with a really good blowout telling you how to run your life. And you do not have to dig far to get into their super diet-y and anti-fat content. It's all right there at the surface.CorinneYikes. No, thank you. VirginiaBut this is a good episode. If you missed it, if you missed any of these, I recommend giving them a listen. What do you notice about these five? Any standout themes or observations? Other than, yes, we're all obsessed with menopause.CorinneDefinitely menopause. And like you alluded to earlier... flaws.VirginiaIt's interesting that there were two about problematic white lady influencers, which has been a cornerstone of Burnt Toast coverage for a while. We do a few of those every year, so I'm not surprised two of them made it into the top five. But then the others in the top five were like Corinne and Virginia just being humans.So that's kind of like a nice counterpoint. Because it's us just being messy people, right? CorinneTwo were about menopause, and two were about problematic white ladies, and two were about us having flaw. VirginiaThat's right, yes. One was about both menopause and a problematic white lady. We had some overlap, yes. Then the ones that were not in those two categories were us just saying, "here's some weird stuff we do."So, all right, more hot mess express in 2026. We can do it. CorinneOh God. VirginiaI mean, honestly, it's easier than trying not to.CorinneDo you have any further thoughts about those topics?VirginiaNo, but I'm curious to hear from listeners if you have a favorite among those five, or if you have a different favorite episode for the year?There were also a lot of little episodes that didn't hit the top metric on something but did generate great discussion or that I'm just really fond of. One that I really wanted to get in here was the interview with Jessica Slice, author of Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World. That was one that was second place for a couple of these categories. It did generate a bunch of comments. It did generate a bunch of shares, and I feel like really resonated with folks. So that's an honorable mention.CorinneThat's one that really stuck with me. I've just thought about a lot since I listened to it. I would say also maybe, the one with Lisa Sibbett.VirginiaYes! Lisa who writes The Auntie Bulletin. I loved that conversation with Lisa about community and divesting from consumerism. Perpetual Burnt Toast goals. Oh, it was such a good year making the podcast. It really was.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterCorinneOkay, I'm going to endorse a problematic Butter.VirginiaOh, a problematic Butter! We love it.CorinneBorderline. I mean, okay. I'm going to endorse this product, which was sent to me. So it was gifted. I received it for free. VirginiaOkay. Thank you for disclosing.CorinneI was just like, whatever. It's a lotion. It's called Talova. And I realized once I got it that it's made from...beef tallow.VirginiaOh, that you're rubbing on your body?CorinneI did have that realization after I started using it and really liking it. And I feel like beef tallow is one of those things where I'm like, I hear it and I'm like, that's MAHA-coded.VirginiaVery Huberman Bro. Yes. CorinneIt's like, the crossover point between lefty crunchy mom heading into RFK territory. VirginiaOh dear. CorinneThat's why this is a problematic fav. But I started using it before I realized that it was beef tallow. And I was using it, and I was just like, why is this stuff so good? I love it. And then I looked at the ingredients, and there's tallow and emu oil.VirginiaOh, no. Aren’t emu endangered?CorinneI don't know. I'm also like, is Emu oil what it sounds like? Okay, but I will say it's a body balm. It's incredible. It smells so good. It doesn't smell like beef or emu, it has a citrusy scent. It's my winter in the desert thing. It's so good. I love it.VirginiaI am confirming on the Internet that emu oil is a traditional Australian moisturizer derived from the fat of the emu bird, used topically for skin and hair care. Okay, Down Under listeners, we're going to need you to weigh in on this. Is Corinne being problematic using emu oil? Do we need to cancel her? Or is she allowed?CorinneIf emu oil is problematic, I think the brand could be canceled, not me. But anyways, I really like this product, and I'm sorry to say, it's made with beef tallow, and it's it really working for my dry desert skin, and it smells good.VirginiaAll right, all right. Well, I'm going to give a non-problematic Butter, just so we don't end the year on such a controversial note. My Butter, as you all are listening to this on Christmas Day, or perhaps during the winter break, is to go take a nap. I took a really great nap the day after Thanksgiving, and I thought to myself, why do I not take more naps on holidays? Usually because I'm busy hosting them and parenting my children, and it's difficult to do. And I'm here to say, if that's you as well, take 30 minutes just stop whatever you're doing and go lay down in a room by yourself and close your eyes or read a book, whatever. It is your holiday as well, and you deserve that.CorinneI'm a huge nap fan. VirginiaI am not a lifelong napper, but I've been getting into it recently. Or even if you don't sleep, just take some quiet, no people time. I think that can be really helpful when you're in the thick of holidays. CorinneAs a big introvert, 30 minutes alone can really turn things around for me.VirginiaAnd make you like the rest of the day! Instead of getting increasingly spacier and grumpier. So yeah, I want everyone to go take a nap either today or tomorrow or whenever. All right, this was a super fun episode. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈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!

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.And it's time for the episode we look forward to all year long—ever since we made it a tradition exactly one year ago! It is time for... The Year In Butters, where we look back at everything we've recommended in the past year and tell you what's still buttery and what has...gone rancid. If you're new here: Butter is what we call the recommendation segment at the end of every episode. It might be a new favorite food, a great book, an experience, or a state of mind. But since we give recs every week, some Butters stand the test of time more than others! Find out if we still love...🧈 Tracking Virginia's hydration? 🧈 Corinne's new shower head? 🧈 The $16 sundress Virginia bought last summer! 🧈 And so many more! To get the full schmear, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Membership starts at just $5 per month and is the best way to support our work! (Just want the Butter, no strings attached? Buy this episode for just $4.)

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Rachel Cahill, a longtime anti-hunger policy advocate based in Ohio. Rachel and her team support national and state-level organizations fighting every day to end hunger and poverty in the United States. Most of her work focuses on making SNAP (the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) the most effective, accessible and equitable program it can be in every community. JICYMI: When the federal government shut down this fall, it closed SNAP for the first time in the history of the program, pausing benefits for much of November. Benefits are up and running again in most places, but this has had major ripple effects on the state of hunger in our country right now. And it's led to a lot of long-term questions about what we do to prevent that ever happening again. Rachel knows more about the ins and outs of SNAP, and anti-hunger advocacy, than anyone I know, so I asked her to come on the podcast to explain what's happening, and what we can do to help fight hunger. We also talk quite a bit about how to give strategically because it is that time of year when a lot of us want to do charitable giving. Which is great! But there are good and less good ways to do that. Burnt Toast is a community of helpers, and I think this conversation will help us all be better at helping. If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work! Join Burnt Toast! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 222 TranscriptRachelI am a SNAP advocate. That's how I think of myself. That's my identity. I live in Ohio, and I have been working on SNAP, and the food assistance programs that are connected to SNAP, for almost 20 years. I started working on it in Philly, and have now worked in a number of different states. My passion is to protect our food assistance programs that help families meet their basic needs. If we had something better than SNAP in this country, honestly, I would work on that. But because SNAP reaches 42 million Americans, and it's the best safety net we have, that's the program that I've committed to working on. I do policy, advocacy, administrative, legislative—wherever we can fight for the program, we are doing that.VirginiaIt's incredible. I should disclose that we have a personal connection. I first met you, I guess, 20 years ago? When you were in college, you were a student of my stepmother, Mary Summers, who has also been on the podcast.RachelActually, I was a fresh out of college working in the community at the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. And Mary had students who she placed with us in a service learning program. Mary was one of my first and still mentors, who has supported me in lots of different ways through this career. And I think you did some interviews with Witnesses to Hunger? I worked on that program many years ago. So yeah, we've evolved a lot, Virginia, since those days.VirginiaYes! When I was researching my first book, The Eating Instinct, you helped connect me with folks for interviews. Rachel and I go way back in a shared advocacy spirit, sort of way so I just wanted to give people that backstory. And so I emailed you a few weeks ago to say, Rachel, help! Please come on the podcast. This was when the government was shut down and it had triggered the freeze on November SNAP benefits. At that point, everybody was scrambling, and I knew you were doing the most scrambling.  Of course, because of politics, the shutdown is now over. SNAP benefits are once again being distributed, for now anyway. But that is not to say that hunger has been solved in this country, or that the 42 million Americans who rely on that program are just totally okay now. You were like, "Do you still want to have this conversation?" And I was like, well, yes, because people are still going hungry! RachelYeah, thanks for the chance to talk about this! In the 20 years I've been working on food stamps, there has never been a moment I remember where SNAP dominated the headlines for two weeks straight. So on the one hand, I'm trying to see the silver lining in this massive drama to say it's a chance to educate everybody, including your listeners, about what the SNAP program is. It has been this quiet backbone program, running and feeding communities for almost 60, years. And during the shutdown, SNAP essentially got used as leverage for both parties to bludgeon each other with and blame each other for starving the citizens of the United States. It's unprecedented. I feel like that's an overused word these days, but this truly has never happened before. SNAP benefits stopped going out across the entire country. And the emergency food system—the food pantries, the soup kitchens, the food banks —was never meant, or equipped, to be able to overnight replace what SNAP is is doing in the community.Just in my home state of Ohio, we're talking about $263 million a month that goes out in SNAP benefits. No fundraiser for a food bank was ever going to come close to replacing that. It was a crisis. It was an absolute crisis that we were facing. So starting on November 1, people's benefits were frozen. They still had to complete renewal paperwork. They still had to comply with work requirements. But people weren't getting their benefits delivered. And then it turned into a Supreme Court battle. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court because the administration actually did have money available that they could have spent, and they were choosing not to spend it on the program that it was dedicated for. So finally, when the shutdown ended, the benefits slowly started flowing again. We're recording this on November 25 and in a few states, all the benefits still have not gone out. So there are still families who are supposed to get their benefits maybe the beginning of November, and are still waiting. The long-term harm of this is hard to overstate. The definition of food insecurity is not knowing where your next meal is going to come from. And we just traumatized 40 million people who did not know where their next meal was going to come from. 40 percent of SNAP recipients are children. Their bodies and brains are going to remember this trauma that they just went through, and it's going to be a long time before we can repair that harm. We need to make sure that this type of a crisis never happens again, and Congress is never in a position where they can hold SNAP benefits hostage, even in a future government shutdown. VirginiaI've been thinking about the juggling act that this triggered for so many families. If you relied on SNAP to cover groceries, that meant you could use other income to cover childcare or pay a utility bill. So we're also going to see folks having fallen behind on other bills. Maybe they're unable to make a car payment, which then impacts their ability to get to work, to get kids to school, so many different things.RachelThere's a saying that poverty charges interest. You might only have gotten $200 from that SNAP benefit, which supplements your work income. But if you're now having to put a bill on a short term loan or credit card and you're paying 20 or 30 percent interest on that because you waited three weeks...How long is it going to take families to dig out of that hole? We hear all the time about utility shut-offs, all the time about evictions that get connected to a small change in household income, including the loss of SNAP benefits. Now I will say, because we have made SNAP such a difficult system to navigate and renew benefits, even if the government never shuts down again, this uncertainty where your benefits disappear, you go to the grocery line to checkout and you find out that your benefits aren't there because of some paperwork mishap—that actually does happen a lot in families' lives. There's a lot we have to do longterm to make this a more stable program for everybody who's experiencing the instability of food insecurity. But this was certainly a crisis moment where it was hitting everybody at the same time.VirginiaSay a little more about that. Because for those of us who are mostly just seeing headlines, it's like, Okay, the government reopened. Okay, the SNAP benefits are back. But this is a system that was already not meeting the need. So what are some other ways SNAP struggles to support families?RachelFirst, let me just remind folks who don't know, if you've never been connected to the program: SNAP is a very modest food benefit. It is on an EBT card, like a little debit card, that is loaded every month with money for groceries. But it's the equivalent of, like, $6 a day on average. It is about as much as most people spend on a cup of coffee. It is not a generous benefit. There's a lot of misconceptions about what SNAP is. It's a very modest benefit you can only use for grocery items. The program—for as great as it is, and it's the best thing we have—has a history of exclusionary policy making. Certain groups have gotten excluded and carved out over time. And HR1, the big bill that passed July 4, really took a sledgehammer to SNAP, too. It cut almost $200 billion out of the program and did some additional exclusionary policy making, the impacts of which we're just starting to feel. So I put the barriers to SNAP in two buckets. There are eligibility barriers, meaning the people that policy makers intentionally exclude from the program. This includes groups like legally present immigrants. It includes people who are forced to prove that they are working over and over again, and if they can't provide the paperwork proving it, then they get kicked out of the program. So there is exclusionary policy making that has to be tackled at a legislative law making level. Then there's all this other stuff, which is most of what I've worked on for 20 years, and what I worked on with Mary twenty years ago. These are the kind of the administrative barriers that people face in tackling the program. Application forms that are 40 pages long, that ask extremely intrusive questions, asking for tons of verification. You have to do a full interview with a case worker, you have to renew your benefits at least every six months. All of these hoops are built up in the program to make people jump through, and that often keeps the folks most in need of benefits from accessing them. Not because they're not eligible, not because they don't need them, but because they just give up when the program is too hard to access. So we do a lot of work at the county and state level, state by state, red, blue, purple states to try to tackle some of those administrative barriers.VirginiaIt is wild that we think people need to work to have the right to buy food. And that we think people need to fill out 40 pages of paperwork just so you can buy groceries this week. RachelIn a number of states that have asset tests, you're asked for bank statements. You're asked for a copy of your rent receipt, your child care bills, how much do you spend on utilities every month? Applying for SNAP is harder than getting a house loan. It's harder than getting a business loan. It's harder than almost anything else, but that is the way the program was built. And there continues to be this persistent stigma or this narrative about unworthiness that has persisted in the program is so disconnected from reality. I'm hoping having this spotlight on SNAP, where we dominated the headlines for two weeks, does give a moment for people to take a second look at the program, really learn about what it is and start to fight for it. If you survey the American people, 90 percent of people, regardless of their political affiliation, will tell you that they think we should be doing more to help people meet their basic needs and pay for groceries, not less. But that doesn't match with what's happening legislatively in Congress. So we need people to know more about this program so that they feel like they have a stake in it. And I guess I just can't stop myself from saying one more thing: SNAP is so critical to our actual economy. One of the things that happened in the beginning of the shutdown is it wasn't just the folks losing that groceries on their table, it was the grocery stores they shop at, which, all of a sudden were saying, We have no customers, because 30 percent of our receipts come from SNAP and no one's shopping right now. I had a local store here in a rural part of Ohio which started laying people off immediately. Because they didn't know when those receipts were going to come in, and they don't have enough of a margin to be able to maintain their store without the program. So if we want our grocery stores to continue to exist and be in all parts of the country, we need SNAP. As that lifeline too.VirginiaWe agree we should be doing more to feed kids. We agree we should be doing more so that people don't go hungry. And yet, the program is built with so many barriers. And that's because there's this way we feel really good about fighting hunger—and it isn't the way that actually fights hunger.RachelI'll say two things to this. Because of the history of exclusionary policy making in SNAP, there is always going to be the need for charitable giving. And there's always going to be, I think, the need for a wraparound system that provides food in real time, today, for anybody who needs it. That's what the best food pantries and soup kitchens provide: No questions asked, walk in the door, get food today. But that doesn't solve the long-term problem. So while we are always going to need that, I think the reason there's this mismatch is this misconception about who benefits from SNAP. So, if you asked those same 90 percent of people who they think the most common person on SNAP is, they would say, "It's a 30 year old in their basement playing video games." It's the same stereotype and tropes about health care, about who benefits from the safety net. There's this misconception that there are people who aren't pulling their weight in society, and that's who's benefiting from these programs. But if you actually look at the programs, most people getting SNAP are elderly, retired, they're people with disabilities, they are children, and they're working parents. They are parents working sometimes two or three jobs, but in low wage work that requires the supplement of a SNAP program. This group of "non-working but capable people" that people imagine are benefiting from the program is a fantasy. And it's intentionally used by politicians who want to attack the program. That goes back to Reagan and before, right? It's a long political strategy that we have in this country. I've been really grateful in my career to see even the food banks and the rest of the charitable sector has come a long way in talking about SNAP as an integral part of feeding the community. Feeding America is a big association of food banks. And they will say: SNAP provides nine meals for every one meal that a food bank can provide. So I think the solution is not to say, "Is it charitable giving or SNAP that solves this problem?" It's actually the blend of the two that's going to make our community's food secure.VirginiaThere's a bit of moralizing, I think, that goes into this. People feel good about giving to a canned food drive, but not necessarily good about voting for policies that would protect SNAP. And with RFK and MAHA taking over the rhetoric around all of this, is that leading to even more policing about what people can spend SNAP benefits on, and what kinds of food we want people to have access to?RachelI'm going to first tackle the voting question. I think that very few people ever vote based on their beliefs or policy preferences around SNAP. I've yet to see a major political campaign where SNAP was a top issue that got talked about. That might change after the shutdown. We did see a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle come out in defense of SNAP when the shutdown started, and that was, I hope, a jumping off point for people to actually vote. But I think there's this disconnect. I think there's a lot of bipartisan agreement here that we don't see. When you think about folks who are anti-SNAP, if you look at the comment section of an article in the newspaper that's about SNAP, you'll always see online comments that are disparaging SNAP. But if you look one layer under the maybe racism and misogyny that are layered on top--VirginiaHard to look past it, but sure, I'm with you. Comment sections are not my favorite.RachelAgreed. But if you do look past, most people's story is actually about they themselves not getting benefits from the program. So it's often a story of, "I don't like SNAP because when I needed it, I couldn't get it, or because I wasn't able to comply with the work requirement and that wasn't fair," or because I was disabled, or my family member was and couldn't get the help that they needed.So I think that, like so many social compacts in our society, if we actually built the program to help everyone who needed the help from the program, you would see more political support for it. That's why universal programs like Social Security generally benefit from really high public support, because we don't do the kicking people out there. There's not this sense of "if this group gets it, then my group doesn't get it."Some of the realest conversations I've had about SNAP are with families and parents who are just over the income limit and are really upset that they lost access to that benefit once they got a raise or once they got a slightly better job. And that just fundamentally isn't fair. So if we brought in the program and make it more accessible, we would have higher political support for it, I think.All right, on your MAHA question, which I know fits very well with your audience in terms of like you guys track the MAHA stuff.VirginiaWe do. Unfortunately, that has become a core part of our beat.RachelThe great irony of 2025 is that SNAP is one of the single best things we can do to make America healthy again. SNAP has every research study behind it that shows kids who get SNAP as children have higher economic output. They're healthier as adults, they work more. Older adults are less likely to go to the hospital, less likely to go to the nursing home, if they have access to SNAP. The research is abundant, right? VirginiaIt's wild we needed research to prove that feeding people made them healthier, but okay.RachelYes, but we have it. It's rock solid. I spent too many years trying to help those research studies to get published in peer-reviewed journals. We know that to be true. You also have a parallel movement that's been happening for several years, where food banks have been working with insurance companies and other healthcare providers to make sure that they're doing tailored meals, meal boxes for people who are going through cancer treatment, people who have diabetes diagnosis. So these sort of tailored meals continue to be a trend. SNAP is a payer. Medicaid is a payer for those programs, all of those things improve health. MAHA, of course, is not about improving health. You guys know that.It has become is about policing food, right? That is what MAHA is about. And so SNAP was an unfortunately perfect target for MAHA. As soon as we got into legislative sessions. This is at the state level. In January of 2025, we saw a flurry of MAHA-supported bills that would restrict what people could buy with SNAP benefits. In some states, it was soda. In some states, it was candy baked goods. In a state like Iowa, it's literally everything. If it didn't grow on a farm in Iowa. If it's not a vegetable or a legume, it's not in the program. So you've got  these extreme proposals that came out of it was the same two or three lobbyists who came through. They were Casey Means, they were RFK-alliance folks who came through in the state houses. And the only opponents in those hearings were the SNAP advocates. It was the Morris Institute for Justice in Arizona and a couple of brave food banks in some of the red states who saw these bills, and they were there to explain to lawmakers calmly how they have been working, how SNAP supports health, how there are other alternatives. I will say there were some victories. During session in Kentucky, the advocates very effectively educated lawmakers that it would be better to incentivize healthier purchases — because all the research says incentivizing healthier purchases works better than restricting access programs.VirginiaYes. Letting people buy food works better than banning what people can eat. RachelAnd so they actually got a legislator to to come off of a bill that he had supported and to propose a new bill for an incentive-based program. So I think that education work in some political contexts was very successful.But then we saw the White House call governors and said, "Well, you couldn't get this through your legislature, so now you need to do it through an executive order." And that's where we really have seen the most harm done with these proposals that have come straight out of of governors offices under pressure from RFK. I think my long-term view of this is that we are going to have to see the harm done in a handful of states, and see how much of a mess it is for retailers. Still to be determined if retailers sue over these restrictions, which really put all the costs on them to police their grocery lines. I hope what happens is we have, at worst, a couple of states implement these rules, we see the harm done, and we walk it back. And we see that the MAHA thing was a fad that we recover from in SNAP. Because at the end of the day we're talking about a $6 a day benefit. People are not able to meet all of their grocery needs with SNAP, regardless. You may accomplish shifting the order in which people check out. Maybe we'll put all of our fresh, healthy foods at the front of the of the conveyor belt to use our SNAP benefits on, but we're still going to buy our kids the birthday treat that they deserve to have. So it's a big old waste of time, in my opinion. And I hope that it's a fad we are able to move on from in the long run.VirginiaI hope so. MAHA is the worst version of it, but we did have Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle arguing for no soda on SNAP back in the mid-2000s. So it does seem to be this thing that we keep circling back to. And I think it is part and parcel with "it feels good to do food drives, but not to make SNAP more robust." It's this idea that all poor people need is wealthy white people to tell them how to eat, and that will solve hunger.RachelYeah. You are right that that instinct has been there for a long time, and it it probably will outlive it. In a number of states the American Heart Association came out in support of these bills. We had some doctors groups come out in support of these bills. But where they would get stuck—and this is where these proposals quickly fall apart—is how do you define the ingredients of these processed foods. Even, let's say a soda. So you had, in some states, the proposal was, "anything with bubbles is a soda." And therefore you can't buy it with SNAP. But then you have the doctor being like, wait, I did tell my patient to buy the diet soda or the 30 calorie soda. VirginiaAnd what about seltzer!RachelIt's so arbitrary! And if you look at the way that grocery stores label their products, they're by category. They're not by healthy or unhealthy. There is no universal healthy or unhealthy label, as you well know. So it's all well and good when it's moralizing in the hypothetical. But I had to spend a solid four months sitting on a SNAP restrictions work group for the state of Ohio. It was appointed by our governor. And I was in there with industry folks, grocery folks, from health care talking about the nuts and bolts of how to put this into effect in Ohio, which we're going to have to do in the end of 2026. And once you get into the definitions, it falls apart very quickly. So I wish we could go back to focusing on the bigger important things, but I think we're going to have to keep re-educating people every time this wave of this fad, this intention comes around. People need to be reminded that SNAP is there as an economic support to supplement low wages. If we really wanted people to not need SNAP, we need to have a higher wage economy. And that would be a much more straightforward way to solve the problem. VirginiaIt feels very part and parcel with the whole ultra-processed food conversation, which, similarly, when people start defining it, they're like, well, wait, what is ultra processed? What do we mean? It's everything, which then quickly becomes nothing. RachelIt's a distraction. But here we are. We still work.VirginiaOkay, so it's December. This is the biggest month of the year for charitable giving. I think you did a great job of explaining there's a role for food pantries and food bank systems in all of this. But that's not the full solution. How should people think about charitable giving, especially this December, right now, given what we're up against?RachelI love that people are invested in charitable giving at the end of the year. I personally do the same thing, and I try to look at the organizations that are doing the most long-term policy advocacy, because I'm looking at the upstream solutions, and those are often the most under-resourced organizations. You can look at the 990s of organizations. You can look at their overall budgets online and see that your typical food bank, or really any direct service, often has a many millions of dollar budget. But an advocacy organization that's there to change a policy that would help a million people often has a budget of maybe a couple hundred thousand for the year. So when you donate to a policy advocacy organization or a legal aid organization, your donation goes a lot farther and is much higher impact. Because even if you can't give $10,000 and you can only give $200 or $50, you're going to make a really big impact on those smaller organizations' budgets. So that's one place I would think about. This year, I am doing a lot of donations around immigrant support, given the onslaught of what's happening in this country against our immigrant communities. There are a number of organizations, mostly small and sometimes kind of fitting into the mutual aid category, that are trying to provide direct support as well as legal support to immigrant communities right now as they're under attack. So that is what I think, in this moment, is a really good investment. At the same time, the charitable food system is very dependent on donations this time of year too, because lots of people in the community turn to them. They know that they might be able to get a turkey at Thanksgiving. They know they might be able to get a Christmas meal from them. So those are never bad investments. I do think they are very good stewards of the donations and the money that they get. But if you can look a little bit deeper in your community and see where a policy advocacy organization exists—every single one of your states has at least one or two core social justice organizations that would really benefit from donations this time of year.VirginiaAnd I'll just make the point that if you are giving to the local food pantry, think dollars over donations of goods, because they can do a lot more with your money. They can buy in bulk. They know more what their community needs, rather than you assuming that it's something you have in your pantry. That's that's probably like the least impactful way to donate.Rachel100 percent. And a very common mistake that well meaning people make all the time is donating products that are hard to readily consume. Donating a box of mac and cheese, but not the milk and the butter that goes with it. Or a can of beans that needs a can opener. If you're going to do canned goods, make it a pop top because so the people can open it. A lot of times homeless ministries really benefit from those canned soups or whatever, but they need to be accessible without a can opener. So if you are going to do a food drive—I know my kids' school does one, it's a great way for kids to get hands on experience with it being involved— just think through, could this be a meal on its own, rather than, is this going to be something that someone's unable to use without other fresh products?VirginiaLet's talk a little bit about mutual aid. This is something Burnt Toast as a community, we've been just starting to wrap our arms around. We did a very successful Mutual Aid drive at the start of November to help with the benefits shut down, and raised around $11,000 that we were able to distribute to, I think it was 62 folks in our community. So that was great. It's something we want to do more of, and I know a lot of listeners want to do it in their own communities. But there are some things that come up for folks. I've heard people say, "I don't feel comfortable donating to someone I don't know." And some of this, I think, is a little bit of that internalized moralizing stuff that we were talking about, where it's like, am I just giving money to a random person and I don't know what they're using it on? So talk us through your take on mutual aid and some of the concerns you hear coming up around it. RachelI think mutual aid is a beautiful thing that has existed for many, many generation. It hasn't just been in the modern online era.VirginiaRight now, it's a social media hashtag.RachelThat's right, that's right. But it's always been in communities, and you could talk to communities all over the country, and they would say they wrap their arms around folks and share what they have in times of crisis. And that's what the modern era of mutual aid is allowing us to do—but with people who don't live in our physical neighborhood, because we're so segregated as a society. My fundamental belief is that cash is the best way to provide someone with the dignity to make decisions for themselves on what their family needs in that moment. I have no idea whether you need a bus pass or a pack of cigarettes or money for rent or whatever you need to get through that day as a human being. You should have the autonomy to decide what that is. When I started this conversation saying I've worked on SNAP for 20 years, because it's the best thing we have—if we had a robust cash assistance program, I would work on that. There are really nice models in some communities of how to target mutual aid towards groups who are otherwise getting excluded from public benefits and other programs. Here in Ohio, we have a local, organic thing called AMIS, it stands for Americans Making Immigrants Safe. And it's a locally funded cash assistance program for families who are excluded from public benefits. They're seeking asylum, they're working with a lawyer to get their paperwork through. They're stuck waiting on their green card, whatever it may be. And so that is a way that cash can be distributed to folks who are getting excluded from SNAP and excluded from Medicaid. So I really like that program, because there are folks doing the work of the connecting. I don't speak the languages of everybody who needs connecting to that program, and I would never be able to find through Facebook those folks who need that the most. So I think that's a great model. But I also think another really cool model that evolved during the shutdown was an organization called Propel. They have an app that people use to manage their SNAP benefits. And we were talking as the shutdown was looming, and they were like, "What can we do? Should we encourage people to donate to food pantries or whatever?" And I was like, "No, just use your app to give people cash." And they did! They figured out a way to do it. I don't know how many millions of people that they helped, but they were giving a $50 cash payment to the same families who were losing out on their SNAP benefit. So I think that kind of creativity of just saying, "Trust people with $50 in cash and let them decide what they need in this moment." As the giver, you don't own the choice, right? If that person gets ends up buying something that you personally wouldn't spend your money on, that is not on you. And that is not a waste of a donation. That is you just putting goodness into the world and giving somebody else the dignity to decide with themselves what they need in that moment. So that's my take. Get over yourself. Just give people cash.VirginiaYes, yes. Thank you, Rachel. I love that so much. I think it's just a moment when you feel those thoughts coming up, and it's important to pause and say, oh, wait, this is me thinking I know how other people should live when of course we don't. Of course we are not navigating what they are navigating in a day. But we can all imagine how would it feel if whatever our source of comfort, or vice, or coping strategy is, was suddenly inaccessible because somebody was telling you it wasn't good for you. RachelAnd that's the beauty of what mutual aid can do. We do all the other moralizing in our public systems. Families in the child welfare system are heavily scrutinized and penalized. People who are experiencing homelessness are heavily scrutinized. People going through drug treatment, who have had a traffic violation. There are a million other ways we police people in society. We don't need to do that with mutual aid.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterRachelWell, as a longtime listener, I will say I've gotten great ideas from other people's butter. So thank you for having this segment. Honestly, the thing that brings me the most joy right now is reading Anne of Green Gables to my daughters. We are just about to finish the third book, which is Anne of the Island. And it's, you know, from a million years ago, set in Prince Edward Island in Canada.  I will say what is just cracking me up with each chapter is the way that parents are just as annoying in the early 1900s as they are today. Anne is a school teacher in one of the books, and the things that parents complain about, like my Johnny really deserved an A on that test, are all the same things that our poor teachers have to deal with right now. We have screens in our house. I am not some puritanical Little House on the Prairie mother, but it's the one thing we do before bed is we've been reading Anne of Green Gables. So now we're starting to binge all the different PBS series. There's Anne with an E, Anne of Green Gables. There are redos, there's a 1980s version that's amazing. So all things Anne of Green Gables right now are bringing me joy.VirginiaI'm so rooting for this in my own life. My kids don't take my book recommendations. So there is a copy of Anne of Green Gables sitting in my family room right now that I'm just, like, waiting patiently for someone to discover. If they know I want it too much, it won't happen. So I just leave things like that out. I'm really hoping to join you in this Anne of Green Gables magic soon.RachelYou can mention that Anne is a real troublemaker, that's what got my 10 year old into it. It was when I told her some of the snippets of the ways that Anne breaks rules. Then she was like, oh, all right, maybe I'll try it.VirginiaI love it. My Butter is a really good cookie recipe. It is a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe, which I was extremely suspicious of—it uses banana instead of egg and peanut butter. But they are so good and chewy and it's so easy to make that I've actually been baking them more than just scooping the store-bought cookie dough, which I will always be a fan of, because the ease is unmatched. But this is a really easy recipe. They're super delicious. I don't think there's anything healthy or special about them, but if you have someone who can’t do eggs or whatever, it's a nice option to have. And this time of year we need a lot of treats.RachelMy daughter's art teacher just told me that she's having a fully vegan Thanksgiving, and I was super impressed with her, and trying to figure out how I could possibly gift her something at the end of year. So I'm going to try your cookie recipe. VirginiaYay! Rachel, this was so helpful and informative. Thank you for everything you're doing. Tell folks, how can we support your work? If we want to learn more, where should we follow you?RachelThank you for having me on. I have been listening to, and learning from you for many years, both on the parenting side, with little picky eaters with your first book, and—oh my gosh, I want to show you my fan girl real quick. I'm sorry. Cut this out of the podcast, if you want. But here is a copy of—I know this is like, not a live video thing where your listeners can see me, but I am holding up Fat Talk. I was a pre-order! Let me show you, and I got it signed by you at your local bookstore. But anyway, I love your books, and I have learned a lot from you over the years. So I just want to say thank you for that. In terms of where you can find me, I mostly hang out on LinkedIn. I lead a consulting team because I don't like real jobs. So we actually do consulting projects for lots of different organizations that are all in the SNAP advocacy space. You can also find us at our website, and learn a little bit more about the advocacy that we're doing and the organizations that we work with. But we are always trying to build more SNAP advocates, whether as a volunteer, as a person with lived experience who wants to go and testify before Congress and talk about why SNAP is important, or just someone who wants to write a check and support organizations. We can always point you in the right direction. So feel free to reach out if you're interested in learning more about SNAP.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈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!If you've ever received food assistance, tell us what else people don't understand about SNAP in the comments. And if you'd like to help with ongoing Burnt Toast Mutual Aid efforts, fill out this form. We'll be figuring out our next round of support after the holidays!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your December Extra Butter episode.Today we've got a couple of rants and answers to your listener questions. On the agenda: ⭐️ The tyranny of School Spirit Weeks — especially during the holiday season! ⭐️ How it feels to date another fat person 👀🔥⭐️ How we're surviving — even thriving? — this Ozempic Season. To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.Join us here!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your Indulgence Gospel — Thanksgiving Edition! We often skip an episode drop on this day, but given how high pressure Thanksgiving can be for food, bodies and people, we thought...maybe you need a little Indulgence Gospel, a little Butter, and a little distraction from whatever your holiday weekend entails?We've got you: A Helen Rosner-inspired fashion epiphany. Thoughts and feelings about Black Friday. A very good Corinne clothing rant.Our secret shame places. And more! You do need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month! Join Just Toast! Don't want an ongoing commitment? Click "buy for $4!" to listen to just this one.

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Debra Benfield, RDN.Deb is a registered dietitian/nutritionist with 40 years of experience helping people heal their relationship with food, movement and their bodies. Her work sits at the intersection of anti-ageism, body liberation and trauma-informed care, offering a radically compassionate alternative to diet and wellness culture—especially for those in midlife and beyond. After turning 60, Deb began questioning the dominant narratives around aging, vitality and beauty, and quickly realized the majority of resources still centered weight loss and youthful appearance as the ultimate goals. In response, she created what she couldn't find: A framework for nourishing the body that honors body respect, prioritizes liberation and embraces the full spectrum of aging. Deb is the author of the beautiful new book Unapologetic Aging: How to Mend and Nourish Your Relationship with Your Body.  Deb came on the podcast back in 2023 and we had what was really the first, or certainly one of the first, conversations we've had on Burnt Toast about the intersection of ageism and anti-fat bias. That discussion helped lay the foundation for how we're continuing to talk about those issues. Deb is someone I always turn to for resources and wisdom as we're navigating those conversations here. I am so thrilled to have Deb back on the podcast today, to talk about her new book, how diet culture has hijacked the menopause discourse, and why peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are actually giving you all the protein you need.  Unapologetic Aging comes out on December 16, so now is the perfect time to pre-order it as a holiday gift for yourself, your mom, or anyone you know in midlife and beyond! And don't forget that if you've bought Fat Talk from Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off your purchase of Unapologetic Aging there too — just use the code FATTALK at checkout.And if you value this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 220 TranscriptVirginiaWe are here to talk about your new book, Unapologetic Aging, which comes out on December 16. I loved the book. I think it's such a valuable contribution to this whole conversation. It's really a guide to living well in midlife and beyond without, as you put it, "the whole diet and wellness mess." It's also a very powerful reckoning with how our ageism and fatphobia prevent us from doing the things we really want to do at this time. DebI'm trying to create some awareness of our internalized ageism, because I think it goes unnoticed. If anybody is listening to your podcast, my hope is that they've already done quite a bit of work looking at their anti-fat bias. So then it's about looking at where those two meet, as you notice changes in your body. So I created a book that helps you with your awareness and with how you could look at making choices to support yourself and mending some of the body stories you carry about your aging and about changes. That includes being in a larger body, and some pieces around body image and intimacy. Body liberation as you age is such an important legacy for the generations to come. VirginiaI want to start with something I underlined right in the introduction. You wrote that we so often hear “You haven't aged a bit!” And this is considered a grand compliment, right? But you're immediately questioning why. Unpack that for us.DebAgain, hoping that your audience is already aware of how “you look great,” if you lost weight is a problematic thing for someone to hear. It's very similar. It's a very parallel compliment in that you just calcify this belief that looking older is bad and looking younger is always better. That very definite binary that we impose upon ourselves. It is very much like looking thinner is always a victory, and looking larger must mean you're failing in life. VirginiaIt's so interesting when you step back from it. Why do we not want to look like we've been living? Why would I want to look like a younger, less accomplished, less mature person? Not to criticize my younger self—but why wouldn't we want to own the aging that we've done, and the living that we've done? DebWe've just internalized all of this fear. And I get it. I understand that to pass as younger gives you more social collateral, and theoretically you lose relevance in our very ageist culture. So I get it. It's disempowering to say the very least. And it's a perpetual fight. I'm not a fan of fighting my body overall. And I think that's what's at the center of my book: What happens when you stop fighting, and instead befriend, and care for, and lean into the connection and relationship you can have with your body? How beautiful it is, especially at this time in life. There's so much liberation there that I'm very attracted to that for myself and anybody that wants to talk to me about it.Join Burnt Toast! VirginiaI have a kind of funny story to confess. As I was reading your book, a moment came up where I had to recognize, oh, this is my own internalized ageism showing up. The backstory is my boyfriend, Jack is nine years younger than me. So we have an age difference. And he was talking about a friend, and he referred to her as "an older woman." And I realized the person he was talking about was the same age as me, and I immediately was like, "What do you mean older woman? Why are we using the phrase older woman?" And he just looks at me and he's like, "Babe, it's a good thing. That's a neutral description. It's a neutral term." And I was like, oh, I need to reclaim "older" or "old," just like I've reclaimed fat. So now our joke is, if you say older women, you say, "parentheses complimentary," to clarify that it's meant as a good thing. DebWe're just socialized to think “older” is negative.VirginiaObviously you shouldn't even need that parentheses!DebWell, we all do. I do it too. We all do. It was just so deeply, deeply ingrained, just like all the stuff around anti-fat bias.VirginiaI remember last time we talked about language when you were on the podcast. And we were talking about how we like “elder,” but there are other terms that do feel more negatively imbued. So it's not necessarily that you have to reclaim every term around aging, but it is worth looking at why is this term hitting you this way?DebAnd we may be different in the way things land with us, too. I mean, clearly with you and Jack. VirginiaYeah, totally. I was like, Okay, called out for my own ageism. So something you write about quite a few places in the book is this phenomenon of what you call “super agers," which we see constantly on social media. They're always showing up on Good Morning America. Super agers are folks who are over 70 or 80 and still windsurfing or doing yoga or  rock climbing. It's pretty much always some incredible physical feat that someone's doing in their later years. And we have such a tendency to celebrate that, but you're very clear that that's not necessarily a straightforward celebration of aging.DebWhen I was thinking about this, I was also watching the New York City Marathon. And all the celebrations tended to be focused on people with disabilities, older ages. It was very interesting to me. And larger bodies! All of them are grouped together as celebrations because they pushed through some sort of social limitation to accomplish this thing. And again, as always, there is some truth in that. I do have respect for people that work hard to accomplish things. And aging is fascinating in that we become more unique and heterogeneous the older we become. The longer we live, the more experiences we have, the more  possible disease diagnosis and treatments, medications. I mean, so many things happen with each passing year. We're very unique. There are just as many ways to age as there are to live your life. I just want to put forward the fact that you don't have to be in a super human category to be aging well or successfully. It's not unlike when you say “Good Fatty." You're a “Good Fatty," if you work out right, and if you work really hard on your body and being healthy. All the healthism that starts to rise up. So it's very similar with pushing yourself despite your age.VirginiaThere are two layers to it. There's this thing where it's actually quite patronizing to the person doing the activity. Like, oh, good for you. You're doing this despite all the odds. Which you wouldn't say to a thin, able-bodied 25-year-old running a marathon. Then it's, wow, you've worked hard and have skills and experience. And then also it's contributing to this artificially high standard of what we need to aspire to. So now it's not enough to just try to  preserve my mobility as I get older. I also need to be able to do a headstand.DebThe hard part is that, yeah, I do want to celebrate these accomplishments. Of course. I think that's amazing. I saw something about this woman who beat the world record and how long she could hold a plank. And she was about 10 years younger than me, so I immediately got on the floor, of course, to see what I could do. And there are so many little things on social media about tests of your capacity as you age. If you can get up from the floor in a certain way. If you can put on your socks and shoes without sitting down. And what happens, of course, is we judge ourselves, we compare ourselves. And I don't know how helpful that is. I mean, if it motivates you to see if you can shift and change some of your habits, to see if maybe you could work on balance, maybe that's uesful. It's very important to have healthy feet, for example, but to what end? That's what happens for a lot of people. It's like, hell no, I can't do that. I can't do this so why try? A lot of the research on ageism shows that this narrative about decline and fear mongering does not do us any favors when we believe those negative story lines. Fear doesn't motivate us. It makes us feel like we're doomed. And there's actual data showing that we live longer with a much more positive mindset around what it's like to be in an older body. VirginiaIt's making me think of how much we narrow the definition of health when we do this. When we say, Can you get up off the floor without using your hands? That is a sign of how healthy you are. Well, I can't do that every day. That's not something that's available to my body every day now. On the other hand, I recently increased how much weight I'm lifting when I strength train. I can lift a much heavier weight than I could when I was younger and could get up off the floor more easily. And so it's kind of a wash to me, like, which is healthier? And that's setting aside the aging discourse around strength training —we'll get there. I just mean, there are so many different facets of health. And those two examples are just talking about physicality. That's before we get to mental health, or all of the other ways we can measure health. And I just think it's so interesting that we constantly narrow how we define health and how we're grading it.DebWe're so influenced by these “longevity bros.” We're just so, so inundated by those types of messages, especially on social media and podcasts, that it totally narrows our definition of beauty, our definition of  what it is to be well and to live well. One of the things that we need to do at midlife—and I think midlife invites this when you're staying in touch with yourself— is to embrace a reflective period. It's like, okay, I clearly have less time in front of me. What are my values? How do I want to sail the ship? That is something that happens in midlife, and I think it's very important to clarify how you want to spend your time and energy now. And for some people, it is getting up off the floor without using their hands. For a lot of people, not so much. And that's okay.Support our workVirginiaThey are morally neutral activities.Another phrase I underlined in the book, because as soon as you wrote it, I said, Oh God, I'm hearing that everywhere, is people saying, "Well what I've always done isn't working anymore." They're usually referring to how they're eating or how they're moving their body. Like, I always used to do X, Y and Z, and now it's not working anymore. You have such a smart reframe for this. Because was it ever working? DebYes, what do you mean by "working?" Working to fit your body into a certain size and shape, or maybe functionality? Why are we holding onto that? I don't think that serves us very well, because our bodies are supposed to change. I talk a lot about this metaphor of the monkey bars, that in order to move down the monkey bars, you have to let go of one to move to actually move forward. If you cling and grasp, you will stay, and I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in continuing to move forward, whatever that looks like. To evolve and change and become is the beauty of midlife and beyond. That's the opportunity, that's the emergence that is available to us. So this focus on holding on to what's been working, as in, keeping ourselves in the same size dress, or whatever the story is, that's another one of those, like, I can still wear the dress I wore when I went to prom in high school.VirginiaThat's a big achievement. Staying your high school size forever.DebI don't think it's serving us.VirginiaIt's really not. It's really a way of staying stuck, as opposed to letting yourself change. When we fight change, we make it so much harder on ourselves.DebBut the social conversation is maintained. Maintaining that freeze frame--it doesn't make any sense to me. It just doesn't make sense. But I see it and hear it, and people spend a lot of money on it.VirginiaDo you think that wanting to freeze frame is also behind so much of the menopause discourse right now? DebAbsolutely. What I hear in the menopause space is fear mongering about change. And that's getting more and more extreme, in my mind. We are talking to each other right after you've probably seen the very viral conversation about how in menopause, your brain eats itself. Thankfully, there has a lot of pushback on that by people I respect, because there's absolutely no data. It was a rodent study, and the rodents died soon after menopause. So clearly their menopause is not the same as human menopause. But the fear mongering gets people. It just hooks you and makes you feel like you should do whatever this is being sold. But the research does show that our brains change in very interesting ways. As we get older, our brains have more capacity for being flexible and adapting. So that's a beautiful thing. I like celebrating the fact that we find ways to continue to live our lives as fully as we would like to, and age the way we want to age, without all this pressure and fear. Fear, in and of itself, is harmful for your brain, by the way. VirginiaWith the menopause discourse being so loud right now, especially on social media, it feels like all of diet culture is boiling down to two things that we are supposed to do as much as possible: Eat all the protein all the time, and strength train constantly in our weighted vests. The book, I want to be clear, is so much more than that. You have so many great tools, journaling prompts, strategies to help people do this really hard work of figuring out how they want to relate to their bodies and take care of themselves in this life stage. But I do want to get you to give us your hot takes and reframes on protein and strength training, because those are the two that we get the most questions about by far.DebAs most things in this arena, there is some truth. There's a kernel of truth. It's just gone too far. It's gotten too extreme. My preference is to really honor the unique person and their needs, and I also prioritize mental health. If you are a person who has had any history of disordered eating, chronic dieting, obsessive thoughts, anxiety, then the fear mongering is going to be very harmful for you. And triggering. There is research that shows there's an increase in relapse and development of new eating disorders [at this age]. Obsessing over numbers like protein grams is harmful. I don't do it. I don't recommend it for anybody. I think understanding where protein is in our food is smart. You probably already know that. And making choices where you include some protein most of the time is helpful. You don't have to do it every single time you eat. But that is kind of how things naturally happen anyway, without a lot of effort. Unless you're a person who doesn't like protein-containing foods at all—and that can be true—then it may require more effort on your part. My favorite example is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I just love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or peanut butter in anything. I feel like my body goes “thank you” every single time I give myself that. It works. And I've heard that from many clients, too. Pleasure centers light up. You get carbohydrates, fat and protein. It's such a great combo. It's a beautiful food choice, and it lasts forever. You don't have to keep it in the fridge. Another example is a charcuterie board, where you have some cheese, you have some ham if you eat meat. There tends to be a little bit of protein along with the carbohydrate and fat, naturally. So you don't really have to get down in the numbers. I encourage you to pay attention and make choices that include protein. But I think it's completely unnecessary to count the grams of protein.VirginiaI love that the takeaway is eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yes, done, sold. DebAnybody listening to this and has ever worked with me is probably laughing really hard right now, like, there she goes again. Peanut butter and jelly is my solution to all the things. VirginiaIt's one of the most perfect foods! I had a phase where one of my kids basically lived on Uncrustables, and I was like, no notes. It made packing lunches so easy. We could always have them with us. It was delightful. Join Burnt Toast! DebOkay, strength training.VirginiaLet's do it. DebHere's the thing that I want people to hear me say: No matter what you do, you lose muscle mass. It's not like doing all the things it's going to stop that, because it doesn't. So that's a fact. That's an opportunity for acceptance that your body softens. There's something about that that I find very inviting. I love that my body is softening. I really, truly do. I'm attracted to the softness that's available to me that didn't used to be. I'm naturally kind of like-I don't know if anybody ever watched Popeye? Popeye's girlfriend's name was Olive Oyl, and that was my nickname when I was a kid, because I was just long and lean. So softening is exciting for me. I've never really had this softness, so I think it's sweet. And there's a softening that I'm attracted to around taking the edges off of all of our anxiety and our preoccupation with being perfect. I have a lot of positive associations with softening. There are also some health protective aspects of having more storage space. That's what body fat is. You will be safer when the next virus comes around. We're in that time of the year where we're all going to get this and that virus. So you have more storage and your bones are a little bit more protected. Weighted vests... well that's a huge conversation. VirginiaAs a fat person, I'm already wearing my weighted vest at all times.DebIt's just anti-fat bias that you would need to be as lean as possible and then strap on some extra weight. I'm sorry. It makes me laugh every time I think about it. I'm sorry if people see me laugh when I see them without walking and they are wearing their weighted vests. I'm just entertained. VirginiaAlso, caveat listeners: If any of you are like, no, I just love my weighted vest, we're not taking it away from you!DebI'm not judging you if you're doing it. I totally get that you're just trying to do the right thing for yourself all the time. We all are. It's just, I'm not falling for that one. Weighted vests are on my “I'm not falling for it” list. But yes, we do need to do things that include bearing your body's weight and extra, if that's possible, and of course, the data supporting heavier weight is there—if that's interesting to you, if that's accessible to you. So many women contact me and say, I just feel like I'm not doing it right, because I just can't make myself do heavy lifting. And that's okay, too. Making yourself spend time doing something you hate doesn't feel in my mind like the thing you want to do with this precious part of your life. Because it's more and more precious. I'm in that category. Maybe I'll get to a place that I want to. I'm sure it feels good to feel yourself be powerful and strong. Yes, I get that. I'm a yogi. I love doing yoga poses where I hold my body weight. And I'm also a single mom, so I do a lot of lifting naturally in life. I do all the things around the house.VirginiaI think it's so interesting, because I do enjoy strength training, and I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't genuinely enjoy it. Because for me, the form of exercise that I detest and get caught in this "I need to make myself do it" cycle is cardio. And if they were pushing cardio as hard as they push strength training, I would be a mess. So that's just to underscore—any way you're moving your body that makes sense for you is good. And if you can find joy in it, even better. DebAbsolutely. And feel playful!If you can find some playfulness, and if you can find some social connection, you're also doing things to help your brain and your aging process be with other people. Finding community and finding some playfulness is very, very healthy. VirginiaI love that. DebSo yes, of course I want people to keep moving. But not in this prescribed, "can you hold a plank for three minutes" way. And not in ways that disconnect you. That's probably the biggest thing for me is when you start counting grams, you get disconnected from your body. You get all in your head. When you start judging your body to make sure you're doing it right, you're disconnecting from your body again. Things that keep you connected and in your body are what I'm all about encouraging.VirginiaI love that.Are there any habits or lifestyle practices, or anything that you're like, "well, if people could add on something...?" And I realize I sound like I'm undermining our whole conversation here, because I'm like, "tell us one habit we need to have!" and that's not what you're about. But I'm just curious what you think people benefit from doing more of in midlife? DebMy number one go-to is adequacy. I am very afraid that people are starting with a diet culture mindset which is so inadequate for supporting our bodies. And I notice that the symptoms of being undernourished are exactly the same symptoms that women experience in menopause. Brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, problems with sleep, loss of libido. It’s the exact same list. So I worry that this "blast your belly fat" conversation is contributing to our menopausal experience, peri and post. You are not going to age well if you are living with scarcity and under-nourishing your brain and body. So that's my number one concern, because I hear it so often, and because diet culture has so skewed our perception of what is adequate. I feel like it's a very common experience. Trying to feed yourself throughout the day, trying not to skip, because there's a lot of that going on, a lot of skipping. Because morally, we feel like we are being good and superior thanks to diet culture when we ignore a request for fuel from our body, that little hunger that pops up. And you're going to have more food noise, by the way. I don't know if you want to get into GLP-1s today, probably not.VirginiaI mean, when are we not getting into it? Feel free to throw it in. DebI would not be getting into it if it wasn't so commonly recommended. The new thing now is microdosing for the menopausal changes in your body. I mean, I'm not going to make a bold statement against GLP-1s, because I have many clients that are benefiting, that are in recovery with type 2 diabetes, that are benefiting and doing well. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about this facelift plus GLP-1 phenomenon. I believe in bodily autonomy, so I also don't want to diss anybody from making that choice, but discerning what you want from what the social construct is imposing on you requires some time. And that's the other thing that I want people to do in midlife, is to do some checking in with themselves, to get some clarity about what they really want versus what they think they should do. And how can you tell the difference?VirginiaWell I love all of that, and it feels, in so many ways, more doable than counting your protein grams and wearing your weighted vest. I hope people are receiving it that way. And your book is just such a great guide. It's like being in conversation with you. You're just so warm and wise and grounded and gently moving people through what can be heavy work, but there's a lot of joy to it as well.DebYeah, thank you. I tried to create little body breaks, chances for people to just go drink some tea and look at the sky, take a few breaths, because it can be very hard to look at the stories you carry about your body, and do you want to still carry that.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterDebI am in love with the Samin Nosrat book.VirginiaThe new one?DebYes, Good Things. Well, the old one too, but the new one.VirginiaAnything Samin does, really.DebAbsolutely. I mean, her work is such a beautiful antidote to diet culture. I send people to her Netflix series, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, because it's pure food joy, without a single tiny second of nutrition anxiety. It's so rare to find. It's so rare. But she has this--what does she call it? The roasted vegetable salad matrix? I've  dog-eared that page. I just keep it on my counter, because there are so many cool ideas about mixing and matching, and that's kind of how I cook anyway. It's like, what do I have? What's on sale? Can I do some extra roasting on the weekend when I have time? And what can I throw together as I go through the week? Little bit of crunchy, a little bit of bright acid, little bit of sweet. You can make sure you throw your protein in there, too.VirginiaI haven't gotten all the way through the cookbook yet, but I love it, and I love the way she writes about food, and about giving herself permission to seek pleasure. There's a really lovely essay in there about that.DebAnd not perfection! I mean, she rages against that perfection piece, which I think is so helpful. And try to invite people to join each other. Because the other piece about aging is you want to stay in community as much as you can.VirginiaWell, that leads us perfectly into my Butter, which is last night I had the absolute joy of going into Brooklyn for Kate Baer's book launch event with Joanna Goddard at Books Are Magic. Kate Baer is a phenomenal feminist poet. I probably don't need to introduce her work to anybody. Her new book is called, How About Now? There are so many fantastic poems in it. And just the experience of sitting in—it was actually in a church because Kate draws such a big crowd, they have to have it off-site from the bookstore. So we were in a Unitarian Church, and there were probably at least 300 women, most of us in midlife or beyond, just sitting together to celebrate poems about our lives that make us feel seen. I have goosebumps just thinking about it again the next day. It was really such a gift to be in community with so many women. DebThat sounds amazing. VirginiaKate is such a sweetheart, and I’ve been rooting for her a long time. Yes, now let's talk more about your work. People need to preorder Unapologetic Aging: How to Mend and Nourish Your Relationship with Your Body. It's out December 16. That makes it a fantastic holiday gift for any midlife person and beyond midlife person in your life. What else? How can we find you and support your work? What else can we do? DebWell I have a Substack called Unapologetic Aging and you can find me by my name. I am most commonly found on social media on Instagram, but you can find me anywhere, just by my name, Deb Benfield.VirginiaThank you so much for being here. Deb, DebI just want to say one more thing about purchasing the book. The last time we were together, we talked a lot about grandmothers and mothers and the generations, and I think my book is the perfect gift for your mother, If you're trying to have this conversation. VirginiaI agree with that. All the Burnt Toasties who write to me and say, "What do I do about the thing my mom says?" This is what you do.DebAnd have a conversation. VirginiaAbsolutely. Thank you so much for being here. DebThis was really wonderful. Thanks 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!Support Anti-Diet Journalism!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your November Extra Butter episode.Today we're talking about our problematic faves! These are shows, musicians, influencers and other pockets of culture that we want to enjoy without thinking much about them, even if there's discourse. We'll get into: Our favorite Bad Skinny Girl TV shows. The straight man who has Corinne's heart. Is Virginia a pick-me girl now? And so many more!!! To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber. If you haven't joined us yet — we've extended your Burnt Toast gift access deadline! Check your email for "claim your free month by 11/20!" And do it TODAY! Join Extra Butter

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Kaila Yu. Kaila is an author based in Los Angeles. Her debut memoir, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty, came out earlier this fall to a rave review in The New York Times. She's also a luxury travel and culture writer with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The LA Times, Condé Nast Traveler and many more. Kaila's memoir grapples with her experience growing up Asian and female in a world that has so many stereotypes and expectations about both those things. We talk about the pressure to perform so many different kinds of specific beauty labor, the experience of being objectified sexually —and we really get into how we all navigate the dual reality of hating beauty standards and often feeling safer and happier complying with them. I learned so much from this book, and this conversation with Kaila. Don't forget that if you've bought Fat Talk from Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off your purchase of Fetishized there too — just use the code FATTALK at checkout. And if you value this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 218 TranscriptVirginiaWell, I just couldn't put this book down. Your writing is so powerful. The storytelling is incredible. The research is impeccable. It's just a phenomenal book. You write that from a pretty young age, "I felt the straightest path to empowerment was through courting the white male gaze," which, oof. I felt that. So many women reading can feel that in our bones. And iIn the great New York Times Book Review of your book, the writer asks, "How much can someone be blamed for their choices when those choices are predetermined by one's culture?" I feel like this is what we're always reckoning with at Burnt Toast, and this is what runs through the book: So often, beauty work is a logical survival strategy for us.KailaWe're taught at such a young age that women are just prized for this thing we have absolutely no control over, really. We can get surgery and makeup but beauty is a currency that's depreciating from the moment you receive it, according to the patriarchy. Like, it shouldn't be considered depreciating, but it is.And we learn this from like, Disney movies, right? In the book, I bring up my favorite, which is The Little Mermaid, which, because they recently came out with it again, has had a re-examination. And I think they edited it for current audiences. But The Little Mermaid wasn't unique. That was what every fairy tale was like. The beautiful princess wins a prince at the end, and that's the goal. VirginiaAnd it doesn't matter that she gave up her family, her home, her culture, her body, everything. KailaYeah, she fell in love with him after seeing him one time. And him the same with her, without speaking a word to her, because it doesn't matter.VirginiaIt's purely aesthetic, what we're falling in love with. KailaWhen I was growing up—and it's changed so much since then, luckily—there was just such scarce representations of Asian women. Mostly they were just prostitutes and massage parlor girls on the side, you know? Not even speaking in movies. It wasn't really until Lucy Liu that we got a well-known named actress—and that was way after college for me. So growing up there really just wasn't anyone.VirginiaYou do a great deep dive into Memoirs of a Geisha, which, I'm embarrassed to say--I was a kid when that book came out, and I didn't realize it was written by a white man! I was like, I'm sorry, what?KailaNobody knows this! I've been talking about it, and still to this day, many people are surprised.VirginiaI had no idea. Why did anyone give that book the credence it was given? I mean, it's mind blowing. And you're right. It's a story of child prostitution and exploitation.KailaThat is glamorized. And sadly, it was beautifully written. Like, I loved the book when I was I think in high school, when I first read it. It is just so well done that you kind of just skate over the many, many red flags.VirginiaSo as an Asian teenage girl reading the book, you're thinking, "Oh, I'm seeing myself. This is Asian stories being told. This is powerful." And then, wait, who's telling the story?KailaYeah, we didn't really think about that. I think I knew it was a white guy author, but I was like, "That's okay." Like, at that age, I wasn't really thinking about it. I was like, "Thank you for sharing our story," because I didn't really know any history of geisha either. I thought this was what it was, right? And I was very invisible in high school. So to see these glamorous, beautiful geisha, dressing up in finery and fighting for attention in this seemingly glamorous world was very enticing to me. Because there really were no other examples. Virginiait speaks to the dearth of representation that you were like, "Pkay, finally, they're showing us" and it's this terrible story of a child prostitute.KailaMargaret Cho really said this amazing quote, which I'm going to butcher, and I'm paraphrasing. But she said something like, "Asian actresses are like, 'Hopefully one day I can be the prostitute in a war movie, or hopefully one day I could be the woman that the husband cheats on." And she's like, there's so little representation that we would be glad to hold an umbrella behind a main celebrity, just to be in the picture.VirginiaIt's enraging. Since you mention war movies: I was fascinated by the history you include in the book, tracing the development of Asiaphile culture. And we should probably define that term for listeners, who don't know exactly what an Asiaphile is.Subscribe to never miss an episode!KailaYeah, it's a pretty obscure term that's not used that often. But I use it just because it's an easy, succinct way to say man with an Asian fetish. But I want to specify that I don't think most men who are dating Asian women have an Asian fetish. I do think it's a small vocal minority, but they are very vocal and very online. And they are people who treat Asian women as disposable, replaceable sex objects. VirginiaAnd this is really rooted in colonialism and in US military occupations.KailaI don't think people realize the deep history of that. The origins are probably because when Western men first encountered Asian women, it was in colonialist situations. Whether they were going there to spread Christianity or during American occupations in multiple Asian countries. What's disturbing is that after these young, impressionable soldiers who are like probably barely out of high school, have finished fighting a very traumatic war, they're rewarded by being sent to rest and recreation centers in Thailand or somewhere beachy and nice. Where they found these stations, or clubs, of prostitutes set up specifically for them as a reward.VirginiaIt's skin crawling. That is just a part of our history. That is a thing we did. And I don't think it's well understood, and it completely makes sense then okay, this is how white men first began relating to Asian women. And it has just become more and more entrenched.KailaAnd Thailand is still a hub of sex tourism today. I don't think there's any military occupation there now, but that industry is all from that time period.VirginiaIt's so dark. Okay, so you have the Asiaphile issue. You have this geisha representation of Asian women as sexual objects, disposable. And then on the flip side, there is the stereotype of the Asian woman who's an A student, very cold, the Tiger Mom, the Lucy Liu sort of characters. Which is also really problematic and narrow. And those are your options. KailaYes, yes. I fell into that model minority stereotype, which is exists because I think Asian parents immigrate here to give their children a better life, so they're very strict. My parents, at least, were very strict and expected excellence in school and obedience to parents. And so I was very shy and very studious and all of those things. And I found my social life very lacking in that way. And I did not like being a model minority student. Because that nerdy Asian stereotype was represented on TV at the time in very terrible ways, with the Revenge Of The Nerds guy, or with the Sixteen Candles Asian guy. Super cringy versions. You don't want to be associated with that at all, as a young person. So I really swung the other way, aggressively rebelling like some other people might not have. Most people, most Asians, didn't rebel as much as I did, but I just really, really rebelled against that stereotype.VirginiaI mean, it's so understandable. It's not remotely empowering. Even with some of Lucy Liu's characters where she's playing like a "powerful" woman, it's a very narrow form of power.KailaYes, and it's sexualized. Always.VirginiaSo it makes sense that as a kid, you're like, "Well, I don't want to be in this box. I guess I'll go over here." And it just shows how few choices we give girls in general, but especially Asian girls. You've always got to pick a lane in a way that doesn't let you just be human.KailaIt's robbing women of multi-faceted humanity.VirginiaSo you were like, okay, I'm not going to be the model A student. Tell a little of where you went next.KailaWhen I was in high school, there weren't any Asian female role models that were useful. And then the internet started. So then I was surfing around online, and I discovered that there were dozens or even hundreds of websites dedicated to this one Asian model named Sung Hi Lee. And I became really obsessed with her, because I'd never seen so many non-Asians and Asian guys be fans of an Asian woman, period. And she was so beautiful and stunning. But she was a Playboy model, so she was very, very highly sexualized. And I spent many years being a fan of hers. And then I started to aspire to want to be like her, because it just seemed like she had everything I didn't. And then eventually, when I got to college, I started to pursue pinup modeling, and then that eventually went into import modeling, which is very niche Asian car shows that ultimately inspired Fast and Furious. But it was not really known out of the import or Asian community.VirginiaAnd were there parts of the work that were validating and enjoyable? Or was it always sort of this feeling of I'm trying to play a role, I'm trying to be something that other people want from me?KailaI say that at first, it felt like love. I couldn't explain it at the time, but like looking back, I had such a lack of self-love from the beginning. I think I was just maybe born that way, or built that way. That attention, after feeling so invisible in high school, felt like so deeply validating. But it's just such a temporary hit. And then there are all these girls coming up behind you and you're being pitted against each other. So it's like a cocaine high, you know? It's lasts a day or two, and then you're chasing the next thing. So it wasn't at all fulfilling. VirginiaAnd you become increasingly aware of all you need to do in terms of your own body appearance in order to keep being the girl that they want for this. KailaI mean, before I even started pursuing import modeling, I got breast implants, which are still really huge now today, but this was the era where Baywatch was massive, and Pamela Anderson was the ideal. And I was completely flat chested, so I was like I don't feel completely feminine. Even Sung Hi Li, that model I looked up to, had breast implants. So the complicated thing is that I don't regret the breast implants. I like them. But I wish we didn't live in a society where we have to get surgeries to feel better about ourselves, right?Join Burnt Toast! VirginiaYou wish it could be a choice that you made on your own terms, and not in response to this feeling of lacking something.KailaBut I definitely felt lacking in that arena. So that was the mindset behind the surgery. Then in the book I talk about—and this is a little bit timely now, because I don't know if you saw the Love Island controversy. This happened in the last season of Love Island, Cierra Ortega, who was a big contestant who made it near the end, got kicked off the show because she had made some comments about her eyes, calling them the C word, which is a slur referring to Chinese eyes. And she was basically saying, oh, my eyes look too Asian. I'm going to get them Botoxed so they're wider or whatever. I think Asians learned that many people didn't realize that that word is considered a slur, and then especially how she was using it, because she was saying she didn't like how her eyes looked.VirginiaBut no producer on the show knew that it was a slur?KailaShe didn't say it on the show. It resurfaced. You know how fans go back. So she ended up getting booted off the show. And I don't believe in cancel culture and all of that, but I thought it was important for people to know that Asians do consider that a slur. VirginiaIt's important for everyone to understand. KailaBut I myself got that eye surgery. There's a surgery called double eyelid surgery, which is probably the most popular surgery amongst Asians, at least East Asians, and it was popularized in South Korea, I believe, during the wartime by this white doctor named Dr Ralph Millard, who was trying to make prostitutes' eyes look better for military men or for wives to look better for the military men who were bringing them back home. And then in medical journals, he described the Asian eye as dull and listless and unemotional. I wasn't trying to get my eyes lifted to look more white, and I think most Asian girls like me aren't. In Asia, bigger eyes are just considered more attractive. But it's important to know that the surgery originated from someone who had racist comments to make about the Asian eye.VirginiaAnother gift from white men. They really have done so much for us. I had Elise Hu on the podcast when Flawless came out, her book about the Korean beauty industry, which is fascinating. It was really interesting for me to learn that these standards also are part of Asian culture. And it's not necessarily about seeking whiteness. It's also just a longheld beauty standard within the culture—but then fueled by racist white doctors developing surgeries and what not. And that that kind of push pull is really interesting to me, that it's a both/and.KailaBut then I wonder, as we're speaking, is that beauty standard ultimately Western? To have bigger eyes? I don't know. I haven't done enough research on that to comment on it at all, but that's a question that just popped into my head. Listen to Virginia and Elise Hu!Virginia I think what your book explores, and what you're talking about, is how we lose touch with the origin stories of these standards, but the standards feel so important to achieve all the same. And I think that's what we see over and over in beauty culture. We get conditioned and normalized to needing this body part to look this way. And we usually don't unpack why we've decided that's so important. And then when you do look at the origins, they're always very dark and racist.KailaWe've just seen it in this generation when we were growing up Paris Hilton was the body type choice, and then it was Kim Kardashian. Neither body is really that achievable? VirginiaNo, definitely not. KailaAnd so it swung and you couldn't fit into either one. And then now it's back. So yeah, there's no way of winning that.VirginiaSpeaking of bodies, I wanted to ask you how you see anti-fatness, which is, of course, the beauty bias that we talk about the most on Burnt Toast, intersecting with and upholding anti-Asian racism.KailaIt's always a joke, when you go back to your family of origin, they're like, "Oh, you gained weight!" That's always what they'll say to criticize you.But it's crazy. I was skinny when I was 25 and I got hired to do a movie in Beijing. And then when I got there, the skinny standards in Asia are scary. And I met the director, and then the next day, I got fired because he told my agent, like, oh, she's heavier than we thought. But I was not at all, I was skinnier than I am now. So, yeah, I do feel the beauty standards and weight standards in Asia are super, super toxic. I wouldn't want to be a woman in East Asia. It's even worse, I think, than being a woman in Western cultures. Between the youthfulness and weight standards, it's it's a lot tougher than here, I think.VirginiaWas managing your weight something you were thinking about during those years as well? Like that was also part of achieving this look?KailaYes, definitely, weight was always a concern with that kind of East Asian expectation in place. I will be very transparent to say that I was doing a lot of cocaine at the time so that made it less of an issue, just because not eating is a symptom of a lot of cocaine.VirginiaYeah, that's a whole other piece. I think you write about addiction really beautifully in the memoir as well. And I super appreciated that component of it. KailaWhen I started using substances and alcohol, it just, like, again, felt like a form of love. The first time I did ecstasy. I mean, a lot of people do describe ecstasy as feeling like love, and I think for someone so lacking in it, it was just maybe more deeply fulfilling than for the next person.VirginiaI mean, as we were saying, working as an import model, it's so validating. It feels like love, and then it's over, and then you're not quite good enough, and you're competing against other girls. And then here's this other way to get the feeling. It just all makes sense that it would all fit together. How were your relationships with other women during this time? With the competition so cutthroat, and particularly the pressure on Asian women, that can create so much toxicity and competition. KailaI think it was very well-reflected and illustrated for me in Memoirs of a Geisha. Because that's very much a story of how this very young girl comes into the industry and takes down this older geisha, like the most famous geisha in all of the area is taken down by this much younger girl. And from the minute the younger girl enters the scene, this older geisha is threatened because she knows she's there to take her place. And it probably happened to another geisha before her, you know? But, the thing with me is, I've always been a girl's girl. So I've always had my group of friends, and that's really helped temper some of the situations. I think I always felt very threatened in the import industry, because I felt I made it there because when I set my mind on something, I'll knock down the door to get in. But some of the girls were there just simply because they were super beautiful, and I felt like they just had an easy gliding ride through everything where I was trying to pitch and submit and get into things. So that always gave another layer of insecurity.VirginiaAgain, this is patriarchy, right? If we're all pitted against each other, then men have more control over women. And it's interesting that Memoirs of a Geisha, which was this very like formative influence on you, was portraying women pitted against each other. And then that's replicated in the industries you move into. And in Memoirs of a Geisha, it's not really a critique. He's not arguing that they should form an alliance, that they should reject the system. There's none of that. So it just kind of keeps perpetuating this representation of Asian women. It's all piling on top of each other, and it's so hard to start to see the whole picture.KailaAnd then you're watching it in media happen too, right? With Britney Spears and Cristina Aguilera, who I don't think were enemies, but they probably became that way, because it was people started gossiping and then you just create conflict.VirginiaWomen are cast into these roles, and in order to hold on to the power that we have, it becomes necessary to keep playing these roles. What was it that helped you start to dissect all of this? Because you're clearly in a really different place with your relationship to all of this now, what was it that made you start to say, like, okay, I'm actually participating in a whole system that is harmful to me, that it doesn't align with my values.KailaI don't think I even had any clarity about that until, like, maybe 10 or 15, years ago, when I got sober. I had quit modeling, and I had started a musician career. And then we had a little bit of success, but then ultimately, we weren't making any money. And I was in my 30s, so I was like, okay, I need to find a real career now. Because this wasn't working for me. So even then, I wasn't thinking critically about things. I was trying to find my career. But only when I got sober and I started going to a therapist, that's only when I could even look at anything with the drugs and alcohol. Everything is hazy and you could rationalize anything really. It's funny, because I do a lot of therapy and trauma therapy and IFS therapy. And it's much easier being sober and and having a support group and walking through some of the trauma as someone decades older than the little 21 year old. But it's just so important, I think, to deal with the trauma. Because I stuffed it down for decades. So then I kept having to feel it in different ways, and suffer through it. And I think when you just process the feelings and let them pass, feel them, then you're, they're no longer haunting you and your subconscious.VirginiaBut it's hard work. I give you a lot of credit. That's major uphill work. And you do a really incredible job in the book of reckoning with where you were complicit. You talk about pushing some of the younger girls in the band to be more sexual than they were comfortable with, because you were trying to make sure the band was appealing to Asiaphiles. This is not quite the same, but before I did this, I was a women's magazine writer and wrote a lot of really terrible diet stories. It's hard to look at how we participated in such toxic systems. KailaYeah. When you're a fish swimming in water, you have no idea. And it's important to look back, I think, and reflect on it. And I think the positive part of it is that I feel like Gen Z and Z and Gen Alpha, they're so much more aware, and they're already kind of being critical as things happen. Whereas for me, I did it decades later, and there's nothing that could be changed. But if we could just keep having these conversations and look critically at things while they're happening. Right now we're like, doing this whole reckoning where we're apologizing to the women of the 2000s, like the Paris Hiltons and the Monica Lewinsky's and Amanda Knox right now because we treated them horribly. Virginia How has that changed your relationship with beauty and with beauty work now? I mean, you talked about complicated feelings about your breast implants, which makes so much sense. I'm curious if any of it feels more optional now? Do you still feel like you have to opt in? KailaI think writing the book was one of the most healing things, which was an unexpected outcome that wasn't the intention of writing the book, I guess. And then also, my editor, Amy Lee, is an Asian American woman, so she could deeply relate to a lot of what happened and had experienced similar things. It is complicated, because I still dye my hair. I still like to look pretty. I think what it isn't is male-centered. And that just might just be because I'm older. I'm not dressing like I dressed in my 20s. VirginiaYou're like, I would like to be comfortable now.KailaBut I would love to aspire to be where Pamela Anderson is now, where she just is makeup-less on a red carpet and everyone's like, this is amazing. And if more people could do that, and we could become just more normalized to that, I think that's where the change would really, really happen.VirginiaShe has had such an interesting arc, and I give her a lot of credit, that she's just like, why are you even talking about this? I'm just showing up with my face. And I think women are like, oh, this is so inspiring and amazing. And then when you see the male comments...KailaOh I haven’t been reading.VirginiaThere are so many men who are personally let down to learn that it was all fake. They frame it as, she was faking it the whole time, she was never really beautiful. If this is what she really looks like. "She was lying to us for years." And this whole premise of men thinking that women wearing makeup is "lying" is so interesting, because this is what we're supposed to do to please you. This is the standard that patriarchy requires of us. You don't get to feel personally betrayed that we have held these standards.KailaI love how they're personally offended.VirginiaThey're like, "But I watched Baywatch for years. She didn't look like that!"KailaShe was also 21, right? Women age, as do men! VirginiaIt's like when Jennifer Love Hewitt was was doing her publicity tour for I Know What You Did Last Summer. They rebooted it, and everyone was like, oh my God, she doesn't look the same anymore. And it's like, great, it's been 20 years. She was 17 or something when she made the first one. Now she's a mom with three kids. She doesn't look the same.Absolutely wild. And meanwhile, men are allowed to age and become silver foxes.KailaI think more and more we're just showing older women like that's normal and not having crazy amounts of surgeries. Like, I think it's just all about normalizing. So we could see more and more of this. Like, one really good example is how when I was growing up, Asian men weren't seen as desirable. They were emasculated. But now that K Pop is big, there are a lot of women who are suddenly into Asian men as they were never before. Media representation is so, so important.VirginiaAnd I think it's useful for us in our own lives to think like, well, what can I give myself permission? I mean, I'm with you. I'm still dyeing my hair, but I'm every now and then I'm like, are we ready to let the grays out? I don't know. It's important to at least name for ourselves: I am participating in this labor. I could opt out. That feels scary. There's parts of this I enjoy because it's fun to feel pretty and I mean that's what I try to do with my own kids, at least. Like, when they see me putting on makeup or whatever, it's like, "I'm participating in patriarchal labor! Also, it's just a lipstick!" They're like, we get it.KailaThey're so much more aware.VirginiaWhen we do feel like we can opt out of something, that's really liberating, when you can say, okay, I'm not going to. I don't hold myself to the thinness standard anymore. That's not what my body is. It's not what it ever is gonna be without intense, traumatic interventions. And so that one I'm letting go. Other ones are harder to let go.KailaI guess it's maybe the conservative movement, because that's all about controlling bodies in a negative way. Because we've swung towards the Ozempic thin again, which I find it troubling that a lot of body positive icons are like, suddenly shrinking.VirginiaIt's kind of what we were saying. On the one hand it is really hard to exist in a fat body in this world. Everyone is allowed to make their own choices about their bodies. And it's sad that we're losing fat representation. It's sad that we're seeing more homogenized thin bodies. And it's tricky, because I really believe we can't police people's individual choices. KailaYeah, so tough, so tough to be a woman.VirginiaIt really is. It's a whole thing. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterKailaWell, I just finished bingeing this show called The Girlfriend on Amazon Prime. VirginiaI don't know that one!KailaIt has Robin Wright, and her son gets this girlfriend, and there are some things about her that the mom doesn't like, and then they go to war against each other. It's not really great for, like, female on female. But it's really well done. It's like, more trashy kind of drama. VirginiaWe love some trashy drama!KailaIt's escapism. VirginiaAll right, I'm going to check that out. Less trashy, but definitely drama. I just finished watching Dying for Sex on Hulu. Oh man, all the trigger warnings. If you have anyone in your life, any cancer stuff, choose carefully. It goes to dark places. But like, such a beautiful story of female friendship. Who knew Jenny Slate was this incredible dramatic actress? You're used to her being so goofy, comedic and she has so many layers in that performance. It's so nuanced and beautiful. Oh, my God. I just absolutely loved it. Cried through so many episodes. KailaYeah, I went back and listened to the podcast. VirginiaOh, I want to do that!KailaIit's such a unique story, right? Because we're seeing so many reboots and, like Marvel. And I just love an original story. VirginiaIt's so original, for anyone who hasn't seen the show, I'm not spoiling this. It's in the first episode, she's diagnosed with terminal cancer. She leaves her husband and she's never had an orgasm with a partner. She really wants to explore her sexuality before she dies, and she kind of embarks on this whole journey with that. It's, like, edgy and raw and very dark, at times, but also very joyful and empowering. And, yeah, it's just, it's not a story that gets told very often, that's for sure. KailaWould a guy ever have sex if he didn't have an orgasm, right? Women are just like, not having orgasms all over the place.VirginiaYes, yes, the rage I felt about that. Kaila, thank you so much for doing this. This was wonderful. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support your work.KailaYeah. My name is Kaila Yu, so you could find me on all social media websites. And then the book is in all bookstores and I say, support your local bookstore.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈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!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your October Extra Butter episode. Today we're talking about plus size fashion influencer and body acceptance advocate Katie Sturino — who teamed up with WeightWatchers last year. What happened there? And where is the line between body liberation activism and capitalism? (Yes, we struggle with that too!) To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber. Join Extra Butter! Already an Extra Butter subscriber, and having a hard time getting this episode in your podcast player of choice? Step by step instructions are here! Episode 217 Transcript

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Lisa Sibbett, PhD. Lisa writes The Auntie Bulletin, a weekly newsletter about kinship, chosen family and community care. As a long time Auntie herself, Lisa often focuses on the experiences of people without children who are nevertheless, in her words, "cultivating childful lives." We’ve been talking a whole bunch about community on Burnt Toast lately, and Lisa reached out to have a conversation about the systems that get in the way of our community building efforts—specifically our culture's systemic isolation of the nuclear family. This is one of those conversations that isn't "classic Burnt Toast." But we're here to do fat liberation work—and so how we think about community matters here, because community is fundamental to any kind of advocacy work. Plus it brings us joy! And joy matters too. I super appreciate this conversation with Lisa, and I know you will too.Join our community! Today’s episode is free! But don't forget, if you were a Substack subscriber, you have until October 28 to claim your free access to our paid content. Check your email for your special gift link! Episode 216 TranscriptLisaSo my newsletter is about building kinship and community care. I live in cohousing, and I’ve been an auntie for many years to lots of different kids. I’ve always been really involved in the lives of other people’s children. And people who have lives like mine, we often don’t really have even language for describing what our experience is like. It’s sort of illegible to other people. Like, what’s your role? Why are you here?And all of this has really blossomed into work that’s definitely about loving and supporting families and other people’s children, but I also write about elder care and building relationships with elders and building community and cohousing. And I have a chronic illness, so I sometimes write about balancing self-care and community care. VirginiaI have been an instant convert to your work, because a lot of what you write really challenges me in really useful ways. You have really made me reckon with how much I have been siloed in the structure of my life. It’s funny because I actually grew up with a kind of accidental–it wasn’t quite cohousing. We had two separate houses. But I was the child of a very amicable divorce, and my four parents co-parented pretty fluidly. So I grew up with adults who were not my biological parents playing really important roles in my life. And I have gotten to the point where I’m realizing I want a version of that for my kids. And that maybe that is just a better model. So it's fascinating to consider what that can look like when not everybody has those very specific circumstances. LisaIt’s a dreamy setup, actually, to have amicably divorced parents and extra parents.VirginiaI’m super proud of all of my parents for making it work. My sister —who is my half sister from my dad’s second marriage—has a baby now. And my mom made the first birthday cake for them. There are a lot of beautiful things about blended families. When they work, they’re really amazing. And it always felt like we were doing something kind of weird, and other people didn’t quite understand our family. So I also relate to that piece of it. Because when you say "cohousing community," I think a lot of folks don’t really know what that term means. What does it look like, and how does it manifest in practice? What is daily life like in a cohousing community? LisaThere are different synonyms or near neighbor terms for cohousing. Another one is "intentional community." Back in the day, we might think about it as kind of a commune, although in the commune structure, people tended to actually pool their finances. I would say that cohousing is a much more kind of hybrid model between having your own space and being up in each other’s spaces and sharing all of the resources. Join the Burnt Toast community! So I really think of cohousing as coming frpm where so many dreamy social policies come from: Scandinavia. In Denmark and I think other countries in Northern Europe there is a lot of intentional urban planning around building shared, communal living spaces where there are things like community kitchens and shared outdoor space for lots of different residences. So that’s kind of the model that cohousing in the US tends to come from. And sometimes it’s people living together in a house. Sometimes it’s houses clustered together, or a shared apartment building. It can look a lot of different ways. The shared attribute is that you’re attempting to live in a more communal way and sharing a lot of your familial resources. In my cohousing community, there are just three households. It’s really, really small. We really lucked into it. My partner and I were displaced due to growth in our city, and needed to find a new place to live. And we had been talking with some friends for years about hoping to move into cohousing with them. But it’s very hard to actually make happen. It takes a lot of luck, especially in urban environments, but I think probably anywhere in the United States, because our policies and infrastructure are really not set up for it. So we were thinking about doing cohousing with our friends. They were going to build a backyard cottage. We were thinking about moving into the backyard cottage, but it was feeling a little bit too crowded. And then my partner was like, "Well, you know, the house next door is for sale." So it was really fortuitous, because the housing market was blowing up. Houses were being sold really, really fast, but there were some specific conditions around this particular house that made it possible for us to buy it. So we ended up buying a house next door to our friends. And then they also have a basement apartment and a backyard cottage. So there are people living in the basement apartment, and then, actually, the backyard cottage is an Airbnb right now, but it could potentially be expanded. So we have three households. One household has kids, two households don’t, and our backyard is completely merged. We eat meals together four nights a week or five nights a week. Typically, we take turns cooking for each other, and have these big communal meals, and which is just such a delight. And if your car breaks down, there’s always a car to borrow. We share all our garden tools, and we have sheds that we share. There are a lot of collective resources, and availability for rides to the airport ,and that kind of thing. VirginiaThere are just so many practical applications! LisaIt’s really delightful. Prior to moving into cohousing, we never hosted people at all. I was very averse to the idea of living in shared space. I was really worried about that. But because we have our own spaces and we have communal spaces, it sort of works for different people’s energies. And I certainly have become much more flexible and comfortable with having lots of people around. I’m no longer afraid of cooking for 12 people, you know? So it just makes it a lot easier to have a life where you can go in and out of your introversion phases and your social phases.VirginiaI’m sure because you’re around each other all the time, there’s not the same sense of "putting on your outgoing personality." Like for introverts, when we socialize, there’s a bit of a putting on that persona.LisaTotally. It’s much more like family. We’re kind of hanging around in our pajamas, and nobody’s cleaning their houses. VirginiaYou have that comfort level, which is hard to replicate. It’s hard even for people who are good friends, but haven’t sort of intentionally said, "We want this in our relationship. "There are all those pressures that kick in to have your house look a certain way. This is something I’ve been writing about —how the hosting perfectionism expectations are really high. Messy House Hosting! LisaAbsolutely, yeah. And it’s just such an impairment for us to have to live that way.VirginiaFor me, it took getting divorced to reckon with wanting to make some changes. I mean, in a lot of ways, it was just necessary. There were no longer two adults in my household. The moving parts of my life were just more. I suddenly realized I needed support. But it was so hard to get over those initial hurdles. Almost every other friend I’ve had who’s gotten divorced since says the same thing. Like, wait, I’m going to ask people for a ride for my child? It’s this huge stumbling block when, actually, that should have been how we’re all parenting and living. But it really shows how much marriage really isolates us. Or, a lot of marriages really isolate us. Our beliefs about the nuclear family really isolate us and condition us to feel like we have to handle it all by ourselves. So I would love to hear your thoughts on where does that come from? Why do we internalize that so much? LisaVirginia, you’ve been cultivating this wonderful metaphor about the various things that are diets. VirginiaMy life’s work is to tell everybody, "everything is a diet."LisaEverything’s a diet! And I feel like it’s such a powerful metaphor, and I think it really, really applies here. The nuclear family is such a diet. You have done, I think, the Lord’s work over the last couple of years, helping us conceptualize that metaphor around what does it mean to say something is a diet? And the way that I’m thinking of the Virginia Sole-Smith Model of Diet Culture is that there’s an oppressive and compulsory ideal that we’re all supposed to live up to. If we’re not living up to it, then we’re doing it wrong, and we need to be working harder. And there’s this rewarding of restriction, which, of course, then increases demands for consumer goods and forces us to buy things. Then, of course, it also doesn’t actually work, right? And all of that is coming out of a culture of capitalism and individualism that wants us to solve our problems by buying stuff. VirginiaI mean, I say all the time, Amazon Prime was my co-parent.LisaI think the nuclear family is just part of that whole system of individualism and consumerism that we’re supposed to be living in. It really benefits the free market for us all to be isolated in these little nuclear families, not pulling on shared resources, so we all have to buy our own resources and not being able to rely on community care, so we have to pay for all of the care that we get in life. And that is gross. That’s bad. We don’t like that. And you also have written, which I really appreciate, that it’s a very logical survival strategy to adhere to these ideals, especially the farther away you are from the social ideal. If you're marginalized in any way, the more trying to adhere to these ideals gives us cover.To me, that all just maps onto the nuclear family without any gaps. Going back to your specific question about why is it so hard to not feel like in an imposition when you’re asking for help: We’re just deeply, deeply, deeply conditioned to be self reliant within the unit of the family and not ask for help. Both you and I have interviewed the wonderful Jessica Slice in the last few months, and she has really helped me.Jessica wrote Unfit Parent. She’s a disabled mom, and she has really helped me think about how interdependence and asking for help is actually really stigmatized in our culture, and the kind of logical extension of that for disabled parents is that they get labeled unfit and their kids get taken away. But there’s a whole spectrum there of asking for help as a weakness, as being a loser, as being really deeply wrong, and we should never do it. And we’re just, like, deeply conditioned in that way. VirginiaSpeaking of community care: My 12-year-old was supposed to babysit for my friend’s daughter this afternoon, she has like a standing Tuesday gig. And my younger child was going to go along with her, to hang out, because she’s friends with the younger kiddo. I was going pick them up later. But then we heard this morning that this little friend has head lice. And that did make the community care fall apart! LisaOh no. It’s time to isolate!  VirginiaWhile I want us all to be together....LisaThere can be too much togetherness. You don’t want to shave your head.VirginiaThat said, though: It was a great example of community care, because that mom and I are texting with our other mom friends, talking about which lice lady you want to book to come deal with that, and figuring out who needs to get their head checked. So it was still a pooling of resources and support, just not quite the way we envisioned anyway. LisaIt always unfolds in different ways than we expect.VirginiaBut what you’re saying about the deeply held belief that we have to do it all, that we’re inconveniencing other people by having needs: That myth completely disguises the fact that actually, when you ask for help, you build your bonds with other people, right? It actually is a way of being more connected to people. People like to be asked for help, even if they can’t do it all the time. They want to feel useful and valuable and and you can offer an exchange. This sounds so silly, but in the beginning I was very aware, like, if I asked someone for a ride or a play date, like, how soon could I reciprocate to make sure that I was holding up my end of the bargain? And you do slowly start to drift away from needing that. It’s like, oh no, that’s the capitalism again, right? That’s making it all very transactional, but it’s hard to let go of that mindset. LisaYeah, and it just takes practice. I mean, I think that your example is so nice that just over time, you’ve kind of loosened up around it. It's almost like exposure therapy in asking for help. It doesn’t have to be this transactional transaction.VirginiaAnd I think you start to realize, the ways you can offer help that will work for you, because that’s another thing, right? Like, we have to manage our own bandwidth. You wrote recently that sometimes people who aren’t in the habit of doing this are afraid that now I’ll have to say yes to everything, or this is going to be this total overhaul of my life. And  No. You can say no, because you know you say yes often enough. So talk about that a little bit.Community building for introverts!LisaAbsolutely. I come at this from a perspective of living with chronic illness and disability where I really need to ration my energy. I’ve only been diagnosed in the last few years, and prior to that I just thought that I was lazy and weak, and I had a lot of really negative stories about my lack of capacity, and I’m still unlearning those. But over the past few years, I’ve been really experimenting with just recognizing what I am capable of giving and also recognizing that resting is a necessary part of the process of being able to give. If I don’t rest, I can’t give. And so actually, I’m doing something responsible and good for my community when I rest. You know, whatever that resting looks like for me or for other people, and it can look a lot of different ways. Some people rest by climbing rocks. I am certainly not one of those people, but...VirginiaThat is not my idea of relaxation. LisaBut, whatever, it takes all kinds, right? And I think that the systems of community care are so much more sustainable the more that we are showing up as our authentic selves. VirginiaYou talked about how you schedule rest for yourself. I’d love to hear more about that. LisaThat was an idea that I got from a really, really, really good therapist, by far the best therapist I’ve ever had, who herself lives with chronic illness and chronic pain. She initially suggested to me that whenever I travel--I have a hard time with travel--that, like, if I travel for three days, I need to book three days of rest. If I travel for two weeks, I need to book two weeks of rest. That’s a radical proposition to me, and one that I still am like, yeah, I don’t know if I can quite make that happen. But it did inspire me to think about what would work for me. And the reality of my life for many, many years, is that on a cycle of one to two weeks, I have at least one day where I just collapse and am incapable of doing anything. I can’t get out of bed. So this conversation with my therapist inspired me to go, you know, maybe I should just calendar a day of rest every week. Instead of having an uncontrolled crash, I can have a controlled crash, and then I’m making the decision ahead of time that I’m going to rest, rather than having to emergently rest when other people are relying on me for something, right? It just actually makes me more reliable to rest on a calendar.VirginiaAnd it honors that need. You’re not pretending that’s not going to happen or hoping you can skip by without it. You’re like, no, this is a real need. This is going to enable me to do the other things I want to do. So let’s just embrace that and make sure that’s planned for. It’s really, really smart.LisaWell, and you know, I’ll say that not having kids makes it much easier, of course. But I hope that there are ways that parents can schedule in little pieces of rest, even, of course, it’s probably not like an entire Saturday. But, the more that families lean into aunties and community care, the more that that space can be carved out. VirginiaSo let’s talk about the auntie piece. Is it just something, like, because these friends live next door and they had kids, you found yourself playing that role? How do you cultivate being an auntie? LisaThat’s a great question. For me it was kind of both always going to happen and a conscious choice. I grew up in a big family. I’m one of six kids. I spent a lot of time babysitting as a kid for both my siblings and all the kids in my town, and some of my siblings are a lot older than me, so I became an aunt in my teens, and so I’ve always had kids in my life. Really, I can’t think of a time when I didn’t have little ones around, which I think is a real benefit, not a lot of people have that kind of life. And I was raised by early childhood educators. My mom is a teacher. My grandma was a preschool teacher. My other grandma is a teacher. There are a lot of teachers in my family, and a lot of them worked with little kids, so there are a lot of resources available to me.But then I also did have to make some conscious choices. I think that one of the early things that happened for me was one of my best friends asked me to be her child’s godmother, and that kid is now 17. I know, she’s a teenager, oh my god. So that relationship in my 20s started to condition me to think: How do I really show up for a family? How do I really show up for a child that’s not my own child? And then when we moved into cohousing, which was in 2019 right before the pandemic started. We knew that we would be involving ourselves more in the life of a family. More on Lisa's childful lifeAt that time, my partner and I were hoping to have kids, and I ended up losing a lot of pregnancies. We decided to not become parents, but so we were initially envisioning sort of raising our kids together, right? And then when my partner and I decided not to have kids, one of the things that we sort of decided to pivot toward is like, well, we’re going to really invest in these kids who live in our community, which we already were, because the pandemic hit and we were a bubble. So many people know the story. All the adults are working full time. There’s no childcare. There are little kids. So it was really all hands on deck during that time, and it really pushed our community into a structure of lots and lots of interdependence around childcare and I spent a lot of time with these kids when they were really little, and that really cemented some bonds and forced us to make some very conscious decisions about how we want to be involved in each other’s lives. To the point that once you get very involved in the lives of kids, you can’t exit. Like, even if you wanted to. And so that changes your whole life trajectory. Moving to Mexico is off the table for me and my partner until these kids are at least out of the house, and that’s many years down the road, right? It would be harmful for us to separate from these kids at this point. So, there are conscious decisions and just sort of happenstance. And I think for anybody who’s interested in becoming an auntie or recruiting an auntie: Every situation is kind of different. But the piece about making conscious decisions is really important and requires sometimes scary conversations where we have to put ourselves out there and be vulnerable and take risks to let our loved ones know that we would like to form these kind of relationships. VirginiaAs someone on the side with the kids, my fear would be that I’m asking this huge favor, and like, oh my gosh, what an imposition. Because kids are chaos and these friends have a lovely, child-free life--I love my children, standard disclaimer. LisaKids are total chaos.VirginiaKids are always in whatever vortex of feelings and needs that that particular age and stage requires and asking someone to show up for that is, it’s big. It’s big.LisaWell, I definitely can’t speak for all childless people, definitely not. But there are a lot of aunties who read The Auntie Bulletin, several thousand people who read The Auntie Bulletin, and a lot of shared values there in our community. Something that I think is a common feature among people who are aunties, or who want to be aunties, is: We really recognize how much we benefit from being in relationship with families. There are a lot of people, myself included, who were not able to have children and really want to have a child-ful life. We would feel a loss if we didn’t have kids in our lives. And so this was something that I was reckoning with during the pandemic, when my partner and I were providing really a lot of childcare for another family. People would ask me: Do you feel like you’re getting taken advantage of? What are you getting in return? What I realized during that time was, I’m getting paid back tenfold, because I get to have these kids in my life for the rest of my life, but I don’t have to do the hard stuff. And that’s really important. Parenting, I don’t have to tell you, is very hard. As a person with chronic illness and disability at this point, I’m very glad that I don’t have kids, because I don’t think actually that I have the stamina. It's not about capacity for love, it’s just about straight up physical energy. And so I’m able to have the benefits as an auntie of being parent-adjacent, without the cost. So I’m the winner in that transaction. And I think a lot of aunties think that way.VirginiaWell, that’s really encouraging to hear. And I think, too, what you’re talking about is just having really good communication, so people can say what they can do and also have their boundaries honored when they have to set a limit. That’s key to any good relationship, so it would apply here too. Subscribe to Burnt Toast! LisaYeah, totally.VirginiaThinking about other barriers that come up. I’ve been reading, and I know you’re a fan too, of Katherine Goldstein, and she’s been writing such interesting critiques right now of how youth sports culture really derails families’ abilities to participate in community. That’s a whole fairly explosive topic, because people are really attached to their sports. So, I’ll save the specifics of that for some time I have Katherine on to discuss this. Are youth sports a diet? Yes, absolutely. And we are not a sports family, but when she wrote about it, I immediately recognized what she meant, because every fall I noticed that my kids' friends become much less available for play dates because it’s soccer season. And it’s like, waiting for when soccer practice will be over, so that so-and-so might come over. Suddenly, even as a non-sports family, I feel like I’m loosely revolving around these schedules. And to bring it back to your work: That is one aspect of parenting culture that is really feeding into this isolation problem and this lack of community problem. This way that we’ve decided parenting has to be so intensive and performative around sports makes people actually less available to their communities. So this is a long way of asking my question: Do you think what we’re really talking about here is a problem with the institution of marriage or the institution of parenting, or is it a bit of both?LisaThat’s so interesting. I do think that youth sports is, like, by far, the kind of biggest engine of this. But there also are families that are, like, deep, deep, deep into youth performing arts that would have the same kind of function.Virginia Dance is another big one. Competitions taking up every weekend.LisaOr youth orchestra, sometimes those can be incredibly consuming and also incredibly expensive. So going with the grain of the parents that are really hyper investing in their kids activities: They will find community in those places often, right? It's a sort of substitute community for the length of the season, or whatever. And then my question is: What’s the culture within those spaces? Is it like, hyper competitive? Is it about getting to the national championship? Is there a sense of community? Is there a sense of supporting kids around resilience when things don’t go the way that they want them to? The cultures within these spaces matter. And I think it just ties back to the way that the nuclear family is a diet. Because we are so deeply incentivized to be fearful in our culture and to treat our problems with money, goods, services, activities. And the fear, I think, for a lot of parents, is that their kids are going to not have a good and happy life. So then there’s what Annette Lareau, an educational researcher, calls concerted cultivation, particularly among more bourgeois middle class families of trying to schedule kids to the hilt, to make sure that they get every opportunity in life, and they can therefore succeed through every hurdle, and never have any adversity. Or that the adversity that they have is character building adversity in some way. And so I think that the hyper-involvement in kids activities does come from fear that’s motivated by capitalism. And is that an issue of parenting culture or marriage culture or capitalist culture or gender culture?VirginiaAll of it. Yes. I mean, one thing I think about, too, is how these activities create their own community. But it's a very homogenous community. The child-free folks aren't there, because it’s only soccer families or dance families or whatever. And you’re only going to get families who can afford to do the activity. So it's a self-selecting group. This is not to say I’m doing a great job cultivating a more diverse community for my kids. I live in a white majority town. This is hard for all of us. We’re not saying you all have to quit your sports! But if that’s your primary community, that is going to narrow things in a in a way that’s worth reflecting on. To bring this a little more fully into the Burnt Toast space, where we talk about diet as metaphor, but also diets specifically: One question I am asked a lot from the aunties in the Burnt Toast community, is, "How do I show up for the kids in my life that are not my own, I don’t get to make the parenting calls, but for whom I still want to model anti-diet values?" Maybe there’s stuff the parents are doing with food that's sending a weird message, or dieting in the home, that kind of thing. LisaWell, my sense is for myself—and I try to preach this gospel at The Auntie Bulletin— is that there are a lot of these moments for non-parents who are really deeply invested in the lives of kids, where it’s not our call. And it’s just a tricky terrain for aunties or any kind of allo-parental adults who are involved in the lives of kids who aren’t their own kids. I’m really fortunate that most of my friends are pretty on board with an anti-diet philosophy. The people who are close to me, where I’m really involved in feeding kids are on the same page. But it comes up in other ways, right? Where I might have a different perspective than the parents. My sense is really that aunties do need to follow parents' lead that it’s actually quite important to honor parents’ decision makings for their kids. And we can be sort of stealthy ninjas around how we disrupt cultural conditioning more broadly. So I’m not super close to their parents, but we’ve got some kids in our neighborhood who are buddies with the kids who are a big part of my life. And those neighborhood kids get a lot of diet conditioning at home. There’s this little girl, she’s in fourth grade, and she’s always telling me about her mom’s exercise and saying that she can't get fat and she can’t eat that popsicle and things like that, which is really heartbreaking to witness. And it’s exactly that kind of situation where it’s like, I’m invested in this as a just a member of our society, but I also care about these kids, and it’s just not my call, you know? So I can just say things like, "Well, I like my body. I feel good that I have a soft body and I’m going to have another brownie. It tastes really good." And just kind of speak from my own experience, where I’m not necessarily trying to argue with their parents, or trying to convince the kid of something different. I’m just modeling something different for them. And I think it’s totally fine to say, "In my house, you’re allowed to have another brownie if you want one!" VirginiaThat modeling is so powerful. Having one example in their life of someone doing it differently, can plant that seed and help them reframe, like, oh, okay, that’s not the only way to think about this conversation. That’s really useful.LisaAnd I think affirming difference whenever we have the opportunity to do so is important. When a kid comments on somebody’s body size or shape, you can just always say, "Isn’t it great how people are different? It’s so wonderful. There’s so much variety."VirginiaRelated to modeling and fostering anti-diet values: I think there is a way that this collective approach to living and being in community with each other runs quite counter to mainstream narratives around what is good behavior, what are social expectations, and which groups do we let take up space. I’m thinking about how the group of soccer moms is allowed to be a community that everyone has paid to participate in, while the Black neighborhood having a block party might have the cops called on them. So, talk a little bit about how you see collectivism as also an act of radicalism.LisaYeah, thank you for that question. It’s such a good one. A soccer community that is literally pay to play, where there are increasing tiers of elitenes—that is coded as very respectable in our society. Whereas a block party in a neighborhood of color is coded as disrespectable, unrespectable, disreputable. The music is loud and the people are being inconsiderate and their bodies are hanging out. There is all of this stigma around collectivism. I find for myself it’s very insidious and subtle, the ways that collectivism is stigmatized. I have a theoretical allegiance to collectivism, but it takes having to actually ask for help to notice our friction and our resistance to that. You were talking about that earlier in the follow up to your divorce. And I’ve had that experience, when I’ve needed to ask for help around my disability and chronic illness, and there’s all of a sudden this feeling of like, oh, I shouldn’t ask for help. Oh, there’s something wrong with that. And I think that there actually is a dotted line there between our resistance to asking for help and that feeling like we’re doing something bad and anti-Blackness, anti-brownness, anti-queerness. Community is so, so essential for queer folks who have had to find their own family, choose their own community for for for generations. There’s this kind of whiff of disreputability around collectivism, and these narratives around these kids are running wild and bodies are hanging out and the music’s too loud, and like, what’s going on there? What are they eating? VirginiaThere are so many ways we police it all.LisaIt’s all really, really policed. I think that’s really well put. So I think it's important to reclaim collectivism and reframe collectivism as legitimate, valuable, important, meaningful. Collectivism is something that a lot of people who live in dominant white communities have actually had taken from us through the medium of compulsory individualism. We need to reclaim it, and we need to not stigmatize it in all the communities that are around us and our neighbors.VirginiaMaybe instead, we should be looking at other communities as examples to emulate.LisaAs resources, absolutely. The disability community as well. VirginiaI think that’s really helpful, and I’m sure it gives folks a lot to think about, because it just continues to show up in so many small ways. Even as you were describing that I was thinking about the stress response that kicks in for me after I host a gathering, and my house is left in whatever state it’s left in. And it’s like, of course, the house is messy. You just had 12 people over, and there are seltzer cans laying around and throw pillows out of place. That’s because you lived in your house. You used it. But there’s this other part of my brain that’s so conditioned to be like, well, the house has to be tidy. And now it looks like you’re out of control. But it’s that kind of thing, that inner policing we do, that is very much related to this larger societal policing that we participate in.LisaAbsolutely, yeah.VirginiaAny last tips for folks who are like, okay, I want to be doing more of this. Particularly folks who want to connect with child free folks, or for child free folks who are listening, who want to connect with more families with kids. Any little nudges, baby steps people can take towards building this?LisaMy big nudge is to practice courage, because it’s scary to put yourself out there. You have to be vulnerable when you ask to build a relationship that’s deeper with people. And I think it actually is analogous, in some ways, to forming romantic relationships. You have to take some risks to say what you want, and that’s a scary thing to do, but there are lots and lots of people out there who want to be more involved in the lives of families. And there are lots and lots of families out there who need more support.VirginiaWhen you were talking about the pandemic, I was like, I would have killed for an auntie. LisaEvery family needs an auntie. Two adults I love, Rosie Spinks and Chloe Sladden who both have wonderful newsletters, have been writing about this lately, that even having two adults is just not enough to run a household in the structure of society that we live in. I think that that’s right, even if you’ve got a man who’s pulling his weight, to crack open a whole other can of worms.Why Fair Play didn't work for ChloeVirginiaWhich, yeah.LisaThey’re rare, but it does happen, and even then, it’s not enough. We actually need more adults to make communities run than we get with the way nuclear families are set up. So it’s a really worthy thing to seek out aunties, and for aunties to seek out families, and it’s just a little bit scary. And you also have to be persistent, because when we offer, parents will usually say no. Like they don’t believe us. They think their kids are too wild and whatever. So parents have to persist and and families need to persist in being welcoming. VirginiaI would also add on the parent side, as much as I appreciated what you said before about aunties have to respect parents having the final call on stuff: It’s also an exercise in us having to loosen up a little. Not everything is going to go exactly the way you want it to go. The bedtime might look differently, meals might happen differently, there might be more or less screens, and we have to be less attached to those metrics of parenting and touchstones of our parenting day, and realize that the benefits of our kids getting to be with other people, way outweighs whether or not they eat three cookies or whatever it is. LisaYeah, the more that we live in community, the more we all learn to be flexible.VirginiaWhich is really the work of my life, learning to be more flexible. Work on flexibility with us! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Butter LisaI feel like this is pretty nerdy, but this is my true self. The Substack algorithm fed me a newsletter yesterday that I’m so excited about. It’s about The Babysitters Club, which was, like, my favorite thing. VirginiaOh you shared this. Oh, my God, I keep thinking  about it. LisaAnd then yesterday, I ran into my childhood best friend on the beach. I’m visiting my parents right now. We read a lot of Babysitters Club together. So I’m going to tell you this guy named Andrew Knott, who I had not heard of before, but the algorithm fed it to me, wrote a post called A Classic Children’s Book Series Has Me Questioning My Parenting, and he’s reading The Babysitter’s Club together with his daughter, who I think isa tween. So for those who aren’t familiar with The Babysitters Club, where have you been? But major cultural touch point, most important books of my childhood. And, you know, very like auntie-formative books as well. Yeah, he has this really great argument about how the babysitters in these books did like, 100% of the parenting for a lot of families.VirginiaThey absolutely did!LisaIt’s like, this weirdly dystopian situation where the parents are just like, I guess we’re gonna go to Atlantic City for a couple days. Have fun kids.VirginiaYes, yes, they took two 12 year olds along to babysit a family of eight children on a beach vacation and the parents are nowhere to be found. For sure, Mary Anne and Stacey can handle all of the Pike children roaming around the Jersey Shore. It’ll be no problem.LisaYeah, I don’t know. It made me laugh so hard. I feel like I’m always on the lookout for, like, good takes on my favorite books of my childhood. And I’ve got to say this one is an absolute winner. VirginiaAnd intersects so well with your work. My Butter is that I was thinking about the sort of evolving work of being more in community. And a really lovely win I had recently over the summer —and it also relates to what you were saying about scheduling rest— is that a friend of mine and I now have a standing Wednesday morning date, where we meet to walk in a local garden. We've been doing it all summer — every Wednesday, 10am, we walk in these gardens for an hour. And they are now about to close for the season and we're figuring out a replacement place to walk. But when I say walk—I mean, like, stroll, maybe stop and watch bees on flowers for 10 minutes. We’re just talking and strolling and we are not wearing athletic clothing. I call it a workout because it mentally gave me permission to put it on my calendar—that’s my Wednesday workout. But it is not cardio in any way. We’re just strolling around, chatting and and it’s just such a nice touch point. And I’m really proud of myself for making time for that connection with someone. And she’s a good friend, but prior to doing that, I could go three weeks without seeing her easily. And now we always see each other once a week, and we have invited other friends to join us. And the really funny thing, or really, thecool thing was one day, I went and did the walk with her, and then I had a doctor’s appointment. And historically, in the last year or two, my blood pressure has been inching up a little bit. It’s been a smidge high. So I was getting nervous for the blood pressure reading. And my blood pressure was normal to low! LisaOh my gosh. Gosh, because you’re looking at bees with your friend.VirginiaI texted her, I was like, I truly think we’re lowering my blood pressure. LisaYeah, it’s not weight loss. It’s looking at bees, on a schedule with your friends.VirginiaIt’s having a weekly appointment to watch the bees with your friend. Well, thank you, Lisa. This was so much fun. Such a great conversation. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support your work. LisaYeah, thank you so much for having me. Virginia. I’m at The Auntie Bulletin, which is the auntie.substack.com and that’s the main thing I’m working on right now, so I hope people will come check it out. Thank you so much for having me.VirginiaIt’s really fantastic. And there’s just, if any part of this conversation has resonated, there’s like, so much more over on The Auntie Bulletin. So folks need to go check it 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!Subscribe!

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Laura Birek. You probably know Laura as co-host of The Big Fat Positive Podcast, but today she’s here to talk about her new book, co authored with Gia Gambaro Blount. It’s called Good to Go: A Fresh Take on Potty Training for Today's Intentional Parent.I'm years past potty training (thank God!!), but I honestly remember the pain of it better than childbirth. This is often a very fraught parenting milestone. And as with all things parenting: That means we encounter a ton of societal expectations and pressures around how to get potty training right, which makes it all even harder. If you, too, have been a victim of that viral three day potty training method, you'll want to hear this conversation. Laura has amazing advice about how to recover and do it differently. But even if you’re child-free or years out from this experience: What we’re really talking about today is how perfectionism and performative parenting can make life harder for parents (especially moms!) and really get in the way of kids’ body autonomy. And of course, promoting body autonomy is core to the work we do here on Burnt Toast.Today’s episode is free! But don't forget, if you were a Substack subscriber, you have until October 28 to claim your free access to our paid content. Check your email for your special gift link! And drop any questions or concerns here.PS. You can take 10 percent off Good to Go 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 215 TranscriptLauraI am the co-author of a new potty training book that just came out called Good to Go: A Fresh Take on Potty Training for Today's Intentional Parent. You can find it everywhere. And then I am also the co-host of a long running parenting and pregnancy podcast called The Big Fat Positive Podcast. I’ve been doing that for over seven years now. Every week for seven years! VirginiaYou are an OG podcaster! I love the podcast. I’ve been on the podcast. But today we are going to talk about Good to Go. Because you reached out to me and you said, "Potty training culture is such a thing. Can we talk about it?" And I am not going to share my own children’s stories. But I’m going to say, yeah, it is such a thing. And it really messes with our heads. And of course, my work is all about investigating cultural messages that mess with our heads, aka diet culture. So yes, let’s talk about potty training diet culture today. You kick off the book with the story of how you tried and failed to train your older kiddo, who you call Augie in the book. And the impetus was that you read the super popular three day potty training book that I think most of our listeners who have potty trained a child have encountered. Why did the idea that you could magically change potty train your child in three days go so wrong?LauraSo we kind of fell into that new parent trap of "This kid’s a genius!" He was hitting all his milestones early. He was such a talker. And I had been given that very, very popular three day potty training method that shall not be named. And I read it and really took it as gospel. And in the book, there were all these signs of readiness. And I was like, check, check, check, for Augie. It was stuff like, is he interested in the potty? And I thought, oh, this kid is ready, according to this book. And there were extenuating circumstances--namely, the pandemic. We were deep in the pandemic. We were also stuck indoors because there was a wildfire nearby, so we weren’t even able to go outside. That’s Southern California life for you. And I was in my second trimester with my second pregnancy. So all of these things came together to be like, well, you know, what the hell? Let’s give it a try. VirginiaWe’re trapped indoors anyways. LauraWe’re trapped indoors. Let’s spend three days naked and see what happens. And so the very first sentence of our book is: "I’m a failure at potty training." Which is a very weird way to start a potty training book.VirginiaBut so relatable. LauraOh, I hope it’s relatable! Because the thing is, we thought we were a success at the very beginning. Right after those three days, he was mostly making it to the potty. We were like, okay, we can take away diapers. But what we didn’t realize is that we had just entered into a state of constant vigilance with him. We were constantly reminding him to go, and we were always nervous about going anywhere and doing anything with him, like even just going to the park. We never got over the stress level, right? My mom would say, "He wasn’t potty trained. You were potty trained."VirginiaYou were trying to take him to the potty obsessively and monitor all the signs.LauraExactly, exactly. And the other thing was, I had this idea that having two kids in diapers was going to be hard. I don’t know where I got this idea! Everyone is like oh, you can’t have two kids in diapers.VirginiaIt feels like a really common cultural message. I’ve heard a lot of friends say that, who have kids close in age. "Oh we have got to get her out of diapers before the next one comes!" LauraActually having two kids in diapers is way more convenient than one who’s in a very early stage of potty training and a newborn! That was our first mistake. But we just continued to deal with this stress around going places. And at some point, I ended up having the baby. Augie was still out of diapers, but he was having accidents. In our book, we call them misses, but this author called them accidents, so we’ll stick with accidents. It’s the more familiar term. And he was having accidents all the time, and I was really stressed out about it. Then I take my new baby, we call him Sebastian, to a local place called the Family Room, which is where I did mommy and me classes, and then toddler and me classes with my now co-author, Gia Gambaro Blount. I brought him for a lactation support group. But Gia happened to be there, and I descended upon Gia. I was like, "Gia, I need your help. Augie is having all these problems with potty training. I don’t know what to do." And she looked at me, and said, "Can I ask you something? When you decided to potty train him, did you tell him it was going to happen?" And I was like, "No." Because the book specifically tells you you’re not supposed to do that. VirginiaYou just spring it on them.LauraThe book tells you, do not even have the little potties out, because it will confuse their little brains. And I didn’t know anything about potty training at the time, so I was like, "Sure, that sounds legit. Whatever." So Gia was like, "You need to go back and ask him how he’s feeling about this." So I go back and I look Augie in the eyes. I’m like, "Hey baby. I know we’ve been having a lot of accidents. Do you think you want to go back to diapers for a little bit?" And he was like, "Yes!" Instantly. "Yes, yes, yes, I want to go back to diapers!" And I was shocked by that, because I thought he was going to be like, "No, I’m a big boy!" VirginiaHe was like, no, I’m really not ready for that. LauraAnd so we went back to diapers, which, by the way, in the 3 day method is a big no no. Like, huge regression. And there was also this strict thing about having to potty train between 18 and 30 months, and if you don’t do it between those times, you’ve ruined them forever. At least, that’s that’s the takeaway I had.VirginiaAnd if you could do it beforehand, even better.LauraYes! So I was really worried about all that. But the minute we put him back in diapers, the stress went away. And you know, TL/DR, he is not ruined forever. We ended up actually potty training him using Gia’s help just after he turned three. VirginiaEverything in your story is so deeply relatable. Because I think those first years of parenting are such chaos. And this is certainly not all moms... but there’s a certain kind of mom who is vulnerable to this message of "control as much of it as you can." Have the feeding schedules, track the ins and outs when they’re newborns. There is a need to have a lot of information and structure around what is otherwise just this sea of "when will we ever sleep again? When will anything happen?" That makes us really vulnerable to messages like "You want to achieve this milestone by a certain age." Or "You want to achieve this milestone before you have another baby." There is this idea that we somehow get a gold star if we get it done at a certain point. And now that I have kids who are way, way older, and I’m just like, "I don’t even remember when it all happened." You don’t look at a bunch of seventh graders, and think, "Well, I can tell  you didn’t potty train till 3.5." LauraAnd I think that I am one of those moms who is totally susceptible to that. We had a sleep schedule with my first. And I think part of it is that I had my kids later in life, I already had a career. And when you have kids, any control you have over your days, over your schedule, over your life, just flies out the window. So I think I was grasping at anything that would give me a sense of control in my life. And rightfully so! So I’m not saying that those things don’t help people —I actually do think some of the sleep schedule stuff helped us. Or we got lucky, and that just happened to align with my kid's personality.VirginiaYou had a baby who was like, "Yes, fine, we’ll do a schedule."LauraExactly. I don’t know. There’s no way to know, but it did give me a sense of control. The trap with that is, say you have a good experience, like I did with sleep training , and then you go to potty training and it’s not as successful. Suddenly you think it’s some kind of referendum on your own parenting. VirginiaYes! LauraHaving a second kid is really helpful — or third or fourth, I imagine, even more— but having more than one kid has really helped me realize that so much of parenting is luck of the draw with your kid’s personality and temperament and all that stuff. But with your first, it can feel like such pressure and such responsibility for you to be the person who figures it all out. When it turns out that a lot of things are just not figure out-able, or need time or a different approach, or you need to be flexible.VirginiaSocial media has not helped in all of this, for sure. I mean, not that everybody documents their kids potty training on social media, but it’s of a piece with needing to celebrate milestones in this public way, I think.LauraHopefully one of the gifts that we give with our book is this concept that potty training is not a light switch. It’s not a binary. You’re not either potty trained or not in some clear crossing the finish line manner. Instead, we describe it as a continuum in terms of how much parental involvement is required. So at the very, very beginning, those first days, weeks, even months, you’re in the highly involved phase, where you are doing a lot of reminding and you’re doing a lot of cleaning up of pee on floor. You’re doing a lot of thinking about it. Then you go into the occasionally involved phase, which is fewer accidents, they know they need to go, but you still have to wipe their butts until kindergarten, at least usually. That’s something that the other books don’t really tell you. They frame it as, "oh, you’re done after three days." But these kids need help! There are just some physiological reasons why little kids have trouble wiping their own butts. Their heads are huge! Their proportions are all off. Some kids physically cannot reach their butts. But no one’s telling you that. So our goal in the book is to try to shorten the highly involved phase so that you’re in the occasionally involved phase quicker, and then finally you'll get to the point where you’re rarely involved. We say that there’s some day in the future where you won’t know the last time your kid went to the bathroom. But that’s years away. I mean, in my house, it’s still getting announced! So if you can think of it as the spectrum of where you’re in this process, then you can be a little bit less like, oh, okay, so and so just posted "oh, my two year old potty trained in one weekend." You can know in your head: Okay, yeah, that just means they’re not wearing diapers on a daily basis, right? But caregivers are still involved.VirginiaYeah, it doesn’t mean the two year old is like, "Okay, mom, I’ll be back in a minute!"LauraPeople will come out of the woodwork and be like, "My two year old self potty trained, they won’t let me be involved. They do everything!" And it’s like, I am so happy for you. But that is not the majority of kids and we need to just understand that’s not an expectation we should have.VirginiaI also appreciate understanding the stages more, and the fact that you and Gia really emphasized that this means you can decide readiness, not just based on your kid. So: Are they achieving these certain milestones? Are they checking these boxes? But also: Consider yourself. Are you, the parent, ready? Maybe when you’re about to have a newborn, you don’t want to be in the highly involved potty training phase. If you don’t think you can get all the way to "less involved" by the time the baby comes, maybe put this on hold for a while. And that just gives us so much more permission to center our own needs in the process. And to actually have needs, which is another thing the three day discourse really leaves out. The idea that you as the parent would have any other things going on other than potty training.LauraMost of the 3 day experts say you cannot leave the house for three days. Okay, that’s great for a stay at home parent who has no other kids. But what happens when you have an older kid that needs to go to soccer practice? What happens if you have a prescription you need to pick up from the pharmacy?VirginiaOr you’re a single parent.LauraOr a single parent doing it all. Exactly.We were in a pandemic, in a wildfire, and that’s why I was like, okay, we can stay home for three days. There has been no other time in our lives we’ve been able to stay inside for three days. Those unrealistic expectations really set you up for failure. And then on top of that, the message in all these other methods is, "If your child is still having issues after the three days, you must have done something wrong. You must have not followed my method perfectly."That’s with so much of parenting, right? But no, every kid is going to react differently and have a different timeline. And also, sometimes prescriptions need to be picked up at the pharmacy. VirginiaMy listeners frequently get a little annoyed when I say everything is a diet. But: A system that tells you that if it didn’t work, it’s because you didn’t do it right is 100 percent classic diet culture. It’s classic like, well, if only you’d followed it, if only you’d have better discipline... as opposed to: This just isn’t a match for what you’re trying to do right now. This isn’t the way for you. Laura And it’s trying to police this thing that everyone has to do, too. I think that’s just such an interesting analog to diet culture as well. We all have to eat. I know you’ve written about this, right? Even the most restrictive diet is going to have to provide some food, because you will die. And we all have to eliminate our waste and, save children with medical issues that may prevent them from potty training, almost all of us are going to end up having to learn to use a toilet at some point. It’s this thing we all have to do. And yet, we’re being told there’s this one right way to do it. But there are also at least five different people saying their way is the one right way. What gets more diet-y than that?VirginiaAnother thing I really appreciated is what Gia emphasizes in terms of assessing your child’s readiness. Because it's not just the cognitive signs, like, do they have the language? Are they looking at the potty and interested or following you into the bathroom? She also talks about this concept of interoception, which is something that comes up a lot when we talk about helping kids be intuitive eaters. So again, there are these parallels between food and potty stuff. Can you explain how understanding where a child is with their interoception development can help you prepare for a more intuitive approach to potty training?LauraWe talk about the three realms of readiness: There are the cognitive signs, the social-emotional signs and the physical signs. But we further split those up into two categories. Some of these things are teachable signs, and then there are some unteachable things that are just developmental. A really good example of that is in the cognitive signs of readiness. An unteachable sign is whether your child is curious about you going to the potty, right? That is often listed as a sign of readiness, like, oh, your child wants to know what you’re doing. Why are you sitting on the potty? Wants to come be with you in the bathroom. You can’t teach that level of interest, right? And if you tried it would be weird. And interoception is another unteachable sign. There’s nothing we can do to force your child to have more awareness of what’s going on in their body. That’s a thing we’re kind of born with that is on another spectrum. Some people are incredibly sensitive. I’m a person who’s been accused of being a hypochondriac, and I think part of that is I have heightened interoception. I feel every ache and pain. I always felt when I ovulated, for example. I also heard once that only some people can tell when their heart’s beating. That’s just a sign that some people have a more sensitive sense of interoception versus others, right? We can’t teach it. It’s just the way your kid is. What we can teach is supporting their interpretation of their interoception. An example that’s not potty training related is if your child gets goosebumps, you can help them identify: Do you have goosebumps because you’re feeling cold, or do you have goosebumps because you’re scared? Goosebumps have a feeling associated with them, and you can’t teach them how to feel that. But what you can do is try to connect language to the feeling. And that’s hard. That is the hard work of potty training, honestly. And so Gia and I identified something we called the universal potty sequence, just to keep it short in our brain, which is, when we are as adults, go to the bathroom. We say we’re going to the bathroom. We think of it as one step, but in reality, it’s up to nine steps. We identified nine steps. But you know, it’s a bunch of different steps that the kids have to learn. It’s all new for them, right? So the first step is feeling. The sensation is that interoception, every step after that is kind of mechanical, right? Like you navigate to the potty, then you pull down your pants, then you sit on the potty, then you eliminate, then you flush, blah, blah, right? So we have this thing we call the rehearsal period. That’s about two weeks ish--again, everything is flexible--before you actually plan to take away diapers, where you teach everything on the universal potty sequence, all those steps, all those new things, all those new mechanics for them. Except step one: Feel the sensation. That one we are leaving to when you take away diapers. The point is when kids are thrown into "we’re taking away diapers. We’re taking away this thing that you’ve worn your entire life!" this way, the only thing they have to learn is how to connect the sensation to the need to go. Everything else isn’t brand new, so the other eight steps aren't so overwhelming. All we’re focusing on is interoception, and so that’s what we’re trying to really center in our method to help our kids connect the dots. And that’s why we also don’t forbid prompting. Some kids are not going to have a strong sensation, and you’re going to need to sometimes, in retrospect, be like, "hmm, there’s pee on the floor now, you you had a miss." And we say miss, because we don’t want there to be shame involved, right? We don’t want to say, oh, it’s an accident. It’s not really an accident. They just didn’t get to the potty in time, right? or they didn’t even think to try to go. So we say, "Oh, you had a miss. Do you remember what it felt like before it came out? Next time we feel that feeling, let’s see if we can catch it before we go." So we’re working on that. And some kids need that extra support. Honestly, my six year old still likes to get hyper focused, and so he does need to get prompted to this day. And no one would say, oh, that six year old’s not potty trained. He’s definitely potty trained at school. He’s fine, but sometimes we just need to help him connect. I mean, how many adults do you know who wait till the last second go to the bathroom?VirginiaThat’s me, every work day. What I love about this is how you’re really centering kids’ body autonomy in this process. And in way that is so counter to how I’ve seen body training explained before. This feels like such a huge shift. I mean, I remember when I was doing it with my own kids, feeling like, "the way I’m doing this doesn’t feel aligned with the way I’m thinking about feeding them," for example. When I’m feeding kids, I’m really focused on the power of their ability to say no to a food they don’t like, and why that’s important. And the importance of not pushing them past their fullness cues and helping them notice hunger cues. Their body autonomy is the center of it. And potty training is this thing where because we’re so focused on getting it done, because we’ve got all this pressure on it, it’s like... suddenly they don’t have body autonomy in the process at all. And that feels really troubling.LauraIt does. I mean, I came to that same revelation. It was part of what allowed me to feel okay with putting Augie back in diapers, VirginiaYeah, because you gave him his power back. LauraExactly and I realized this exact same thing you said. I am so dedicated to respectful parenting. I’m a Virginia Sole-Smith fan girl! Like I read all your books, and I'm offering foods without judgment, and all of that stuff. And yet, in this one realm, I fell into the trap of not just not centering his body autonomy, I like full on ignored it. I mean, it sounds awful, but I really did violate his own body autonomy. I forced him to do things he wasn’t ready for. And I do feel bad about it to this day. And it’s not an inconsequential thing, right? Like, people say, No one’s going to college still, still using a diaper. Everyone eventually learns to potty. And it’s true. But there is a lot of shame around using the bathroom. There was some Vice article that just came out, which said, like, 83 percent of Gen Zers have bathroom anxiety. And a bunch of them want to quit because of it. They don’t want to have a job because they’re afraid of using the bathroom. VirginiaI’m an old millennial, but I have some women’s magazine bathroom trauma. I understand what they’re saying. It’s a stressful place. LauraAnd I’m not saying I enjoy pooping in a public bathroom either! But there are consequences, and not just about anxiety. There are actual physical consequences to involving shame in the potty training process. There's encopresis, which is a specific type of constipation and a really big problem that is so hard to solve. I’ve heard from so many parents whose children have it. It's a form of chronic constipation, and what happens is you’re so constipated that liquid poop escapes around the sides of the impacted stool, and kids can’t tell anymore that they have to poop because their colon is so enlarged. And this is a much more common problem than people realize, and it’s really hard to solve once it’s started. It's something you really want to get ahead of. And that’s the other reason we say if your child is refusing to poop in the potty, give them a diaper. You need to get that poop out one way or another, and it’s not a judgment on whether you’ve been able to potty train them or not. We’re looking at the long game here. We’re trying to create a child who doesn’t have long term problems that require a ton of medical intervention. What’s worse, having to go to a GI doctor for the next five years or just giving them a diaper to poop in at the end of the day?VirginiaAnd giving them another month or six months in diapers, and then you try again. LauraIt goes back to the perfectionism, though. Like, when you put it that way, you’re like, yeah, of course, I’ll give them a diaper. But if you’ve been told no, they’re going to be confused. It’s failure. That's harder. It's not failure. These kids are way smarter than most people give them credit for, like, they will know the difference. They’re not going to be confused about what’s going on.VirginiaI think another piece of this body autonomy conversation is night training. I really love that Gia does not endorse night training. I mean, I have heard of parents setting alarms to wake toddlers up to pee at 11pm so that they could say they were night trained. Just tell us why this is so unnecessary.LauraNight training is absolutely unnecessary. We did a ton of research to make sure we were right. Night training is just not effective. It’s really a one hundred percent developmental shift that happens in your child’s brain and their body. When they are ready, they will be night trained. And there’s nothing you can do to force it. One in 6 kids at age six still wet the bed at night. At age seven, that goes down to one in 10. But that’s still a lot of kids! One in 10 kids in your second grade class are still wetting the bed at night. And that’s fine and developmentally normal. And so if we know that, if we can normalize that, it may lessen the pressure for night training. There’s a scientific term for waking them at night to sit them on the potty. They call it lifting. And the research shows that lifting has no measurable outcomes like lifting. People who practice lifting had no better results than people who just let their kids sleep. And I would imagine—this is just my hypothesis—that those parents are crabby because they have to wake up in the middle of the night to do it. And their kids are also probably crabby for having gotten woken up, even if they’re half awake, right? So we are firmly in the belief that you don’t have to do night training. That said, we tell you when to start looking for signs that it's time to take away night time diapers and how to do it. And also what to do when your kid is getting up to pee in the middle of the night, and that becomes a problem. So if your child is waking up in the middle of the night every night to go pee — we get into how to address that, what the root causes might be, and how to how to deal with that when the time comes. But we say do not do night training at the same time as daytime training. Your kids will likely just night train themselves during or after the process. One in 10 will take past age seven.VirginiaThe last thing I want to hit on is the stuff piece of potty training. There’s a lot marketed to us, a lot of gear, different types of potties, all of that. And I would love to hear your take on what is actually useful and what is just marketing, and you can probably skip. LauraLike anything parenting-related, mom-related specifically, there are going to be people trying to sell you a bunch of stuff. But I mean, basically you need a pot to piss in, right? Like, that is the bare bones of what you need. A lot of people ask us about the floor potties: Do I really need a floor potty? A lot of people find them kind of gross, unsightly. I get it. You don’t want to have a little toilet in your living room. Yeah, I didn’t either. But if you buy nothing else, we recommend having a floor potty. And you don't have to buy them — there are going to be 20 parents in your neighborhood who are desperate to get these out of their basements! You can get over the fact that it was used by another kid, just get some Clorox. You know, you’re fine. You don’t have to spend actual money on any of this stuff, because it is a thing that you only need for a narrow window of time. So we recommend, at the bare minimum, having a floor potty for this reason: There are three types of awareness when it comes to your internal body awareness. There’s sensation awareness, which is, oh, I have to go. The action awareness is: Is it pee or poop? And then there’s urgency awareness, which is like, the real key to all of this. Urgency awareness is how much lead time you have between noticing the feeling and getting to a toilet. And when you are first potty training, in the first days and weeks, that urgency awareness window is seconds. We’re talking like five seconds between when a kid recognizes and when they go. Because of that, we want to give them as many opportunities to have a win as possible, right? Like, you don’t want to clean up pee off your floor, and you want your kid to feel successful, right? The more chances they have to successfully make it to the potty, the better everyone’s going to feel, and the like, quicker the process is going to go. And sometimes the difference between a win and a miss is the time it takes to walk from the living room to the bathroom.In addition, there are a lot of things about the big potty that scare kids or just are really, really challenging for kids. It’s high up, so you have to have a step stool or something. Usually you have to have some kind of insert for the seat. So like, if you’re like, oh, I don’t want to buy a floor potty, you’re still having to buy a step stool and a seat insert. So that’s two things versus the one floor potty. And kids can be scared of the balancing being high up. They can be scared of the plopping, like the poop falling all the way into the bowl. We have some techniques to help them get over that, but there are just more barriers to entry for most kids to use the adult potty at the get-go. Obviously, you can work towards that. And I always hear from people like, well, my kid wouldn’t even go in the small potty. It’s like, okay, there you go. Now, you know. All the more reason to get one from some other parent. If you have a really big house, two floor potties could be helpful so you don’t have to be carrying them around everywhere you go. I mean the amount of time I’ve spent in my life carrying around a little floor potty full of pee. It’s just so gross. It’s such a glamorous life we live as parents. And then the only other thing that I’d say is really a good buy if you're in the car a lot, is a travel potty.VirginiaOne hundred percent. LauraThere are so many great ones now. I have the Oxo one, it like, folds up into this flat little package. And you can either pop the legs vertical, so that you put a little plastic bag in that has a little absorbent pad so that you can sit on the potty in the backseat of the car or the trunk or whatever. But it also folds out, so it can be a little seat to use in public bathrooms. And that’s honestly really great. Public bathrooms are a whole other topic that we actually talk a lot about in the book. But one major thing is that their butts are too small. They just so you either have to hold them, and it’s a whole thing, or you can have this travel potty with you, which gives them a seat that’s their size and makes it more accessible. ButterVirginiaWell, this was fantastic. Speaking of stuff, though, it does not have to be stuff. Laura, do you want to give us some Butter today?LauraI do. Okay, so I went straight from saying you don’t need to buy things for potty training, and then I’m going to tell you about this thing that I think you should buy for potty training. But I have to tell you about this because I have been giving these out to my friends left and right. Anytime I tell someone about it, they they’re like their mind is blown. They’ve never heard of it before, and so I feel like I have to share it, because it’s something that’s been so helpful for us, and that is a disposable travel urinal. Have you ever heard of these? VirginiaI do not have children with penises, so no.LauraWell, guess what? It works for children with vulvas, too. VirginiaWow. Okay!LauraSo it’s this universal spout. It’s basically this sort of oval shaped spout that, if you have a penis, you point this the top part up, and if you have a vulva, you point it down, just so it catches the pee. And it’s just a plastic bag, kind of like an emesis bag, but the difference is there’s a little zip lock top, so you can seal it off, and there’s like a gel pad at the bottom that’s dry when you get it, but it absorbs liquid, kind of like what’s inside of a diaper, right? And you can it folds up into this tiny little package that you can have in your purse. It’s saved us so many times when you are places where you just can’t get to a bathroom quickly, and they really have to pee. Because, I don’t know about your kids, but no matter how many times I tell them, like we’re leaving the park, let’s go to the bathroom. Yeah, no, I don’t have to go. And then five minutes into the drive home, I have to pee. I have to pee.And while I do have two children with penises, I don’t usually like to have them pee on random people’s yards, right? So really helps to be able to have this thing in the car. I will tell you the most clutch moment, which hopefully doesn’t get me canceled, which is we were in line. My six year old and I were in line for the Guardians of the Galaxy breakout ride at Disney California Adventure. And it was an hour long line. And I was shocked that he was focused and able to stay in that line the whole time. But we were almost to the boarding area, and he’s like, Mommy I have to pee and it was just me and him. I couldn’t send him with his dad or anything. And this line is like a maze, you know how Disney does it’s like they create this whole experience. But I didn’t know how to get out in any quick way, even if they would have led us back in the line, I didn’t know how to get out. And it was dark in there, all moody, and so it was scary. And I was like, okay, baby, just turn around. So I got him face away from the crowd, and he peed in the bag, and there was a trash can right there. And it saved us! so I highly recommend it. I have one in my purse at all times, just in case. I have yet to use it for myself, but it is apparently used by adults. Okay, yeah, yeah, absolutely so. And they, I don’t have a brand recommendation. There’s like 500 different brands, so just look up disposable urinal bags. VirginiaWell, my Butter is not something you can pee in, but It is body adjacent in thinking about this episode, and thinking back to earlier parenting years, because, as I said, I’m like, pretty well out of the stage. Now, I was remembering how much one of our favorite picture books at that time was Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder. LauraI love that book. VirginiaIt’s incredible. It should be in every parent’s library. It’s a go-to baby shower gift for me forever, because it’s just an amazing celebration of body diversity, which is all of Tyler’s work. So that’s a Butter I’ve given before, but just to re-up. But recently, a friend of mine gave me a print of Tyler’s of this beautiful, fat mermaid. I’ll put a photo of it in the show notes. And I actually hung it up by my bathroom, because our bathroom is near where our pool is. So now we have a lot of middle school girls changing into swimsuits all the time. And I am slowly making this bathroom my body celebration shrine. So I have three Tyler illustrations in that space. And I’m just adding to this little collection of body positive art so that when teenage girls are in there changing into swimsuits and having the feelings they can look around and be like, Oh, right. Bodies are cool. So, another way to think about your bathroom as a place to affirm that body autonomy matters. LauraYeah, it really does. VirginiaWell, this was a delight. Laura, thank you so much for joining us. Tell folks where we can follow you, how we can support your work.LauraYes. So as I said many times, my book Good to Go: A Fresh Take on Potty Training for Today's Intentional Parent is out in the US and Canada, wherever you buy your books. There’s also an e-book version you can find. We are hoping to get an audiobook going soon. And we also have a website that you can find us at and then listen to my podcast. We have great conversations all the time. We had Virginia on for two episodes when Fat Talk came out and one of our favorite episodes ever. And we are Big Fat Positive a pregnancy and parenting journey.VirginiaAmazing. Thank you so much for being here. LauraThanks for having me. I love talking to 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.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!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, here with our first-ever Patreon podcast episode! We're going to chat about: ⭐️ How we're feeling about the BIG MOVE. ⭐️ How to think about clothes after a significant size change. What even IS your style now?! ⭐️Figuring out fall uniforms! ⭐️ Diet culture in disaster prep. ⭐️ The one thing we wish straight-sized style bloggers would do differently. And so much more! To hear the full conversation, you'll need to be a paid subscriber. Reminder: Substack subscribers, make sure to redeem your gift to read this newsletter for FREE!🧈 🧈 🧈 Check your email for your gift link.🧈 🧈 🧈

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!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.comMy dear friend (and our nation’s leading momfluencer scholar) Sara Petersen joined me for a very fun Substack Live yesterday to discuss: Momfluencer Brooke Raybould’s protein-packed postpartum journey! Why $700 calendars are not the systemic support moms need! Would we eat seven hardboiled eggs in one meal! And so much more. Longtime Burnt Toasties will recall that …

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!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.comICYMI yesterday… Corinne Fay and I did our first-ever Substack Live! If you’re a casual Substack user, you may or may not have noticed these popping up more frequently. Yes, they work just like Instagram Lives. Yes, they are another way Substack is becoming social media and we can all have complicated feelings about that. Yes, it’s weird that writers now have to b…

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!