Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your January Extra Butter! 

Today, we’re tackling two big topics:

1. Can you do a diet-y thing and still be an anti-diet advocate?

2. And can Corinne and Virginia divest from Amazon for one month?

(Or is that…also kind of diet-y???)

If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Substack. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.

Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter. It's just $99 per year, and is the hands down best way to keep Burnt Toast an ad- and sponsor-free space. 

PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) 

Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Farideh.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Virginia

This feels like a very timely conversation for January. We are getting inundated with all of the diet talk, all of the urge for self improvement. This is the month where even if you’re staunchly anti-diet…you might start drifting that way. So we thought, let’s get into it. Let’s talk really honestly about what that means and what it looks like.

And then, on a related note, we are also going to talk about our own self improvement project—world improvement, I guess?— but also just Corinne and I trying to be better people. So we’re going to see: Can we divest from Amazon?

Also, just a quick note that you may hear some background noise in this episode, because there’s some construction happening at my house today, and they are banging things. And I’m sorry.

Corinne

I think we should start by talking about what we mean when we say, can you do something “diet-y?” What kind of things are we talking about here?

Virginia

Well I think of dieting as any time you are changing how you eat or exercise, with a weight loss goal in mind.

Corinne

Yes. So the kind of questions that we hear a lot are like, “can I cut one thing out of my diet, or can I track this specific macronutrient and still be anti-diet?”

Virginia

Can I count my protein? Can I go gluten free? Can I count my steps? It’s all of those kind of trendy habits that get marketed both for weight loss and for other reasons. And sometimes it’s the other reasons, and sometimes it’s the weight loss, and sometimes it’s hard to know why you want to do the thing.

Do you personally have any diet-y somethings, Corinne?

Corinne

I 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.

Virginia

Oh my God.

Corinne

I 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—

Virginia

You like being judged first thing in the morning?

Corinne

Yeah! 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.

Virginia

This is a big revelation, because I have written pieces critiquing Fitbits, which you have edited and never told me.

Corinne

I 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.”

Virginia

Yes. What must that be like?

Corinne

Sometimes at the gym, I will use the stopwatch thing.

Virginia

Sure.

Corinne

So 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.

Virginia

This I did know about you, because you are an electrolyte girlie.

Corinne

I’m an electrolyte girlie. I like electrolytes. I like fiber. I’ve dabbled in creatine, which is another gym one.

Virginia

Well, I mean, power lifting,

Corinne

I mean going to the gym could be on here.

Virginia

Working out, period, I guess. But the idea that exercise entirely belongs to diet culture—I don’t think that’s true. And I think reclaiming exercise is something we’ve talked about plenty, but it is really these specific little habits that I think are so fascinating,

Corinne

Yeah And with the nutritional supplements I take —none of them are specifically tied to weight loss for me.

I will just say, like, I’m susceptible. What’s the one that’s on all the podcasts? Athletic Greens? I’ve never tried it, but I’ve looked at it and been like, would this change my life?

Virginia

This is a major revelation. I’ve also written about Athletic Greens.

Corinne

Really? You have none of that?

Virginia

No no, we just haven’t gotten to my list yet. I’m enjoying your list. But I do feel like the listeners are going to be clutching their pearls a little bit over these revelations!

Corinne

I feel it’s so tied to millennial culture, in some ways? Like Goop and Moon Juice.

Virginia

Wait. Have you ever bought a Moon Juice powder?

Corinne

I’ve used the the magnesium one. Because magnesium is an electrolyte.

Virginia

Of course it is.

Corinne

And well, also TikTok. Like for a while there was the the sleepy girl mocktail on TikTok which is tart cherry juice and and magnesium powder. It’s supposed to help you sleep. I did do that for a while.

Virginia

Did it help you sleep?

Corinne

I do think that magnesium helps me. But also it’s just kind of fun to have a little pre-bedtime treat. What’s the harm? You know?

Virginia

Yeah, yeah, I get that.

Okay, so my list. People know I’m a daily Diet Coke drinker, which is a reclaiming.

I’ve talked about the protein powder I put in the smoothie I make every morning for me and my kids. I started using that protein powder in my last diet, which was when I was on a detox for a story I was writing for Self Magazine in 2015. And then I kept the protein powder, but ditched the diet.

Corinne

That 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.”

Virginia

Every 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.

Corinne

I think when we look at these individual behaviors, sometimes we’re reclaiming legitimately useful things that the diet industry stole from us—

Virginia

Like Diet Coke!

Corinne

Like Diet Coke. So in these scenarios, reframing the intention can change a habit from diet-y to a form of genuine self-care.

Virginia

Like you using your FitBit for sleep, not for weight loss.

Corinne

I think sometimes the nutrition supplements feel that way, too. Like, “I’m just giving myself a little extra boost” and sometimes it feels like a treat, which I don’t know, is maybe not great, but.

Virginia

The mindset thing I was just talking about is rooted in a lingering belief that weight loss should be the goal of exercise that I haven’t let go. But the protein powder really doesn’t feel about weight loss to me at all. I just really like the taste, and I like how I feel when I have that for breakfast. So which of yours do you think is, like, “is there still some like, residual weight loss goal attached?” Versus “I just like this,” and it’s fun to try different supplements and see how I feel.

Corinne

I mean, I honestly feel like the the supplements don’t have that connection for me. And, I have also wondered sometimes: If I had more trust in doctors and the medical community, if I wouldn’t go this route. It does feel like, “I don’t have trust in my doctor, so I’ll maybe try this weird supplement.”

Virginia

That makes sense.

Corinne

It does sometimes feel like a like coping mechanism.

I have also wondered, why do I care? Why do I need my Fitbit to validate my feelings about how I slept? You know?

Virginia

Why do I need to get an A on sleep? Yeah, there’s something there. I get that.

Corinne

Maybe it’s tied to perfectionism, not to dieting directly, but optimization.

Virginia

I just remembered another one of mine! I’m always failing at hydration. I definitely have ambitions about how much water I should drink every day. And I know, as someone who’s very migraine prone, that I am a happier person when I drink a pretty extreme amount of water. Also as someone who has voice issues. And none of that has to do with weight loss—although there certainly is a whole hydration/weight loss thing that’s out there in diet culture. But it does end up feeling metric-y and judgy in a way that I don’t find helpful. I’m constantly aspiring to be someone who wakes up and drinks a bunch of lemon water, and I’m just never going to be that person. But I would like to be and I don’t know why exactly.

I think this is the thing that’s tricky to tease out. What is the intention? Is it, this was a diet thing that you’ve reclaimed and reframed for yourself? Is it really still rooted in weight loss? And if so, what does that mean?

So that’s what leads people to ask us: Can I pursue intentional weight loss and still be anti-diet? This came up a lot in that piece I wrote on the protein mom who was weighing her protein and teaching her daughter how to weigh her food. There were a lot of folks in the comments who felt like I was being anti-protein and wanted to defend her behavior as healthy because it was just part of how she was fueling her workouts. Or feeling like protein is getting like conflated with weight loss in these complicated ways.

So it’s it’s messy. It’s messy. But I think this is a big question. Can you pursue intentional weight loss and still be someone who has anti-diet values?

Corinne

When I hear that question, what I think in my head is: Can you pursue intentional weight loss and be anti-diet? Maybe not. But can you pursue intentional weight loss and still be for fat liberation? Yes.

So I think it also kind of comes down to, what is the line between those two things and where do your values lie?

Virginia

Oh, that’s really important. And I think, too, a lot of it has to do with your own amount of thin privilege and reasons for pursuing weight loss. Often fat folks are pursuing weight loss as a means to access health care or as a survival strategy, which is different from a very thin fitness influencer selling weight loss. Vastly different. One is somebody just doing what they need to do to survive their own life. And one is somebody profiting off weight loss and selling other people to do it.

Corinne

Yeah, and that kind of came up on the protein girlies thing, too, where some people were, like, “I’m measuring the amount of protein I’m eating to make sure I’m getting enough,” versus I’m weighing my food or tracking calories to make sure I don’t eat too much. And I think some of that comes down to your own brain. Is that something that you can do or not?

Virginia

Yeah. I mean, the way you were like, I can use a Fitbit and ignore the step count, I’m like, wow, what’s it like to have a brain like that, because I know that my brain would be like, well, how many steps have we done by lunch?

Corinne

Sometimes at the end of the day, I do look at it and I’m like, wow, I only took 3000 steps today. But I don’t find myself spiraling about it. And I think also it’s the thing where I can put it down. Like I will take it off and just kind of forget about it.

Virginia

That sounds like a very healthy, very balanced relationship with your Fitbit, as opposed to how I know I would be.

So I feel like we can sort this into a couple of categories.

Are you doing something that has a diet-y origin story and you’ve changed the meaning of it? Are you doing something that has a deity origin story, and you can do it without being triggered, like Corinne can use a Fitbit and Virginia cannot.

Or are you doing something that you know triggers you to more of a weight loss fixated place? And that’s not what you want. And maybe this isn’t really serving you, but you’re doing it, so that’s something to look at.

And then this third thing of like, Can you do it and still stand up for fat liberation? I think the answer is yes, and I want people to have concrete ideas about how they’re doing that.

Corinne

I think also sometimes where it feels tricky is people hold on to these behaviors and don’t want to acknowledge the inherent anti-fatness in it. I think about that with the Fitbit. Even if I can use it in a way that’s okay for me, is step tracking inherently anti-fat? I don’t know. I actually don’t really know.

Virginia

I mean, it did definitely get popular as a weight loss strategy and I would say intentional weight loss is inherently anti-fat. But it is not it’s only purpose.

And I think what I look for is, are you able to very clearly name that?

Corinne

Yes, I completely agree.

Virginia

If you’re not able to say, yeah, it’s complicated, I can see that this is problematic, and I’m doing it for this reason. If you want to just sort of pretend it doesn’t have those connotations that tells me that you are not really doing that work.

Corinne

Yeah. I think as a fat person, it feels better to hear someone acknowledge the complexity of this stuff.

Virginia

We’ve seen this a lot with the Ozempic conversation. Folks who are consciously choosing intentional weight loss for their own personal reasons often then feel shut out of fat liberation more broadly, and even of Burnt Toast specifically. Often the unsubscribe notes we get say something like, “I’m pursuing weight loss and I can’t be here anymore.”

And that always makes me feel a little sad, because I don’t think that’s my goal. I don’t think that’s the goal of this community. I don’t want you to come and tell us the specifics of your diet and trigger somebody for whom that’s going to be harmful information. But I don’t want anyone to feel like their personal choices are going to be judged and policed here.

Corinne

Ultimately, it would be nice to live in a world where weight gain and weight loss are neutral, you know?

I think the Ozempic thing is a good comparison here because ultimately Ozempic is just a prescription medication. You could be taking it for weight loss, you could be taking it for other reasons. But it has come to signify so heavily pursuing intentional weight loss that now people who might want to take it for diabetes or something, don’t want to take it because it’s signifying this other thing.

Virginia

God, it’s so complicated. It’s so complicated. If the core of fat liberation is body autonomy, then we have to keep making space for “everybody gets to make their own choices for their bodies.” But we also have a responsibility to each other and in how we talk about those choices. And we have a responsibility to name the complexities of the choices.

Corinne

And if we want body autonomy for ourselves, we have to allow other people to also have that freedom.

Virginia

January is a hard month. If you’re thinking about some diet-y things, we’re not pushing you out of the club. You don’t have to turn in your toast merch that we’ve never made. It gets messy fast.

Corinne

Maybe we could talk a little bit about how if you are pursuing intentional weight loss, or doing things that could be considered diet-y, how can you keep showing up for body liberation or body autonomy?

Virginia

Yes, I want to talk about that for sure. I specifically want to talk about that if you are a straight sized person.

And I want to say, don’t talk about what you’re doing. We don’t want to hear it.

There have been a handful of instances of straight sized people in my life talking about their diet choices just recently. And every time I think whatever this choice means for you, however you’ve decided it’s necessary you want to fit into your old jeans, whatever that is, great. You are throwing every fat person around you under the bus by deciding that you, as a thin person, should talk about your need to be thinner. That is a fuck you to every fat person.

So that’s an easy one. If you’re thin and you want to be thinner, don’t talk about it. Do it if you have to do it, but don’t tell us. We don’t want to know. Sorry, I know I’m being harsh, but I do feel strongly about that.

Corinne

I’m thinking specifically about a plus size influencer person I would see on Tiktok, who I didn’t see for a while, and then suddenly I saw a video of her being like, yes, I’ve been on GLP1s or whatever. And she went on this long monologue about how she had completely divested from fatphobia for everyone else, but not herself. And I was just like, I don’t buy this.

Virginia

No. When I’m saying “be willing to name the complexities,” I don’t mean rationalize your choice to us. I mean, be willing to own that you’re doing something that’s fundamentally anti-fat but feels necessary to you. Be willing to own that disconnect. And don’t look to fatter people to give you approval and say it’s okay. That that is asking labor of people that they don’t owe you while you are again, throwing them under the bus.

Corinne

The other side of that coin is like, you can still keep showing up for people.

Virginia

Donate to NAAFA, donate to ASDAH. Name anti-fatness when you see it in a doctor’s office, a workplace, a school, among your friends.

Corinne

Treat fat people like people.

Virginia

Consider how size inclusive your furniture is. There are lots of things you can do to be showing up as an ally. And none of it has to do with us policing your own choices.

Corinne

You can count your protein grams and still be nice to fat people.

Virginia

And one of the nice things you can do is not talk about counting your protein grams.

Corinne

One of the nice things you can do is not be boring.

Virginia

Please talk about anything else. So much more interesting.

Yeah, all right. Well, that feels like a good place to leave that. I’m really excited to hear what folks think. I am hoping we have a rich and nuanced conversation in the comments. Not just people getting mad, but you can get mad, too. It’s fine. We have space for that.

Virginia

All right, should we talk about our personal project experiment that we’re both terrified to do?

Corinne

Yes.

Virginia

Okay, so it is January. There’s a lot of resolution energy. This is a kind of resolution adjacent experiment. Corinne and I have been talking for a few months now about how we don’t want to support Amazon. It’s an evil company. We’re going to talk about that. And I think especially since the election, a lot of folks feel like divesting from Amazon is something they want to do.

For me personally, in the past year, we’ve started doing a lot more shopping content, affiliate links, things like that, and I got a lot more feedback about my consumer habits as a result, from readers, which was welcome and generally kind. Not always kind, but mostly kind. And something that I struggle with is shopping too much, and something I often think about trying to look at. And if I’m going to look at my consumer habits, I know my dependency on Amazon is a big piece of it. So that’s some personal motivation for me.

What about you?

Corinne

As you said, this has been coming up a lot since the election. I’ve been taking a look at where I’m actually spending dollars and feeling like, am I really saving myself that much time by ordering light bulbs on Amazon? Or could I just go to my local hardware store?

Virginia

You wrote some really good pieces after the election thinking about shopping in general, which we’ll link to.

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It’s just been kind of a trigger point of, like, wow, capitalism brought us here. What are we doing about that?

Corinne

Yeah, I think also, climate anxiety. It’s become so easy to rely on Amazon for those little household things. And is there a different way?

Virginia

I really like

Laura Fenton

who writes

LIVING SMALL

. She did a post towards the end of last yearlisting everything she’d bought in the year, and it was like, 13 things. And I was just like, damn. I can buy 13 things in a week. In a day! That’s one Amazon order!

I think Laura lives a lifestyle I’m never going to live. She’s great, but she and I have some different priorities. I’m never going to be a minimalist. I don’t want to be a minimalist. That’s not for me. But on a scale of Laura to Kim Kardashian, I would prefer to be closer to the underconsuming side than to the Kardashian side of things.

Corinne

Shall we quickly run through some of the reasons we came up with for divesting from Amazon?

Virginia

I think people know this, but maybe you haven’t heard it in a while. And maybe you don’t know it, and maybe you’re like, why are you guys so mad about Amazon? So yeah, let’s do a highlight reel.

Corinne

First of all, the packaging. There’s so much packaging.

Virginia

So much waste. For me, there’s also waste because I buy a lot of shit I end up getting rid of. You buy a lot of things you’re not going to keep forever on Amazon. Of course, you want to think you donate it to people who can use it, but we know a lot of it’s ending up in landfills.

Corinne

Also, Amazon is not a great place to work.

Virginia

No, no. Lots of union busting. I think they claim $15 an hour starting pay, but don’t always deliver on it. Injuries. Just a lot of really terrible workplace stuff.

Corinne

Amazon also supports ICE and separating immigrant families. Also tax avoidance.

Virginia

Great. Feeling so good about things.

Corinne

Jeff Bezos is not paying taxes.

Virginia

Well, you know, I mean, times are tough for Jeff Bezos. He only has what? Like 10% of the Earth’s money? I don’t know. He’s only tripled his net worth in the time we’ve been recording this episode basically.

Corinne

He’s also donating a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration.

Virginia

Yeah, they have a weird history. They haven’t always gotten along, but clearly at the moment, Bezos is Team Trump all the way. Because he thinks Trump will reduce regulations, which is just not what we need—for Amazon to have fewer regulations.

Amazon has also been just wildly destructive for the book publishing industry for a really long time. Authors make lower royalty rates from Amazon versus bookstores. They do crazy price control, driving down prices in ways that make it really impossible for independent bookstores to compete. Basically everybody else in the book industry hurts while Amazon gets richer and richer.

Now, some folks will say for self-published authors, Amazon has been a boon because you can often self-publish on Amazon more easily than you can other places. But I think even there, we’re seeing that it’s not longterm sustainable or great for authors. There’s also a lot of piracy. There are a lot of fake versions of your book going up all the time. It’s a train wreck.

The one place I have 100 percent divested from Amazon on is buying books. I stopped buying books from Amazon about five years ago. I mostly buy them from Split Rock, my local independent bookstore. Or whenever I travel and go to another bookstore, I always buy a book.

And that one was pretty easy for me. Part of why I want to do this experiment is for a long time I’ve been like, well, I don’t buy books from Amazon. And I do buy a lot of books, so that’s not nothing. But now I’m like, Okay, I could probably do more.

But if you are looking for a starting place, giving up Amazon for books is a big one.

Corinne

I, on the other hand, have a Kindle and use Audible! So I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Virginia

I mean, that’s the hard thing. I was actually just talking about this with Heidi Bender, who owns Split Rock Books. I was getting Amazon intel from her, and we were saying, it just shows how insidious this is, that you can’t take your Kindle and buy books from other places. You can only use a Kindle to buy from Amazon. Because there is Kobo, which is an alternative and they support independent bookstores. Bookshop.org is supposed to be working on their own ebooks. They’re not out as of this recording, but it’s in the works. But what device are you going to read them on is the big question, because Amazon is not going to let you put that on your Kindle. So that is a hard piece.

You can do the Kobo app or another e-reader app on your iPad. Not that Apple is a great company, but we’re focusing on one at a time here, guys. Harm reduction! So you could read on a different tablet, if you have one for ebooks.

For audiobooks, there is a good solution, which is Libro FM is a really great independent bookstore supporting audiobook site. I love them. They make it really easy to support, you pick the bookstore and they get a cut. And you can use the Libro app on any smartphone or tablet. So, that was really easy to sort out the audiobook piece, but the ebooks thing is a little trickier.

Corinne

That’s cool. I think I will just only use Libby.

Virginia

Yeah, that’s a good solution for now at least. Use the Libby app on your Kindle. That’s how you know they have the technology, because you can get your Kindle to work with libraries. So why can’t you buy from different ebook sites?

Corinne

You know why! Jeff Bezos needs more money

Okay, what do you actually buy from Amazon?

Virginia

Corinne…

Corinne

We know it’s not books.

Virginia

It’s everything else.

Okay, so my current Amazon Prime account I’ve actually only had for three months, because prior to that I had one shared with my ex, and then we finally divorced our Amazon Prime. So in the last three months, I have placed 24 orders with Amazon.

Corinne

Two a week.

Virginia

That’s not great.

Corinne

Could be worse? I’m afraid to look honestly. What if mine is worse than yours? I share an Amazon with my sister, so I’m not going to be able to see which ones are just mine.

But we have 81 orders. That’s for two households. But two households? That is still 40 each.

I will say, my sister just had a baby.

Virginia

Your sister just had a baby. It’s the holidays. We’re recording this on December 17, so I am in the thick of Christmas shopping. And then it’s getting close, so we’re in the panic stage. It’s not great though. It’s not great! We are laying ourselves bare. Judge us all you want.

Corinne

Give me your last five orders.

Virginia

Dry shampoo.

Also, travel size dry shampoo.

Something that’s a Christmas gift that I’m not sure whether I’m keeping, so I’m not going to say it.

Protein powder. This is going to be a tough one. My protein powder is on a Subscribe and Save.

A life size cut out of Nicolas Cage, which is a gift for my nephew. That one I think I stand by, seems great.

A Christmas tree collar. I suddenly decided I didn’t want to look at the base of my Christmas tree and ordered a wicker collar for it. That one we can all judge.

Stocking stuffer, stocking stuffer, stocking stuffer.

Easy lunch boxes, these containers that we use for my kids’ lunch boxes.

A new kitchen knife I arguably did not need at all.

Liners for my air fryer and more stocking stuffers.

That gets us back to December 6. Oh and, a shirt that my child needed for a holiday chorus concert, that we needed to acquire very quickly, which is the other place Amazon Prime comes in.

What about you?

Corinne

Knitting needles

Hangers

Light bulbs—which, it’s a specific light bulb in a dimmable variety, which I did try to find locally and could not.

Virginia

I mean, I hear you. I have to order reptile light bulbs. Well, now I get them from Chewy, but from Amazon.

Corinne

A heated mattress pad for my guest room because my mom was coming to visit.

A touch lamp also for my guest room because my mom was coming to visit.

Shout color catcher dye trapping sheets.

Virginia

Oh, do those work?

Corinne

Yeah, they do.

Virginia

Good to know.

Corinne

I also Amazon ordered two cookbooks to my sister. Sorry to Amy Palanjian and

Julia Turshen

.

Virginia

Well, you bought their cookbooks.

Corinne

Yeah, but from Amazon.

Virginia

Well, that’s alright, their books are selling pretty well.

So it’s a lot of, like, stress shopping. It’s a lot of like, I need to solve this problem quickly.

Corinne

Mine is definitely a lot of last minute, like let me just order this thing so I don’t have to deal with going to the store.

Virginia

I mean, what I have to say is, arguably, I didn’t need to buy a lot of it. I don’t really understand why I bought that knife? Can’t remember why I decided I needed a new knife? The Christmas tree collar also was a poor purchase.

But otherwise, it was just kind of the stuff that we need to run our lives. It wasn’t like, luxury items. Do you know what I mean? It’s not even stuff that brings me joy.

Corinne

Yeah, for me it feels like checking it off a list. Instead of having a note in my phone that’s like, go to target, get this, this, and this, I just do it immediately and then it’s off my plate.

Virginia

You can just, right as you’re thinking of it, press buy. So on the one hand, I don’t think that I will feel sadder not making these purchases, because they aren’t even things that make me super happy. But I do feel like there’s a convenience thing that we’re going to give up.

Corinne

I mean, we’re talking about doing this for 30 days. Like, I think I could live without most of the stuff for 30 days. But I’m also like, then is there gonna be a backfire, where after 30 days, we’re going nuts?

Virginia

I do think we have to delete the apps on our phones so we’re not just secretly adding to cart all month.

Corinne

Okay.

Virginia

Or is that too stringent?

Corinne

I’m fine with that.

Virginia

I think we probably do need to do it.

Corinne

Also, in this 30 days falls my birthday.

Virginia

Okay? Do you purchase a lot from Amazon for your birthday? A lot of light bulbs for your birthday?

Corinne

What if I need last minute birthday candles or tinsel decorations or something?

Virginia

I mean, I want you to have an amazing birthday, but I feel like there’s a work around.

Corinne

I just want everyone to acknowledge that this may be harder for me.

Virginia

Corinne is sacrificing by doing this in her birthday month, of all times. You are the hero, for sure. I see that.

I am someone who works from home, and I have kids, so my ability to like leave my house and run errands often feels limited. Like, I don’t want to drag a kid along on an errand they don’t want to go on. I have work I’m trying to get done, so I don’t want to go when the kids are at school. So if I have to do more in person shopping, this is going to be challenging for me. I’m very delivery-dependent.

What I have been doing, to try to do a little less Amazoning, is I always check Target first. I can get anything shipped from Target, and their shipping times are honestly pretty close to Amazon’s a lot of the time. But is Target better? Is it worth doing that this month, just to cut the cord with Amazon? But it feels like a crutch. So I don’t know that it’s better.

Corinne

I don’t know either.

Virginia

They are also not great to their employees. They’re busting unions. But I think for someone like me, I don’t know that I can go all the way there. I think I need Target as a as a stepping stone.

Corinne

I mean, I think the good thing about this is we get to make up the rules, right?

Virginia

We are! We are making the rules.

Corinne

Though sometimes when I think about stuff like this, I’m like, is this a diet?

Virginia

No, it’s a very fair question. It’s a very fair question. Anytime you’re consciously trying to change behavior with a goal in mind it can verge on diet-y territory.

Especially, I do often think with these no buy months or any of these experiments, like individual consumer habits are not what is going to change the stranglehold these corporations have on us. It needs to be wholesale reform, but we’re also not going to get that. So it feels like something we can do.

Corinne

However, we do have how many people reading Burnt Toast? Can we get all of them on board with us?

Virginia

Well, there are 63,000 of them, but they don’t all pay for Extra Butter. But if more of them would, then yes. The thousands of you that are here listening to this, we would love you to join us. That would be really fun. And we want to hear your strategies!

One thing that might be fun, since we’re doing this for 30 days, is I’ll post some threads in chat where anyone who’s doing it can check in and commiserate, and maybe it’ll be me being like, “Guys, seriously, where do I get a stapler” or whatever I need last minute. We can all help each other solve some of these problems.

Corinne

Yeah, that sounds good. So just to summarize, our commitment is no Amazon for 30 days.

Virginia

Yes, and we’re deleting the apps on our phones.

Corinne

Okay, but we are doing Target.

Virginia

I think for me personally, the no Amazon feels hard enough. I don’t want to put other rules around it. If you want to step it up and only buy secondhand or something, I really admire that about you.

Corinne

I think right now I’m just going to stick to no Amazon, but we’ll see.

Virginia

I mean, it is your birthday month. So yeah, if this is super easy, what if we breeze through it? Then maybe next month we can be like, oh, we should start looking at something else. It’s not going to be Instacart, I’ll tell you that. Not ready. Not there in my healing process, thank you very much.

Corinne

Totally.

Virginia

Alright. I’m excited. I’m nervous, but I’m excited.

Corinne

And we’re going to revisit this next month!

Virginia

Yeah, we’ll do an update in February, for sure.

Corinne

Shall we do Butter?

Virginia

Let’s do Butter. Nothing will be from Amazon. We promise!

Corinne

My Butter is from Amazon.

Virginia

Wait, really, is it?

Corinne

Yes.

Virginia

Oh my God. Okay. It’s a last hurrah.

Corinne

I already bought it.

Virginia

We’re divesting from Amazon. But here is an Amazon link. Oh, my God, that’s really funny.

Corinne

You don’t have to get it at Amazon.

I want to recommend a heated mattress pad. Amazon is not the only place that sells them. However, I just think they are the best. I think they are far superior to a heated blanket.

Virginia

Interesting.

Corinne

And I think that everyone who lives somewhere cold needs one.

Virginia

Is it like having a heating pad but it’s your whole body? Because I have a heating pad that I use when I have cramps or something.

Corinne

I mean, it’s like a heating pad, but the heating pad is your whole bed. Instead of climbing into a cold bed at night, you’re climbing into a lasagna, as one of my friends said. A warm and cheesy lasagna.

Virginia

A warm and cheesy lasagna bed,

Corinne

I don’t know, it just feels like it heats you faster and better than a heating pad or a blanket.

Virginia

I want to get these for my kids beds, because their bedrooms are really chilly.

Corinne

I’ll often turn it on and then turn it off before I get to bed. I don’t even like to have it on all night, because it’s it’s really warm. Or if you have a king size bed it has two separate sides, so you can have one side on and one side off, and roll back and forth all night.

Virginia

Oh, I like that. Or if you sleep with someone, they could choose their own temperature.

Corinne

Exactly. That is how it’s intended, but could never be me.

Virginia

We will just be rolling back and forth. I could starfish, and half my starfish is warm, and half is cold.

Corinne

Exactly, exactly.

Virginia

Okay. I’m intrigued. My other question is, what about my perimenopause night sweats? But I think you solved that by turning it off before you get into bed.

Corinne

Yeah, I don’t leave it on all night, because then I do wake up sweating.

Virginia

Well, on a related note, my Butter, which I did not purchase from Amazon, although they are sold on there, is my weighted blanket, which I’m obsessed with right now. Now that it is cold. I have one of the Bearaby ones, which was like an Instagram darling. It’s like a really pretty cable knit kind of blanket. It was a Christmas present a few years ago, during the pandemic. So it’s been going strong for four years, and I love it so much. And it is like being buried alive when you’re under it in bed, but in a cozy way.

Corinne

Wow. So yours covers the whole bed?

Virginia

It covers all of me. It does not cover the whole bed. It says it’s a queen size okay, but I sleep in a king size bed. But it’s also even when I had it on a queen bed, it didn’t drape over the sides. It is like maybe the dimensions of the mattress.

But it covers me completely. And what I like about it is, I move around a lot less when I’m sleeping, which I think means I sleep a lot more deeply.

Corinne

You would need a Fitbit to tell you.

Virginia

If only I had some device tracking that and grading it for me.

Corinne

But does this make it harder to get out of bed?

Virginia

Everything makes it hard to get out of bed. It’s January. It’s dark outside. Nobody wants to get out of bed. You might as well love bed while you’re in it, because then you spend all day just wanting to go back.

Corinne

Fair.

Virginia

It’s not a new concept. I feel like weighted blankets have been around for a minute, but I’m just if you’ve been on the fence, this is, this is the month to do it. This is the time. We’ve got a Trump inauguration coming. Some of us are trying not to shop on Amazon. We need our comfort.

Corinne

So heavy that you can’t reach for your phone and click Add to Cart.

Virginia

This is my entire strategy. I’m just going to be pinned under my blanket.

Well, this was really good, and I’m excited to see how this next 30 days goes for us.

Corinne

Me 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—subscribe for 20% off!

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Farideh.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!