Divesting from aggro fitness motivation with weight neutral trainer 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!

Virginia

Lauren, 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.

Lauren

I know! Honestly, we could have a conversation once a month about toxic fitness stuff.

Virginia

There’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?

Lauren

I 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.

Virginia

A groupie.

Lauren

Honestly, 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.

Virginia

You are my favorite Internet cat lady.

Lauren

Huge, huge accolades here.

Virginia

Favorite 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?

Lauren

I’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.

Virginia

Of 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.

Lauren

Pilatesgate 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.

Virginia

She felt this deeply.

Lauren

She 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.

Virginia

I 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.

Lauren

Right? 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.

Virginia

I wonder if the fat person was better at Pilates than her, and that made her feel bad.

Lauren

It 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.

Virginia

I 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.

Lauren

I 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.

Virginia

Which 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?

Lauren

I 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?

Virginia

She 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?

Lauren

I mean, actually, I was, at one point, a young 20 something saying fatphobic things to myself and out in the ether.

Virginia

From 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.

Lauren

Yes, 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.

Virginia

Thank you for your service, by the way, that you have to consume all this fitness content, and see all of this.

Lauren

I’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?

Virginia

You’re like, don’t you make me take her! I don’t want her!

Lauren

Yes, 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.

Virginia

This 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.

Lauren

Tell 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.

Virginia

It’s like capitalism as a workout.

Lauren

It’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.

Virginia

And 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.

Lauren

And 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.

Virginia

Exactly. 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.

Lauren

No, 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.

Virginia

Right? And let’s not forget, we’re just rolling around on a floor.

Lauren

We’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!

Virginia

And move it three feet and put it back down again.

Lauren

I 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,

Virginia

You 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.

Lauren

Yeah, 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.

Virginia

The most Mean Girl of all cardio equipment.

Lauren

Yes, 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?

Virginia

Right? I mean, being able to climb stairs is useful. And it’s always really hard.

Lauren

A 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.

Virginia

It’s never going to happen.

Lauren

It’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.

Virginia

I’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.

Lauren

Literally being out of breath is a sign that we’re working those cardiovascular muscles. Just let them be out of breath real quick.

Virginia

That’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?

Lauren

Totally. 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…

Virginia

Can you not? Because I’m doing it. Here I am.

Lauren

So 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.

Virginia

It sounds so scary.

Lauren

In 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.

Virginia

Fat 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.

Lauren

Exactly. 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.”

Virginia

Just because you don’t have long limbs doesn’t mean swimming can’t bring you a lot of joy.

Lauren

Right? 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.

Virginia

And 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?

Lauren

And because Pilates “isn’t actually good for burning fat,” you definitely shouldn’t be doing it if you’re fat.

Virginia

Yeah, 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.

Lauren

Yeah, 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.

Virginia

Speaking 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.

Lauren

Again, pleasure, right? We can’t have warm water. We made this technology, use it.

Virginia

No, 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?

Lauren

It’s moving the the spectrum of what’s normal and what’s not normal.

Virginia

So 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!

Lauren

It also somewhat negates the fact that most of us are not exposed to the extreme. We’re exposed to the more insidious anyway.

Virginia

Right? Because the insidious is what your coworker is saying in the break room at lunch about how she’s only eating a salad.

Lauren

It’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.

Virginia

Maybe 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.

Lauren

I’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.

Virginia

Yeah, it’s a logical survival strategy in a really dark time, for sure.

Lauren

So 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.

Virginia

Yes. 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.

Lauren

It’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.

Virginia

You’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.

Lauren

I 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.

Virginia

PCOS triggers a lot of rabbit holes.

Lauren

Right? 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.

Virginia

Yes, 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.

Lauren

Yes. 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.

Virginia

I 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.

Lauren

Because 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.

Virginia

Any other fitness trends that are making you especially grumpy right now, or anything good you want to highlight?

Lauren

I 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.

Virginia

No, we haven’t fallen as low as I fear sometimes.

Lauren

No, and it’s really hard. I’ve heard Jessamyn Stanley say, like, “Sometimes I don’t remember that people act this way.”

Virginia

Oh God, yeah. You’re really still out there being like this?

Lauren

Yes, 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.

Virginia

God, it’s so important.

Lauren

I was going to be funny and say that my Butter is actually butter, now that I’m living in France.

Virginia

You’re living in butter country.

Lauren

I 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.

Virginia

Yes, 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.

Lauren

Oh 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.

Virginia

And 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?

Lauren

Yes, maybe a harness? Maybe that can be what the kids do this this summer is harness train Cheese.

Virginia

We’ve never tried the harness with them.

Lauren

He’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.

Virginia

Oh, 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?

Lauren

You 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.

Virginia

I’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.

Lauren

Pretend 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 Tiktok

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!

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! xx

⭐️ 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 Fat

What to do when you miss your smaller body

And 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.

Corinne

Today 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?”

Virginia

We 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.

Corinne

Before 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 story

Virginia

Yes, 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.

Corinne

I 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.

Virginia

Absolutely. 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.

Corinne

And 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.

Virginia

Corinne is on all the diets.

Corinne

Is this our thing, where you’re always like, “this is a diet,” and I’m like, “this is not a diet?” Oh God.

Virginia

Well but we need to not be so afraid to say, “Yeah, it’s diet-y and I like it.” It’s okay to be in a messy middle space with this where you recognize that this is a system that you don’t totally want to buy into, but that maybe feels necessary right now. Or maybe there are some pieces of it that are satisfying It can be many things,

Corinne

Or how do you use these tools, or participate in these trends, or whatever, without buying into the larger diet culture system?

Virginia

Yes! Like, I have reclaimed Diet Coke, guys. I have reclaimed protein powder. It’s possible, you can do it.

I think for me, the sticking point is when someone wants to say, “No, it’s not a diet, you’re overreacting. You think everything’s a diet. This is totally fine!” And gets really defensive of the system. That, to me, is the red flag. If you’re not willing to think critically about it at all, then I have questions.

Corinne

I also think, if we are thinking about diets as part of a larger system of white supremacy, like—we live in that system. We can’t escape it, you know? So everything kind of is a diet. Sorry.

Virginia

Okay, great, episode done. Everything is a diet! It’s not your fault that everything is a diet, and it’s still worth naming it and naming the larger relationship to white supremacy, because that’s how we make little bits of progress.

I will say, there was one thread in the comments on that essay that I want to very lovingly push back on. Several of you were like, “Okay, but just stop using that as branding.” The way we often put “is x a diet?” like is Mel Robbins a diet? in the subject line. And people were saying, “You’re dumbing it down.” You can just name the word. You can say “is blank perpetuating a patriarchal system of oppression?” “Is blank a conduit for economic dominance and community isolation?” And don’t be afraid of the big, complicated titles, and don’t reduce everything to “diet.”

And I so appreciate this. I want that to be the world we live in. And, I do have to market a newsletter. I do have to write emails that people will click and open.

Corinne

There is a limit to how many characters you can put in the subject line of an email.

Virginia

If it goes onto two lines, people’s eyes glaze over, and they don’t open the email. You can be frustrated about that if you want! But provocative subject lines are an important part of being a successful newsletter writer.

And yes, I’m being provocative when I use the diet framing, and it’s grounded in this other thing that I hope you guys all understand. Yes, I’m talking about the conduits for economic dominance and community isolation. I just can’t sell a newsletter that way.

But I do understand that pushback and while I do think it’s going to always be a refrain of Burnt Toast to ask “is x a diet?” and I think there’s value in that, I am actually mindful of how often we use it. Sometimes I’ll be like, no, we ran a version of that headline too recently. Like, we can’t do that right now. We think about it.

Corinne

Should we talk about the bullet points that we use when we think about what defines a diet?

Virginia

Yes! So this is how Burnt Toast defines a diet.

• A diet tells us we’re doing it wrong.

• A diet makes ambitious, if not blatantly unrealistic, goals around what “better” or “best” should look like.

• A diet lays out a list of rules or steps to follow, which sound really easy but then quickly become very difficult to incorporate into your actual life because they ignore the practical context of your life, which might conflict with said rules or steps.

• A diet frames failure to achieve the goal or follow instructions as your fault, rather than a flaw of the overall project.

• A diet inspires feelings of guilt and inadequacy and/or the urge to find a different version of this thing that will surely work better.

Corinne

Yes, that kind of self-optimization thing.

Virginia

The perpetual quest of self optimization. And one reader, Allison Stein, also added this to the definition in the comments: “Any program you follow to virtue signal, get goodies or privilege, and/or the right to exist rather than whatever the purported goal of said program is.” And I was like, yes.

Corinne

Wow. yeah, I kind of feel skewered by that.

Virginia

Who doesn’t love a little virtue signaling plus a goodie??

Anastasiia Zabolotna, Getty Images

Corinne

Let’s get into the topics that people sent us to talk about today. The first one which I also feel a little personally skewered by—is obsessing over electrolytes a diet?

I’m going to read the question:

My nine year old’s very good doctor has told her she needs to be starting her day with protein and extra electrolytes to help with migraines. My husband also follows this protocol, and it genuinely helps. But she’s a picky eater, and has rejected all the electrolyte powders we’ve tried, and we respect that. Especially as she only very rarely gets migraines. But now I’ve started putting Buoy drops in my water all the time. Am I wasting my money? Am I carving out a little pseudo wellness corner for myself as I work on shedding diet culture and becoming an intuitive eater.?

Virginia

Hmm, okay, Corinne, defender of electrolytes. What say you?

Corinne

Well, I think this is kind of one of those things where it depends on what you’re doing with the electrolytes. I think with Buoy specifically, I see a lot of people using that on Tiktok. I personally haven’t tried it. I think a lot of people just like having flavored water! So that’s one thing to consider.

I also think that a lot of people with various conditions, including migraines, feel better when they’re getting regular electrolytes. But I also can really see how electrolytes are kind of a self optimization thing. I don’t know! There’s a fine line between self optimization and “this actually makes me feel better.”

Virginia

There definitely is. I have been thinking about this because I really feel a yes and no to her question. I think her putting the Buoy drops in her water all the time feels fine. I don’t know that it’s not a waste of money, but, like, lots of things are a waste of money. I’m not here to attack you over that. If it’s giving you some joy, make your water taste good until you get tired of that taste and then do something else.

I also think a behavior or a habit that we develop that gives us tangible benefits, like fewer migraines, makes total sense to me! I’m thinking of Jessica Slice talking about the difference between caring for your body and trying to fix your body. Alleviating suffering versus trying to obtain an ideal body. Reducing migraines is alleviating suffering. So if more electrolytes is helping with that, that’s great.

Every Parent Is (Kind Of) Disabled·
What RFK gets wrong and why "being healthy for our kids' sake" shouldn't be the goal, with author Jessica Slice.
Read full story

What I’m actually concerned about—even though she says she likes her child’s doctor—is telling a nine year old that you have to start every day with protein and extra electrolytes, even though she only very rarely gets migraines. That’s the part that jumped out at me as ooh, I don’t love that. Because it’s telling a kid, who’s a very concrete thinker, “You have to do X every day.” And then how is she going to feel on the day she doesn’t do it?

That could get into that territory of, oh god, I skipped the electrolytes, and now I feel bad, and it’s my fault I got the migraine and all that kind of stuff. That’s what we don’t want. And if it’s only a very rare problem right now, why are you needing to address it daily? Why not just have a good rescue medication on hand for when it crops up?

Corinne

Totally. I mean, the starting the day with protein thing, is that related to migraines?

Virginia

I mean, I start my every day with a ton of protein, because I have protein powder, as we all know. And I get migraines. Migraines are one of those conditions that there are literally 1000 lifestyle things that are supposed to help them. And you can make yourself crazy trying them all, and your mileage will vary. And if it seems to be helping, I love that. And if it sounds annoying to do, don’t worry about it. Because it probably wasn’t going to help that much. Sorry!

Corinne

Totally fair. As an aside, I really like the Nuun electrolyte tablets. I don’t know if you’ve tried those.

Virginia

Yes, can we sell you an electrolyte?

Corinne

I’m not making a commission off of them! I just like them. I like the strawberry lemonade and the tropical flavors.

Virginia

They did save me when I had altitude sickness. And I hated it.

Okay. Number two:

Is the viral cottage cheese, ground beef, sweet potato bowl a diet?

Are you familiar with this bowl?

Corinne

I was not familiar with it being viral, but I was familiar with it because I feel like maybe last summer? Maybe the summer before? My mom was really into sweet potato and cottage cheese.

Virginia

Is your mom a diet influencer? Is that what we’re learning?

Corinne

Well not really because when my mom was telling me, “I’ve been eating a sweet potato and cottage cheese for lunch, it’s insanely delicious. You have to try it!” I was like, absolutely not.

Virginia

It doesn’t sound delicious. Cottage cheese, ground beef, and sweet potato?

Corinne

She wasn’t even doing ground beef.

Virginia

The reels that I’m seeing all put Mike’s Hot Honey over it. And then I’m like, okay…but just because I like Mike’s Hot Honey . I don’t think it sounds immediately delicious, but there is something about that combination of foods that people do find delicious.

Corinne

I mean, it’s keto, basically, right? Or paleo?

Virginia

It’s keto. It’s also three very filling foods. If you’re someone who has been dieting or restricting in various ways, I can see that this meal would be very appealing. Because if you’re hungry, it actually looks like a lot of food, which a lot of diets don’t let you have.

Corinne

But you know what else is interesting about it? If you slightly changed it—like, if you changed it to be ground beef, regular potato, and regular cheese, no one would be like, “this is healthy!”

Virginia

No, definitely not! Even though the protein content probably wouldn’t change. I mean, maybe cheddar cheese has slightly less protein than cottage cheese. I don’t know. I’m not going to look it up, guys. But it would still be a high protein meal, right?

Corinne

It would basically be a cheeseburger on a potato!

Virginia

With fries!

Corinne

Yeah, a cheeseburger and fries! Okay, this is actually making me so mad.

Virginia

So I’m going to say this one is a diet. Even though you might enjoy this meal, and that’s great for you, and Mike’s Hot Honey is delicious. Because as Corinne is saying, it’s deliberately picking versions of these foods that they can claim health benefits for when there is an equivalent meal that they would be like, no, no, don’t eat that.

Corinne

And imagine if someone was, like, “Put hot honey on your cheeseburger and fries!” People would be going nuts about the sugar.

Virginia

That sounds really good, though. I feel like I’m going to do it next time I have a burger and fries?

I mean, the other reason we know this is a diet is because Weight Watchers got in on the trend and made their own version of it. They posted their sweet potato, cottage cheese, ground beef bowl during “cottage cheese week.”

Corinne

There was a second where cottage cheese was reclaimed as a delicious food, and then it got reabsorbed back.

Virginia

The diet industry was like, thank you so much for noticing. I feel like we’re going to hear from

Julia Turshen

,who is a big cottage cheese fan. Amy Palanjian is a big cottage cheese fan.

Corinne

I also like cottage cheese!

Virginia

I don’t. I’m like, Why isn’t it goat cheese or ricotta? If I’m going to get a fluffy cheese, It’s not my fluffy cheese of choice. But that’s great, you can love your cottage cheese. And yes, the marketing of this particular recipe, and the way every dietician and food blogger was posting it? Definite diet vibes.

Corinne

I also think if you’re eating this for lunch and you like it, don’t let us stop you.

Virginia

I’m now like, maybe I’ll make it, but not use cottage cheese. Maybe I’ll make it with goat cheese. Might be so good with my Meredith dairy sheep goat cheese!

Corinne

It probably would be. It does seem like the kind of thing you could prep in advance and quickly reheat.

Virginia

Super useful. But just be aware that it is definitely diet washing to claim that it is healthier than a cheeseburger and fries.

Corinne

Okay? The next one is

Is journal culture a diet?

Virginia

I had to ask the person who sent this to say more, and she said she was specifically referring to bullet journaling, like having like the special pens, the special moleskin notebooks, that whole world—which I think as an act of self preservation I have kept myself out of.

Corinne

I am also not immersed in journal culture. But it does feel like self-optimization. And I do think there’s a lot of like, how can I make my journal extremely aesthetic and make sure I’m getting the most out of my To Do lists.

Virginia

Are you a journaler at all, or not really?

Corinne

Like keeping a journal? Because I feel like there’s a difference between journaling and— oh man, this is such a big topic maybe we should do a whole episode about this. There’s also the morning pages thing? Anyways. I kept a journal as a young person, like, maybe through college or something? But I don’t really keep a journal now. And I’ve never been a planner person, unfortunately. Probably should be. But. yeah, I have a hard time with that.

Virginia

I tried journaling, like having a journal, at various points in childhood, in high school, and it never really stuck. Like, I don’t think I ever filled one. And I always feel sort of ashamed to admit that, as a writer. I feel like writers are supposed to journal, and I’m like, “But people aren’t reading it. What’s the point of writing, guys?”

Corinne

I mean, I’ve gone back and looked at my journals, and I will say it’s like, “I have a crush on XYZ and XYZ talked to me in math class.” It’s so boring. It’s nothing deep!

Virginia

Yeah, I never really got into it. I was a hardcore planner person, though. I think that’s not a surprise about me.

Corinne

I think bullet journaling is more planner-adjacent.

Virginia

But I feel like eventually Google Calendar took over, and I haven’t had a paper planner in years. Sometimes I do, though, make those post it note chart things, at the beginning of a year to plan out blocking my work days.

I think the reason I said it was self preservation that I’ve never gotten into journal culture is I do think there’s clearly a strong current of perfectionism in it. People wanting to have really nice handwriting, people wanting to format the pages in a certain way. And I think I recognized that I would be too obsessive about it and make it into too much work for myself. And I’m like, that’s not for me.

Corinne

I do think that there’s also a way in which it could be self care for people. You know?

Virginia

I know we’re going to hear from all the journalers saying, like, absolutely not. I’m open to it being self care. I think this is like, a your-mileage-may-vary one. I’m not going to say journal culture is a straight up diet. I’m going to say, if because of genetics and the world we live in, if you are someone programmed towards certain perfectionist tendencies, you could take this in a diet direction. But I don’t know that at its core, it’s diet-y.

But now I want to hear about people’s journal experiences! Do we need a whole episode about journaling? Because I’m sort of interested to learn more.

Corinne

I do think that’s a deeper topic.

Virginia

Cool, all right.

Is all the new high fiber content diet culture? I just feel like I’ve been seeing tons of nutritionists talking about colon cancer rates and how people aren’t getting enough fiber.

Corinne

Well, this is another one that is slightly skewering me, because I have been known to supplement with fiber. I have pushed Metamucil on friends and family.

Virginia

But not to lose weight.

Corinne

No, absolutely not. But it is marketed to lose weight! Like I think if you look at the Metamucil package, it says “promotes fullness” or something like that.

Virginia

Oh, yeah! “Appetite control.”

Corinne

Yeah, fiber is marketed as that for sure.

Virginia

That’s the first thing listed! “Helps support appetite control.” And then it’s like, healthy blood sugar levels, digestive health. I don’t like that.

Corinne

I mean, what can you do? It’s not like Metamucil is going to listen to me about the marketing. But what I find Metamucil helpful for is also not what it’s being marketed for. It helps me with heartburn!

Virginia

Really?

Corinne

Yes! I feel like I tried to push it on you when you were going through heartburn stuff.

Virginia

I’m always going through heartburn stuff. I’m sure you did. I just didn’t listen.

Corinne

It’s also gross. You just mix it in water but you have to drink it right away, because otherwise it turns into gel, which is what it is in your gut basically.

Virginia

Do you mix it in your electrolytes?

Corinne

Hell no, because I like to sip my electrolyte water and Metamucil, you really have to just get it done.

Virginia

You can’t chug your electrolytes.

I think it’s very clear from the Metamucil bottle I just looked at on the internet that they are marketing it for weight loss, which, yes, makes it a diet. And just like the electrolyte thing, if it helps your acid reflux, if it helps you poop, great. Don’t not do something that alleviates suffering, because it has bad marketing. But, yeah, the marketing is a diet.

Corinne

Okay.

Are Bloom drinks a diet? Is Alani Nu a diet? Are Unwell drinks a diet?

Virginia

Yeah. I grouped these all together because they’re all these weird drinks. And you love drinks.

Corinne

I do. I am familiar with Alani Nu. I think that’s the only one I’ve heard of.

Alani Nu is an energy drink. And I think they like partner with Kim Kardashian?

Virginia

So, yes diet. I need to hear nothing else. Bloom drinks I’m looking up is also like green powders, creatine powders.

Corinne

I have seen Bloom super food supplements.

Virginia

And then they have an energy drink line as well. Bloom sparkling energy. And then Unwell, which is my favorite brand name. But as soon as I get to their website, oh, 700 milligrams of electrolytes.

Corinne

Unwell also has a famous founder. I feel like these are all like influencer brands?

Virginia

I would say all of these are being marketed in an extremely diet-y way, just by looking at their websites. And if you find them delicious, great. But there’s no way you can’t live a full and productive life without ever drinking one of these.

Corinne

The one I would be most likely to try is Unwell.

Virginia

Well, the brand name is the best.

Corinne

Unwell looks like it’s just electrolyte beverages. I need more hydration. But I will say it’s founded by the person behind the Call Her Daddy podcast.

Virginia

Oh. yeah, diet. “Water yourself daily.” I don’t like the marketing. Your new friend with benefits. It’s so cute. Well, it’s annoying. That doesn’t make it a diet. There are lots of annoying things that aren’t a diet. But, yeah, overall this is very diet culture-y and marketing. And if you love it, fine.

I mean, the other two, I think are there. It’s the least over the other two. I mean, Alani Nu sells a product called Fat Burner, so okay. I’m just looking to at the prices, like, the stuff’s like, $75 for this bloom powder. There are other things to spend money on. Buy yourself a cute throw pillow. It’s my advice.

Okay, I’m really excited for this last one.

Is the guy who got rid of all his furniture on a diet?

Corinne

Is this some, like… fitness thing?

Virginia

It is a piece in Dwell by a writer named David Gladish, and the headline is “My Family and I Gave Up Furniture, and Haven’t Looked Back.”

Corinne

They live in a 382 square foot detached accessory dwelling unit in Washington State that’s basically unfurnished, save for a pair of nightstands, stools, dressers and some shelving. So, no beds?!

Here we go:

…inspired by mobility and health advice from popular longevity podcasters like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, and books like Built to Move, which teaches readers how to be less sedentary, Kristy and I became obsessed with making lifestyle changes to build healthier habits.

Okay, so that’s there we go. It’s a diet.

Virginia

It’s a diet.

Corinne

Imagine not having a bed. I love lying in my bed!

Virginia

And on a comfy couch.

Corinne

Where do they sleep?

Virginia

So he and his wife sleep in a lofted little space.

Corinne

“We still sleep on a thin carpet and use pillows.”

Virginia

Yes, and their lower backs and necks have benefited immensely from ditching their mattress. It’s unclear what their kids sleep on, but, yeah, but they kept their nightstands, which then just seems annoying because you’re lying on the floor and your nightstand is, like, up. So you’re reaching up to put your glasses away?

Corinne

I’m sorry, but I live in a place with a lot of cockroaches. I don’t have an infestation, but when they start happening, occasionally a cockroach will find its way into my house? I am not sleeping on the floor.

Virginia

I mean, same with me and mice! The idea that I would be lying somewhere where a mouse could run near me while I’m sleeping? I would have to burn the house down! Absolutely not.

Corinne

And if you have a pet, you get a lot of dust on your floors. I don’t know, I feel like I would just constantly be sleeping in a sand box.

Virginia

Great point about the dust.

He writes:

The point of going furniture-free, for us, is to add more movement to our lives, have more space to play and be in motion indoors, and spend as much time outdoors as possible. (It’s easy to spend hours watching TV or lazing around when there’s plush furniture to relax on; not as compelling without it.)

Corinne

It’s also just kind of ableist.

Virginia

Yeah, super ableist. Not everyone can get down to the floor and back up again! He also then does admit that her parents live on the property too, so there is a house with furniture on their property, and he goes over there to work, so he can sit in a chair while he works. Which just feels like a big scam!

Corinne

In a 382 square foot house, you definitely don’t have room for an office.

Virginia

I don’t know. I mean, he seems real happy. That’s fine. I’m sure his kids are fine. I’m not saying it’s dangerous, but I think it’s okay to like comfort. I think it’s okay to like lying on a comfortable couch watching TV. I think that’s not a moral failing.

Corinne

I agree. Although sometimes when I hear this stuff, I’m like, Should I try it?

Virginia

No, Corinne! Oh, my God, it’s dangerous to do this episode with you.

Corinne

What would it be like to sleep on the floor??

Virginia

Okay, you’re not getting rid of your bed. You just said you have cockroaches!

Corinne

I am definitely not get rid of my bed.

Virginia

I will say, as I’m getting older, I do try to sit on the floor once a day if I can. Because, it is that one of those things, you got to keep doing it so you can get down and getting up off the floor has gotten harder. That is real. Anna Maltby wrote a great piece about it. ButI’m not going to give up furniture. What an exhausting way to live.They just sound like an exhausting family.

Oh, they also do have an outdoor table with regular chairs where they eat their meals, even when it’s raining.

Corinne

Okay, I feel like they really just gave up mattresses.

Virginia

And couches and eating inside in bad weather? Okay, all right, it’s a diet.

Corinne

Doesn’t sound fun.

Virginia

Well, that was fun. It was a strange smattering of things, but I liked the variety.

Corinne

If you had to pick one of these to do, which would you do?

Virginia

Oh God, if I had to?? I mean, I’ll make the cottage cheese thing. But can I not follow the recipe? What about you?

Corinne

Well, I already do electrolytes, basically.

Virginia

Okay, other than electrolytes.

Corinne

Well, when I’m reading about this no furniture guy, I am like, what would it be like to sleep on the floor?

Virginia

Try it one night and get back to us.

Corinne

That’s like, a morning thought, you know? By the end of the day, there’s no way.

Virginia

I kind of do want you to do it one night and just tell us how miserable it is.

Corinne

I would need a week off work to adjust. Because you wouldn’t sleep the first night, and then you just be miserable.

Virginia

Okay, my Butter is actually my kids’ Butter, which is the swing that we just got for our family room. It is amazing.

Both my kids have various neurodivergent sensory needs, and this is called a sensory swing. It’s a very stretchy fabric. You hang it from your ceiling. And speaking of like, is it a diet? I often see things marketed to parents, especially bougie mamas like me, and I’m like, oh, I want it because it’s cute and it seems like it’ll solve a problem, and then it totally doesn’t solve a problem. And my kids don’t really care about it. And I’m like, Why did I spend this money?

This thing is usually $92, they’re on sale right now for $73. It is the best money I have spent as a parent in years. Not kidding. One of my children is in this thing all the time. They are obsessed. It twists up around them. It’s very cozy. And they can spin in it. They can go back and forth. And there’s something about it that is super regulating for them. My younger kid, we do it after she has breakfast in the morning, before school, and then also, as part of our bedtime routine, she plays the Hamilton soundtrack and swings.

Corinne

That’s so cute.

Virginia

And my older kiddo is usually in it the whole time we’re watching TV together in the evening.

The real gift for me is that if you have kids who are prone to moving constantly, which is many children, if you have kids who are the type of kid that bounces off walls a lot, or throws themselves around on furniture. I find it really challenging for my sensory needs. Often, it’s a lot of extra noise and erratic movement. And I, unlike the writer of that article, I want to lie on the couch and watch TV. This is the perfect solution, because it kind of contains that need to move to one corner of the family room and I can be on the other side and they’re swinging, and it doesn’t make annoying sounds. It’s a real game changer for all of us.

Corinne

That’s awesome. Have you tried it?

Virginia

Well, I will say this was the one drawback is, I looked and looked and I couldn’t find one that was super size inclusive. This one, I would say, goes up to about 222, 230, maybe? I don’t want to rip it out of my ceiling. I did have a contractor install it, and I know he put in a really secure bolt, and he got in it to test it. And he was like, yeah, I think it’s good till about 220 and I was like, okay, seems good. We’ll take your word. So if anyone does know of one that is rated to a higher weight limit, I would love to know about it, but this one, I knew mostly my kids would be using it. So it’s going to see them through probably high school years, I would assume.

Corinne

Oh, that’s awesome. All right. Well, I’m going to recommend a canned beverage.

Virginia

Is it Alani Nu??

Corinne

It’s Alani Nu! Just kidding.

Virginia

Kim Kardashian told you to drink it.

Corinne

I like Spindrift. But recently I was somewhere they didn’t have Spindrift, and I bought Izze instead. I have a can right in front of me, and I think Izze is so much better. I don’t know if it’s because it has more sugar or what, but I think it’s more delicious, and I really specifically want to recommend to the mango Izze.

Virginia

And it is not a diet.

Corinne

It’s not a diet. I hope? Does it say something on it? It does say no added sugar and no artificial sweeteners.

Virginia

Whatever.

Corinne

It tastes good.

Virginia

That sounds very refreshing.

Well, this was a delightful episode. I’m excited to hear people’s thoughts, and if there are more trends that you want us to weigh in on diet or not diet, this may be a recurring feature, so hit us up.

--

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus.

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!

Celebrating a decade of DIETLAND with author Sarai Walker

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!

--

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.

Virginia

This 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.

Sarai

It’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.

Virginia

We 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.

Sarai

It 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.

Virginia

You downplayed it a little bit.

Sarai

Exactly. 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.

Virginia

But 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.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

I 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.

Sarai

If I end up in prison, though, I don’t know.

Virginia

I’m hearing that concern, as we’re saying it out loud. Fictionalized versions of these things, perhaps.

Sarai

Names changed.

Virginia

I 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.

Sarai

It 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.

Virginia

That’s amazing.

Sarai

All these people working on something that came from my head. It was surreal.

Virginia

And Joy as Plum—she’s amazing and really embodies the character.

Sarai

She 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.

Virginia

So 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.

Sarai

Yeah, 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.

Virginia

Oh god, I am sorry. I know and I’m sorry.

Sarai

Yeah. It made our media look okay!

Virginia

No, 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.

Sarai

It 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.”

Virginia

I mean, what?

Sarai

And then another website, this feminist website, was like “We want pictures of you to use as stock photos for other articles on body positivity.”

Virginia

I’m sorry, can you not find other fat people??

Sarai

I’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 body

Virginia

And 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.

Sarai

It was really hard for me. I thought I would love being in the spotlight, and it was harder than I thought it would be.

Virginia

I 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.

Sarai

And 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.

Virginia

But I’m still a person with a life and my own needs.

Sarai

I’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.

Virginia

It’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.

Sarai

Oh, 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?

Virginia

I 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.

Sarai

Yeah. I mean, my second novel, The Cherry Robbers—

Virginia

Which I loved!

Sarai

Oh, 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.

Virginia

No 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.

Sarai

Yeah. 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.

Virginia

That’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.

Sarai

Yeah, 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.

Virginia

We’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.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

I 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.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

The 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.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

My 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.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

I’m elder millennial, but I’m one year off of Gen X or something.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

It’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.

Sarai

With 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.

Virginia

I 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?

Sarai

Yes, 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.

Virginia

I love that.

Sarai

My 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.

Virginia

I can’t wait to read it. I’m riveted just hearing you talk about it.

Sarai

I had so much fun working on it. It was a wild ride. So thank you. I’m excited.

Virginia

I 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.

Sarai

Thank you. I don’t like to get bored. I want to do new things.

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

It’s awesome. I can’t wait to read it. I’m so excited.

Sarai

Oh, thanks, thank you.

Butter

Virginia

Sarai, do you have any Butter for us right now?

Sarai

I 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.

Virginia

That’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.

Sarai

She’s introduced me to so many different composers, and I really love it.

Virginia

That’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.

Sarai

I love that. I’m still listening to the Xanadu soundtrack or something for my childhood.

Virginia

These 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.

Sarai

So 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.

Virginia

Well, we will keep people posted about that for sure. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Sarai

Thanks. 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!

Assessing the current state of public health with Jessica Wilson, MS, RD

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!

--

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.)

Virginia

You 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?

Jessica

2023 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.

Virginia

That’s not how people live.

Jessica

No Trader Joe’s?

Virginia

Also, we already have Super Size Me.

Jessica

I know.

Virginia

Now 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?

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

Ah 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.

Virginia

He sort of threads all these things together, even though his position on these things is quite squishy.

Jessica

Right! 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.

Virginia

He was like, “I’m open to whoever.”

Jessica

“I’m looking to be an important person.”

Virginia

Firm moral compass there.

Jessica

I 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.”

Virginia

Let’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.

Jessica

Isn’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?

Virginia

He’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?

Jessica

So 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.

Virginia

But for that to be the one petrochemical we focus on…

Jessica

And 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.

Virginia

Yeah, 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.

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

I’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.

Jessica

Right, which is often all we have, because who actually knows what’s going on in the brain that formerly had a worm in it?

Virginia

It 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.

Jessica

He 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.

Virginia

He just never met anyone. He also didn’t know any fat people.

Jessica

Oh, right. And nobody with chronic diseases. And nobody with mental health concerns. Especially not in his family.

Virginia

No, 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.

Jessica

Many 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.

Virginia

Interesting!

Jessica

His 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.”

Virginia

But let’s not value people purely by their economic contributions. That’s a weird way of determining our humanity. It’s really depressing.

Jessica

Right? 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.

Virginia

Well, 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.

Jessica

That’s a great point. Mark Hyman is one of the people who says gluten causes autism.

Virginia

Yes. 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 story

Jessica

I’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?

Virginia

I 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.

Jessica

Or 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.

Virginia

Which is progress, which is why we can stop hearkening back to this beautiful, mythical past that he wants us all to live in.

Jessica

Right? Yes, when things were great.

Virginia

The 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.

Jessica

The 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.

Virginia

And the the narrow world view of “this feels better for my child, so therefore it must be better for everyone.”

Jessica

And how are you convinced that this is better for your kid? It is wild. I don’t know.

Virginia

I 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?

Jessica

Speaking 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.

Virginia

My ovaries shriveled up and died when I read that. I can imagine nothing less sexy than Elon wanting more babies. No. Done. Out.

Jessica

And 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.

Virginia

It’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.

Jessica

Absolutely, 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.

Virginia

Yes! 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.

Jessica

So 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?

Virginia

I 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.

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

Well, 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.

Jessica

Sewing 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.

Virginia

Oh, overalls seem very challenging!

Jessica

10/10 do not recommend. But I am fully distracted from the state of the world. So, that is great.

Virginia

I 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.

Jessica

Walk 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.

Virginia

Totally. 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.

Jessica

Thank 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.

Virginia

Awesome. 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!

My 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 …

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 Fat

What to do when you miss your smaller body

And 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.

Corinne

I have been waiting for this episode! I’ve been waiting months!

Virginia

You really have been waiting for months.

Corinne

Listeners, 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.

Virginia

Not even! I just kept forgetting about it.

Corinne

I had to scroll back years and years through her Instagram to find pictures that were suitable for submission.

Virginia

I 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.

Corinne

It was maybe slightly overbearing.

Virginia

No, no, no, no. I mean, here we are. It’s going to be an amazing episode. I’m very excited.

Corinne

Okay. So, I don’t know what your results are, and I have a lot of questions for you, because I feel like you have a more in-depth history with this subject. So I will just say I first encountered this book in young adulthood or late childhood perhaps because one of my good friend’s mom had it. The book I’m talking about is Color Me Beautiful by Carole Jackson.

Virginia

The Bible.

Corinne

It was written in 1980. The basic concept for anyone who’s not familiar—though it’s hard to believe at this point that anyone would not be familiar.

Virginia

If you’ve met Corinne you are familiar because it’s like 40 percent of her personality at this point.

Corinne

Yes. What is your season, and what is your sign?

So, Carole Jackson divides everyone into four color seasons—winter, spring, summer, fall—based on the color of your skin, hair, eyes. For each of those seasons, she recommends which colors you can wear to make you look best.

Then the second half of this is just that the seasonal color analysis thing has really gained popularity through TikTok in the past few years.

Virginia

It’s gotten so big again! It was gone. I didn’t think about my colors for 20 years, and now it’s back.

Corinne

Part of it is I think these videos where they show people getting color analysis are just algorithm candy. Because it’s so subjective and divisive, it’s so good for social media.

Virginia

It’s that meme of what color is this dress? But with people’s faces. Remember that dress? And it was like, is it gold? Is it blue? It’s like that, but more.

Corinne

Yeah, as a person who spends way too much time on TikTok, I sort of got obsessed with watching these. Then I got specifically obsessed with this person, Carol Brailey, who was doing color analysis on TikTok. And then I decided that I needed to pay her to do my my colors.

Virginia

And then you decided that I needed to pay her to do my colors as well. This is not sponsored!

Corinne

Yes. We paid for this out of our wallets.

So I want to hear about your personal history with color analysis. You had your colors done as a kid, right? Or no? you did it yourself?

Virginia

I did it with the book. My mom and I got really into the book in probably seventh grade. So this would have been like 1992, maybe 1993 is when I got very into the whole color analysis.

I had a copy of Color Me Beautiful. My mom had done her colors. I think she had just started a new corporate job, and was buying new suits, getting her whole look together. And so she was interested in it to simplify dressing for work. And I, as a seventh grader, also aspired to be a corporate business woman and was obsessed with it too.

I did all my friends colors. For my birthday that year, my mom got me this little wallet. It kind of looked like an old checkbook, and inside were little fabric snippets of all of your colors. So you could carry it with you clothes shopping. I would bring it with me, and hold things up to it and see if it was my color. I was in deep.

And, yeah, I loved it. I think it was a point in my life where I was trying to decode beauty. Like, I was reading a lot of fashion magazines. I was very aware of who all the big 80s and 90s supermodels were. I was trying to decode beauty and girlhood and how I was supposed to appear in the world, and Color Me Beautiful and color analysis gives you this roadmap, right? It gives you a very clear set of rules, which, of course, is why I have more mixed feelings about it now, as someone who professionally analyzes systems that give us rules on how to live our lives.

Some of the Photos Corinne Submitted

Corinne

Yeah, that really, really makes sense. Should you tell us what your results were then and your results now? Or, how should we do this? Should I guess what your results are?

Virginia

I actually do want you to guess. I think that would be fun!

Corinne

Wait, okay, first of all, are your results now different from your results then?

Virginia

No.

Corinne

I feel like I know what you were. You were a summer, right?

Virginia

I was, and I am… a true summer.

Corinne

Wow, true summer.

So what was it like to receive the email from Carol Brailey announcing that you’re a true summer?

Virginia

Well, step one was I missed the email and it went to spam for a month. And then I had to ask for them to send it again. You were so mad that you’d done all the work to gather the photos and that I didn’t even keep track of it.

But then I got it, and I think I was hoping for it to be different because I would be like, ooh, plot twist. It has evolved. Or like, this is something new and different. And to be clear, Carol Brailey is a different person from Carole Jackson who wrote the Color Me Beautiful book. There are many people now who do color analysis now, they aren’t all named Carol. But Carol Brailey is one of the most popular ones. She seems very skilled at it. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we did ours. But there are plenty of options.

And yet, while this is supposed to be this new and improved high tech version of this—and I never did before have somebody else analyze me, I analyzed myself using the book—it still feels like exactly the same thing.

They send you a PDF with your results and explains all these details. And then there’s these photos of your face surrounded by different colors, which maybe we can look at. But then they also send you color references, and the palette is exactly the same. I was like, I’m in 1992.

It’s like…exactly the same color palette. It’s exactly the same.! She gives guidance on what color jewelry to wear? And I was like, yes, that’s right, white metals. I remember gray pearls and rose pearls. Like, it all came back. It’s exactly the same.

And I don’t know if this is accurate or if this is just because I did do it in the 90s, but the palette feels very 90s to me. It doesn’t feel very now.

Corinne

Fascinating.

Virginia

Corinne, being a true spring, can wear warm colors.

And I have to wear cool colors, so I have a lot of blues and purples and light grays. Winter would be the cool season that wears jewel tones and black. I’m not supposed to wear black. Winters wear the bolder colors, and summers wear muted colors. Like, one of my colors is dried periwinkle and another is faded blueberry and another is purple smoke. And mauve!

Corinne

Muted, cool colors.

Virginia

Yes, soft strawberry and soft burgundy. And I’m just here to say, I’m never going to wear soft burgundy. I’m not going to do it. Not going to wear dusty rose. I have like four shades of taupe I’m allowed to wear.

Corinne

Yeah, and didn’t you recently say you were anti-gray?

Virginia

Yes! Now I will say the gray that I was talking about is a terrible color for me. It is definitely more of a spring gray. It has a lot of yellow undertones. She gave me a graphite, soft white, zinc, smokey taupe, regular taupe, light taupe, rose taupe. So many taupes.

Corinne

I always thought that I was a summer because I always thought I was cool toned, so this whole thing was very shocking to me. But I do feel similarly about my colors. To me, when I look at the spring color palette, I’m like, oh yeah. It says coral, peach, which are just like, no. It is kind of interesting to play around with.

Virginia

Colors are very trendy, and I am someone who really loves color. I do think part of why I get so excited about this as a kid is because I do really love color.

But, like, I have learned that in my house I should paint my walls white, because otherwise, I’ll want to repaint my walls every year. And so I have white walls in my house, and then a lot of color in throw pillows and art and things that I can change up more. Because I’ll get really excited about a color combination and go hard on it for like a year and a half, and then I’ll be into something else. And this color palette thing doesn’t really give you room to do that. Like, I’m not allowed to wear neons, but I love my neon orange sports bra. It’s more of a coral, but it’s definitely not a summer color. The closest I get to any warm colors I can wear a shade of yellow called soft lemon.

Corinne

Yeah, yellow. Not a big one for me.

Virginia

I mean, I’m not going to wear a lot of yellow. I do have a soft lemon tank top now that I think about it, and I do enjoy that color? But it’s like the one color on the palette I’m excited about, I think, because it’s kind of an outlier from all the taupes and periwinkles.

Corinne

Interesting. I like taupe and periwinkle, unfortunately.

Virginia

I’ll trade you some mauve for your coral.

Corinne

I want to see your face on the little color backgrounds.

Virginia

Okay. We’re sharing screens now.

So Carol Bailey does this thing where you send her a photo with your hair scraped back, or covered by a white towel. So it’s really just your face, and then she surrounds your face with different colors to see how you look. This is the process.

Corinne

When I look at these, I really feel like some look better, and sometimes the other one looks better.

Virginia

What is jumping out at you?

Corinne

I like the bright green.

Virginia

I can see the way the blue looks better on me, but is it just because I have blue eyes, so it matches.

Corinne

The bright green makes your skin look nice.

Virginia

Thank you! I don’t think the yellow makes my skin look nice. I will say that in the orange, I kind of like that hot neon. And these are all colors I’m not supposed to be wearing.

Corinne

I think there’s a lot to consider. Is this based in science? No, not really. Color is kind of subjective.

I think another thing worth talking about is that this is a system developed for and by white women. The original book by Carole Jackson puts all people of color into two of the four categories. But with this TikTok resurgence, there have been people of color embracing and adapting it. I think now there are people who will assign any season to dark skin tones.

Virginia

Yes, in the original Color Me Beautiful book, every Black person was a winter, which is absurd.

Does Carol Brailey have more nuance?

Corinne

Honestly, I don’t know if Carol Brailey does, but I’ve seen Tiktoks where people are saying, like, this Black person is clearly a spring or this, like, Pakistani woman looks good in spring colors.

I think there is stuff on YouTube that offers seasonal color analysis for people of color and stuff on Reddit.

Is the system as a whole racist?

Virginia

Yeah. The origins, I think, are problematic.

Corinne

Also, in terms of fatness, there’s a way that maybe focusing on colors and wearing the colors the flatter you most is sort of a way of—

Virginia

They are supposed to be slimming.

Corinne

Yeah, or just trying to adhere to beauty standards in whatever way you can.

Virginia

Yes, I think there’s some definite anti-fatness in the way wearing your colors is often framed as a slimming thing. And there’s a lot of ageism. Like a lot of it is, “the wrong colors will be so aging.” It will make you look dull and old.

There was a note in the Carol Brailey materials that “your natural hair color around age 20 is ideal,” so if you’re older and color your hair, you should bring a photo of that color to your stylist to match. And we had to send photos of our younger selves, from childhood, teenage years, 20s. They were looking back at how you looked when you were young to figure out what you should look like now, which is a loaded way to think about that. Like, am I supposed to still look like my 22 year old self? Which, I’ve shared photos! I had dyed blonde hair at the time! It was not a good look. Or am I supposed to look like me at 44 this is who I am? This is how I look now, and it’s okay that I don’t look like I did when I was 16.

Corinne

Yeah. I mean, Carol Brailey has gray hair and doesn’t dye her hair.

Virginia

And that’s the right gray for her, I’m sure.

Corinne

I met with her after mine to ask her some follow up questions on this. Because I also was like, wait, so does this mean I need to lighten my hair or something? And she was basically like, no, like, do whatever you want. She said that some people would say that whatever color your hair turns as you age will work with your color. Because my hair is starting to go gray, and gray is not a spring color.

But I do think it’s probably easier to analyze pictures from when you have your natural hair color.

Virginia

But I do think there’s something about the whole concept — If you wear your colors, you will look thinner, you will look younger, and that is what we’re buying into. And it’s interesting to think about me as a 12 year old buying into all of this. Like, was I trying to look like my eight year old self?

Corinne

I heard someone talking about it and saying, “Have we considered that this is just another way to get people to spend money?” Because you get your colors done, and then you’re like, okay, now I have to buy all this new stuff or redo my makeup cabinet or whatever.

Virginia

I think one area where it feels useful to me is probably makeup, because you are with makeup, trying to actually match your skin color. I find picking a foundation or a concealer absolutely so confusing always. And I was like, oh, maybe this will clarify that process a little bit.

So, I Think I Like Makeup Now?
Virginia Sole-Smith · Jan 10
Read full story

But the idea that you would redo your whole closet to focus only on these colors is wild to me. A lot of these colors are not even in stores right now. They’re not current colors that people are wearing. I’m not going to find my third shade of taupe anywhere. I’m just going to have to live without it. And I don’t want to get rid of stuff that I like wearing, like I like wearing black, and that seems fine. I am not going to replace it all with graphite.

Corinne

Black is really the hardest one. One of my friends who’s an artist also pointed out, the color analysis colors that work for you are colors that harmonize with your skin and stuff. But you don’t always need to or want to harmonize. Sometimes a pale person with light hair looks cool wearing black because it’s contrasting.

Virginia

When I look at the thing with my face with all the different colors, if I really stare at it, I can see that my skin tone changes slightly based on what colors are surrounding my face. But since I don’t wear balaclavas all the time, I don’t need to worry that I’m gonna wear something green that’s going to make my cheeks look slightly less optimal.

I will say: The palette that I’m the least drawn to is the autumn palette. I’ve never been one for oranges, browns. That whole year where mustard was a really trendy color was a hard time for me personally. Because I don’t want to wear it. I don’t want to wear browns and terra cotta colors.

And maybe that’s because, instinctively, I don’t think they look good on me? But I also just think I don’t like those colors as much, and that’s fine.

But if you like a color that’s not in your palette, the idea that you wouldn’t wear it just seems so silly to me.

Have you found since you did your colors that it is it changing your shopping habits? What are you noticing?

Corinne

I think in some ways it has made me a little more open to experimentation, because some of the colors were just so off my usual, I just never would buy something like coral, or peach, or whatever.

Virginia

And yet you do look great in that coral peach shirt!

Corinne

Yeah, I have this pinky peachy shirt that I bought a while ago intending to dye, and it has just been hanging in my closet. Then after I did the color analysis, I pulled it out, and I was like, oh, this actually does look kind of good on me. And then, yeah, I’ve experimented with buying a few things.

It’s actually so hard to find the right colors out in the wild. I’ll buy something, being like, oh, I think this is a spring color. And then I get it, and I’m like, oh, no, this is actually too bright. But I do kind of enjoy it, it’s fun to think about color.

The most helpful kind of thing that I’ve learned is that the spring colors are supposed to be colors that look like they have both white and yellow mixed into them.

Virginia

Oh, that’s interesting.

Corinne

They’re tints, warm tints. So I’ve been thinking about that. But it definitely hasn’t completely changed how I dress or anything.

At this point in my life, I’m not a person that wear wears makeup. And when I have or did wear makeup, I was pretty much always wearing cool toned makeup, and I thought it looked fine! So.

Virginia

You were just going about your day, and it was okay.

Corinne

I remember wearing kind of raspberry lip and cheek kind of color, and I thought it looked good. So that’s hilarious. I don’t know.

Virginia

You thought you were cool-toned, because you are a little pinkish?

Corinne

My skin is very pink. And I would describe my hair as, like, dirty blonde, or ash blonde. I thought I was muted.

Virginia

I don’t think you’re muted. As as a former student of Carol Jackson, I immediately clocked you as a Spring. I was not at all surprised.

Corinne

A few people have said to me, “Oh yeah, I knew that.” And I’m like, well, why didn’t you tell me?

Virginia

Well, it’s weird to meet people and be like, “Do you want to know what your color season is?” It’s this made up thing that doesn’t matter!

Corinne

I’ve discussed it with so many people. I remember as a kid, my friend who had the book, I think she was an autumn—shout out to Emma, if you’re listening. I don’t even remember if I figured out mine out then. I don’t think I could figure it out back then, either. So I don’t know, maybe I just have skewed self perception.

Virginia

That’s hilarious. I think I didn’t want to tell you, because I wanted you to go on this journey of personal growth. I just didn’t think it was for me to name your color palette for you.

Corinne

I look at you and maybe it’s the painting behind you, but I feel like your skin looks kind of golden.

Virginia

I know, I’m sitting in front of an orange painting because I play it fast and loose with color palettes. It has pink in it, too though?

Corinne

That’s true. Maybe you should commission a summer colors painting to be sit in front of. Actually, you should send me that painting.

Virginia

Yes, you need this painting behind you. I need something else. Okay, good plan.

Yeah, I don’t think it’s going to change anything for me, mostly because I think I’m going to not think about it again once we’re done with this conversation.

But also because I’ve been on my color journey already. I did this 30 years ago at this point. And it ended up being a frustrating experience trying to shop for the colors.

And at the same time, I will hold that together with: I think I do dress as a summer quite often. Like I do think, whether it is because I did this as a 12 year old, or because I just am drawn to these colors, I have a lot of blues, I have a lot of pinks. Blue and pink are probably my favorite colors. Like, it makes sense. But I’m just still going to wear black, and if I feel like wearing a yellow, I will.

Corinne

Okay.

Well, if someone came to you and said, “I’m getting really into color analysis, Virginia. Is it a diet?” What would you say?

Virginia

I would say…it is. It’s not not a diet, guys. It’s a system that creates a lot of rules. I think if it can create freedom for you, if you’re someone who gets overwhelmed with decisions and you want fewer options, and this feels like a way to sift through some noise when you’re shopping, I can see that being helpful.

But if you are doing it, and you find it creates stress because you feel like you can’t wear something you like, or you don’t feel as good about yourself in something because it’s the wrong color…then we’ve entered diet territory.

Corinne

It is kind of that morning routine, self-optimization thing, like minimalism, where you’re like, “If I just have this one tool, then everything will be easier.”

Virginia

I just don’t think that knowing your colors makes anything about getting dressed and navigating beauty standards easier. Like I don’t think it does. It’s just one piece of such a complicated puzzle.

Corinne

Yeah, I mean, I have certainly discovered that myself. Because, like I said, I’m like, oh here’s a spring color. And then I’m like, wait, this actually isn’t a spring color.

Virginia

Right. It’s just another set of things to now feel like you’re getting wrong.

Corinne

Yeah? And I’m like, “I’m a summer!” and I’m like, “oh no, I’m not a summer at all.”

Virginia

Do I even know myself?

Corinne

I do not.

Virginia

So I think it’s a little diet-y. I think it’s a weird system. I think the racist origins are problematic. I think white women are really good at creating complex systems that we have to adhere to. And maybe this is one we let go, guys! I don’t know.

That said, if it gives you great joy to know you are a winter, spring, summer, fall, we’re here for you. We’re not trying to rain on your parade.

---

Virginia

I have a good Butter. I’m excited about my Butter. I’ve kept it off the socials this week so that you can be blown away about my Butter.

Corinne

I’m really excited.

Virginia

We got chickens!

Corinne

Oh my God! Wow!

Virginia

I feel like it’s a good Butter. So the back story is my 11-year-old has been asking for chickens for five years, I would say. One of the schools she went to many years ago had a flock of chickens that she was very in love with. And she has a good friend with chickens. We live in an area where a lot of people have chickens. So basically, anytime we encounter a chicken, she’d be like, “Why don’t we have chickens? Why don’t we have chickens?”

And we do have a big garden and we are a place that one could have chickens, but her dad was never into it at all. And then, after the divorce, initially, I was like, “I will get chickens!” And then I was like, “Virginia, don’t make your complicated life more complicated. What are you doing?” How about you figure out how to co-parent and be a single parent and take care of the house by yourself?

So I did that instead, which was the right call. And we did, as you know, during that time, get kittens. So I kicked the chicken can down the curb a little ways with the kittens. But now my boyfriend Jack is someone who has had chickens many times in his life. And basically, as soon as he came to my house, he was like, “Why don’t you have chickens?” And then once he met my kids, they immediately started conspiring, and now there is a flock of eight baby chicks in my house right now as I talk to you.

Corinne

Wow. Okay, so where are the chickens going to live in the house?

Virginia

They’re in the house right now because they’re only two weeks old. They have to be in a brood box for six weeks until they get bigger and have their true feathers. But in the meantime, Jack’s working on a coop. There’s going to be a coop or a chicken tractor. I don’t know.

And I’m super into it now, because I don’t have to do any of the work, because my, my 11 year old is on it. She did write out three pages of instructions for me for when she goes to her dad’s house, but I think I can handle it. Because it is actually just food and water. But there were many instructions on how to properly handle the chicks. I’m ready for the challenge, and then I’m going to get eggs. I’m going to have so many eggs!

Corinne

That is awesome. I’m jealous. And also, you can feed them your food scraps!

Virginia

I know I was just about to say that was the other big selling point. I have complicated feelings about our level of food waste, because I have children who are selective eaters. And it is a lot of food waste sometimes! We’re starting to compost again, but chickens eating the scraps would be awesome.

Corinne

That’s so cool.

Virginia

So stay tuned for chicken reports as part of Garden Toast this year.

Corinne

How did the kittens feel about the chickens?

Virginia

Well, we’re keeping the chickens behind a closed door so the cats cannot get to them.

Penelope, our dog, is very curious about the chicks, but she goes to a doggy daycare where they have chickens, so she’s very used to chickens. So I think that will be fine. And then the cats are indoor cats, and the chickens will be outside chickens, and hopefully they will not meet one another.

Corinne

Wow, that’s awesome. That’s a really good butter!

Virginia

I sat on it all week so I could blow your mind. It’s pretty exciting. I’ll send you eggs somehow.

Corinne

Okay, great. Thank you.

I’m going to recommend a book which I’m actually not even finished with yet, but feel pretty confident about.

I’m about 3/4 of the way through Stag Dance which is Torrey Peters’ new book. It’s being called a novel and short stories, I think. But it’s basically four, I would call them stories. One is just longer than the others, and they’re all different genres. I have read 3/4 so far, and they’re just very interesting, very thought provoking. I really liked her last book, which was Detransition, Baby. This is a really different vibe, but also just really smart and thought provoking.

Virginia

I’m literally texting my book club as you speak, because we have been in a state of malaise is trying to pick our next book. And we all loved Detransition, Baby.

Chickens and an excellent queer novel and short stories—what a delightful combination! I’m here for it.

Well, this was a great episode. I am glad you finally made me do colors. I hope you feel some closure on this topic now that you know my season.

Corinne

I do.

Virginia

I’m glad. And thank you again for pulling all my photos together.

--

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!

ICYMI 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.

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.

Elizabeth

So 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.

Virginia

That is a lot of very hard jobs that you have! You sound extremely busy.

Elizabeth

I am. It’s a lot.

Virginia

Well, 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.

Elizabeth

Oh 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.

Virginia

Thousands and thousands of dollars per day for treatment.

Elizabeth

And 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.

Virginia

Yeah, you did it! You did the thing.

Elizabeth

I 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.

Virginia

The 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.”

Elizabeth

Nope. Not even a little bit.

Virginia

And 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.

Elizabeth

What 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.

Virginia

And 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.

Elizabeth

We really could.

Virginia

The 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.

Elizabeth

While 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.

Virginia

Yes, and not just being handed a bag of food like, “This is what you get.”

Elizabeth

Yeah. “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.

Virginia

There’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.

Elizabeth

Yeah, 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.”

Virginia

First, we need to get a pantry.

Elizabeth

Number one.

Virginia

When does that get delivered?

Elizabeth

Exactly! 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.

Virginia

Are you focusing on a particular geographic area?

Elizabeth

Good 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.

Virginia

That’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?

Elizabeth

Sometimes 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.

Virginia

So you’re creating a new model that hopefully other organizations will replicate.

Elizabeth

Absolutely.

Virginia

As 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?

Elizabeth

Exactly. 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.

Virginia

And 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.

Elizabeth

Like, 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.

Virginia

I think people are feeling a lot of the same panic, embarrassment, and uncertainty about what’s happening next. Everything is feeling extremely unstable.

Elizabeth

Absolutely.

Virginia

So 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?

Elizabeth

Yes, 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.

Virginia

We 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?

Elizabeth

Oh, 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.

Virginia

That’s awesome.

Elizabeth

It 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.

Virginia

Well, 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.

Elizabeth

Because 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.

Virginia

Recurring donations help nonprofits plan. It’s money they can rely on and actually look ahead and not just be scrambling.

Elizabeth

Scramble—that’s the perfect word. I get a little stressed every time we open the pantry.

Virginia

Well, 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!

Elizabeth

Something 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?

Virginia

I did not! This is amazing.

Elizabeth

So not painting on canvas, but on burlap material. Even if you make a mistake, it still looks nice.

Virginia

What kind of paint are you using?

Elizabeth

It 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.

Virginia

That’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.

Elizabeth

Oh, wonderful. Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.

Virginia

My 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.

Elizabeth

I can imagine!

Virginia

I’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.

Elizabeth

Oh, now I want to see the photos of the birds.

Virginia

Oh, 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.

Elizabeth

You 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!

A deep dive into positions, props, and misconceptions, with body image coach Bri Campos.

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!

Virginia

Okay, 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!

Bri

Thank you so much for having me back. What an honor.

Virginia

Well we have some very spicy questions to discuss today. I hope you’re feeling ready.

Bri

I’m so ready.

Corinne

In 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!!!

Virginia

I would say, you are strongly encouraged to skip this one, actually.

Corinne

Moms, siblings.

Virginia

Dads, brothers, whatever. More content for you is coming. This one isn’t it.

Bri

We appreciate the support.

Corinne

Okay, 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?

Bri

I mean, I’ll dive right in.

Get the wedge pillow! Any spontaneity that it takes you out of, you get right back in there. 10/10 recommend the wedge pillow.

Virginia

We will link to Bri’s favorite wedge pillow, and a non-Amazon option (that I’m really curious about because it’s also cute!) and another one. That does seem like the obvious solution.

My other thought was, girl, get on top! That can work better sometimes. And get a vibrator, so you don’t have to get your hand down there.

We can link to the Dame Pom, which is a nice, small vibrator, so it slides in very nicely between bodies. And bellies are honestly an asset at that point, for holding it in place.

Corinne

So true. There are also other vibrating sex toys, like vibrating cock rings and stuff like that.

Virginia

Similar concept.

Corinne

I also want to say I’ve heard that a good position for fat people in this scenario is with the person with being penetrated lying on their side, like with one leg up, and then the other person straddling your bottom leg. It’s really hard to describe this.(1)

Virginia

Do we need a drawing? So she’s lying on her side, and he’s like, straddling her lower leg, her top leg is kind of draped over him?

Corinne

Yeah.

Virginia

This is amazing by the way. This is already my favorite episode.

Corinne

Okay, so the—I’m just going to say woman, and woman can mean whatever you want. So you’d be lying on your side, but kind of facing down, and have one leg up bent, and then the man—again man can mean whatever you want—would be straddling.

Virginia

The penetrator?

Corinne

That’s not awkward, but yes, he would have his knees on either side of your straight bottom leg. Because then his belly is above your body, and your belly is facing the mattress.

Virginia

Yeah, okay.

Bri

I have some, some other thoughts that I want to share. And if you’re my family, please stop listening at this point.

But as somebody who’s in a super fat body and struggles with mobility, getting on top is actually really hard for me. And I’m short, so I don’t know like, how to get my legs on. But the other thing, too, is I’ve been with some people who really love eye contact—so if you’re on your side, you might miss that.

Virginia

Yeah, then you would lose the eye contact.

Bri

So I mean, yes, the wedge pillow. The other thing is to get a yoga strap, to just pull your legs up a little bit higher. So the wedge will help lift you. But then, instead of having to hold your legs up, the strap will help. It will improve functionality. And then you can lift your belly up, you can lift your legs up.

That doesn’t help you with the clitoral stimulation, but the vibrator or the cock ring would definitely help with that.

Virginia

Because if you’re holding the yoga strap, you can’t be getting a hand down there.

Bri

But if you tie the yoga strap with one hand…

Virginia

That’s kind of hot. Like a bondage situation?

Corinne

I’ve also just anecdotally heard of people using a yoga strap on someone who’s on their hands and knees to pull just so you’re closer, to help squish the bellies.

Bri

I have a link for something like that.

[Note: All the specific product recs in this episode can be found here. We’ve included non-Amazon alternatives whenever we can!]

Virginia

This is really reframing yoga straps for me. It’s much hotter now.

Bri

Multi-functional!

Corinne

Also, like a towel would work. You don’t have to buy something specific.

Virginia

Right.

Bri

Just recently I was with somebody and I had the strap in my bag, and I was like, I don’t want to get it out. Because I just, I don’t know, it’s like, I’m in my head. And then finally, I was like, “I think this would help.” And it actually made it a little steamier if you will. So make the accommodation. It’ll take you out of the moment for a second, but then you get right back into it.

Corinne

Yeah, when I first read this, I was like, I feel like spontaneity is maybe overrated.

Bri

Amen.

Virginia

Because your comfort matters more! I think the spontaneity idea is sort of like movie sex, where it’s like people can just fall on each other and it all happens, right? That’s nobody’s actual sex, at any body size. You need to be communicating. You need to feel comfortable. That makes it much hotter once you have that.

Corinne

Maybe spontaneity gets things started. But then it’s like, if you’re not getting there, then what’s the point?

Bri

That’s going to take you out of the moment, too. So take the moment, get the wedge pillow. Two seconds, get the strap.

And the other thing, too—and this has probably been the best advice that was given to me—is to communicate with your partner. “Hey, if you need me to move my belly, or if you’re seeing functionally what’s going wrong, let’s talk about it so that we can navigate through it.”

Virginia

I love that. That’s really good.

Bri

Do you have any thoughts on the riding issue for folks in superfat bodies? Because it’s definitely something that I know that I had hesitance about. About getting on top.

Virginia

Oh, like the vulnerability?

Bri

Well, the vulnerability, but, like, the functionality.

Virginia

I think I was being simplistic, and a little too glib, when I suggested that. I know people in all body sizes who feel uncomfortable being on top! It can be tough on your knees.

Bri

And emotionally.

Virginia

You’re more exposed. I just wrote a piece about chins. Your chins are more on display. A lot of women have been taught to not want that angle on their bodies. Which, to me, feels like a real disservice. Thank you, patriarchy. Because it can be a really good position for a lot of women. But if it doesn’t serve you, then there’s no need to force it.

Bri

I know there is this luggage rack kind of thing?

Corinne

Oh yeah, I’ve seen that. I’ve never tried it.

I also think sometimes, if you’re with a partner who’s fat or super fat, your legs can’t really reach all the way around them.

Bri

Yeah, and that’s okay, because there are many other positions. But don’t not get on top because you’re afraid that you’re going to hurt him. He’ll be fine.

Oh I used him, sorry! Your partner underneath you.

Virginia

Whoever they are, they’re lucky you are on top of them.

Bri

Amen.

Corinne

I think also, with stuff like this, sometimes we have this idea that we should know how to do it just because we’ve seen it in a movie or seen it in porn or photos or whatever. But you might have to try different things to find something that works. Like, maybe you need some kind of assistance to hold part of yourself up, or maybe you want to be on one knee and one foot, or turn to face in the other direction.

Bri

Again, with the eye contact thing. But I did read something that said, putting the wedge pillow under the partner on the bottom totally lifts their hips up.

I also bought this movement program from Flex with Vera, it was like a hip opener and a core strengthener to help you if you want to do that. Not motivated by anything other than wanting to sit a little bit easier up there.

Virginia

It feels like something a good physical therapist would be able to help with, too. Or occupational therapy should be covering this. Maybe a good pelvic floor therapist.

All right, I will read the next question:

I’m navigating sex with a new person. I’m fat. He’s an average body size. I have talked to him about the importance of pillows for positioning, angle, and height. He says he’s willing to do what it takes. I’m worried about other things, like sweating and not smelling as nice as I want to and I have a harder time reaching to trim the down under area.

Bri

I think that the anxiety, all the thoughts going through your head, are normal. And especially if you’re maybe not having body image thoughts, like, of course then you’re worried about whether you’re sweating or how trimmed you are down there.

What I subscribe to is: They know what they signed up for, right? They’re there. It’s good to have that conversation beforehand. And if you’ve had that conversation and they’re still there, they want to have sex with you. They’re excited to be there!

For hair: I wax, so that’s an option. I’ll just add anecdotally, as well, I just had to call the waxing place because the waxer I was using so nice, but I didn’t feel like even just getting waxed, mobility-wise, I can’t hold my legs for this long. So I called and I said to the manager, I need somebody who can tell me what they need me to do and how to accommodate, because I don’t know how to advocate for myself. And they were like, we’re so sorry that you had this experience! We want to make sure you have a good experience. And I was like, this was hard advocating here. No wonder it’s hard advocating in bedroom.

But, yeah, sweating is normal! Smells are normal, hair is normal. My encouragement would be, if you can put that to the side, or just notice: Okay this is all coming up, how can I stay present and then maybe explore it later? Because it’s not actually going to help you in the moment.

Virginia

Yep, I like that.

Corinne

It feels like one of those things where it makes sense that you’re worrying about but—just worry about it when it happens, you know? You’re not even there yet.

Virginia

Good point.

Corinne

Not that you shouldn’t do anything to prepare or whatever. But you’re worrying about stuff that hasn’t happened yet.

Bri

This happened to me recently. I very rarely think about my body in that context, but I was getting my period, and I was worried that I was sweating, and I was like, we will navigate it. If I have a partner who’s communicative that we can navigate through it, it’s going to be fine.

This anxiety is trying to protect you from something, it’s trying to protect you from feeling rejected or feeling embarrassed. But it’s not actually doing that job. It’s not actually helping you.

So shower, put the AC on, put a fan on, communicate with your partner, and let what happens happens. You can always talk about it and navigate it together.

Virginia

My other thought was, if this person has felt comfortable enough to talk about pillows and positioning and this guy’s saying he’s willing to do what it takes, like—he’s in! He’s ready, he’s a sure bet.

So, it feels like you could also say, “I’m anxious about this piece.” You don’t have to say, “What’s your preference for body hair?” Because it’s your body and your hair, and you get to make that decision. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, you could say, “This is what I like to do with my body hair. Just a heads up.” It sounds like he’s going to be receptive. And there’s a way that all of that can be kind of hot, because it’s all building the anticipation.

So, I think don’t be afraid to just have that conversation with this person ahead of time if you need to. Or, just as you’re navigating it.

Bri

I’ll just say again: Every sexual partner I have had has been in a thinner body than me.

So I think it’s so hard when we have been told—and I and I date men, right? So I think that there’s this old belief that no one’s going to be attracted to you. Nobody’s going to want your fat body.

But it’s like, wait a second, that’s not what I’m experiencing. That’s not the reality that I’m living in. And so it’s about separating out the bullshit. The reality is that this person in a smaller or average size, body is desiring me, and I’m going to do the thing, and my body’s going to do things, and hopefully you can do what you intended to do and feel good and have fun and experience pleasure in your body.

Corinne

And I think a lot of what this person is worried about is rejection. But it goes both ways. Like, if you’re having sex with someone and you want to get a pillow, and they’re like, “Well, now I don’t want to have sex anymore,” that’s good information to have, because that doesn’t seem fun.

Virginia

Maybe that’s not someone you want to have sex with.

Corinne

Maybe not the partner for you.

Bri

Bullet dodged.

Virginia

Corinne, do you want to read the next one?

Corinne

Yes.

I’m worried that, like a lot of men, this guy can make one woman come, and now he thinks he’s a master at it. Maybe he doesn’t have the oral skills he says he does?

I told him that I imagine oral sex for a woman feels about as good as oral sex for a man, which, from what I’ve heard some men describe, there’s not much better. I encourage him to think of the clitoris as a small penis. Not sure if I’m worrying myself so much that I’m taking the fun away. I just want him to be prepared that fat sex is different. Am I making sense? Help.

Virginia

We should also say this is a part two of the previous question. So this lovely individual is worrying about all of the things before sex with a new partner. Which completely makes sense and is deeply relatable. You’re spiraling in all the different directions about this.

Corinne

Okay. I kind of feel like “oral skills” are a myth. I’m just going to go out there and say it.

Virginia

Say more.

Bri

Say everything.

Corinne

When you say, “I hope someone has good skills,” what you’re actually saying is, “I hope I don’t have to communicate any of my wants and that they just do everything I want, without me having to say anything.”

Virginia

Damn.

Bri

I feel attacked.

Corinne

Sorry. You have to tell people what you want and I don’t think you should just expect someone to come into a relationship knowing exactly what is going to achieve orgasm for you.

Virginia

Because it’s so different. It’s different for everybody!

Corinne

It’s different for everybody. It’s really easy to make an analogy with, like, kissing or whatever. Like, if you’re like, “This person’s a bad kisser,” are they a bad kisser? Or are you just not telling them what you want? Are they a bad kisser or are you just incompatible kissers?

I just don’t think it’s as easy as good and bad or skilled and not skilled.

Virginia

Okay, I’ve had some bad kissers, but I hear you.

Corinne

Or maybe you just kissed people that you didn’t like kissing! That’s allowed.

Virginia

You’re saying some people like windmill tongue, and I should not shame people for liking windmill tongue.

Corinne

Some people like slobbery kissing. Some people like really dry kissing. Some people like pecking. Some people like…

Bri

Like, a guppy fish?

Corinne

Someone might like that.

Virginia

There’s another guppy fish out there for that person.

Bri

So I’m just going to say this. I sometimes struggle asking specifically for what I want, because when I’m the one getting feedback, I’m mostly like, “I’m glad you’re telling me.” But then there’s this little tiny part of my brain that’s like, “You’re not doing a good enough job. Like, you’re doing this wrong.” And I have to lock that part into the basement and say, we will deal with you later. Just stay present right now.

So it’s like, I don’t want my partner to feel like that, too. So I can relate.

Virginia

But so much of that is our conditioning, especially as women, to not ask for what we want. To not be direct about our own pleasure. Especially for straight women, we might want to say what we want, but we know then we’ll have to do the emotional labor of “I have to manage his ego and his feelings about this.”

I mean I’m sure that happens in all gender pairings. But I think that conditioning kicks. We were trained to need to make him feel like he’s a god at oral sex, for some reason.

Bri

I think also, too that lowering the expectations can help. I don’t know what this person said to you that made you feel like, oh, like he made one woman come so now he thinks he’s an expert at it. But instead of getting hung up on that: Go in with the intent of connection, go in the intent of feeling good. You already set this premise of we have this communication. So let’s just keep going with that and if something feels good, tell them. Say, “Yes, more of that, please.”

Virginia

What I picked up on in both parts of this question is, I think this person is feeling so anxious about this guy is going to be navigating fat sex for the first time, and that that’s going to be different. So she is then making it so the expectations are very high all around. Like, wanting him to be prepared. We’re going to need to use a pillow, and this is going to be hard. And like, are you as good at oral sex as you said?

There’s almost a way in which it’s maybe a little bit of self-sabotage? Like, if I make it seem impossible to get this right then when it doesn’t go well, it’s like, well, of course.

Corinne

This is what happens when you spend too much time talking before you actually meet someone in real life!

Virginia

I know. I mean, it is the Corinne rule of dating. Don’t talk too long before that first date.

Corinne

People are just going to get themselves in trouble.

Bri

We hear that overanalytical part that’s trying to just protect you from feeling anything deemed unpleasurable. There is no amount of analytics that’s going to protect you from uncomfortable feelings. So it’s not actually doing what it needs to do.

Virginia

Great point.

Bri

And you want to be with this person! It sounds like you want to have this experience. I had a friend say to me, “Stop making the expectation that you’re both going to come.” Like, don’t even go in with that expectation, because you’re going to be disappointed if you don’t.

Go in with different expectations. Go in with connection. Go in with feeling good. Go in with laying naked with somebody. If you put the pressure on it, that’s when we can walk away feeling like, ah, it didn’t work out well. What I love to say, too, is like for me, every opportunity is an exploration of myself, of, oh, I figured out I don’t like this, or I really do like this, or, whatever it is.

I also wondered, though, if it’s because of being in a larger body. And, like, the idea that being prepared, that fat sex is different. How much different? Like, I mean, maybe there’s a little bit more nuance of like discussion, and it’s less like a porno and and more like real life.

Virginia

I’ve had skinny person sex! It’s not like a porno either.

Bri

But that’s what I’m saying, is, like, I know a lot of thin friends who do not have great sex. And fat sex can be delightful.

Virginia

Absolutely, it can be amazing.

I want this letter writer to send us an update, because I’m very invested. I know there’s a lot riding on this experience, and I hope it goes well.

Bri

I hope you have fun,.

Virginia

I hope it’s fun, and I hope there’s connection, and however it goes. It will not be perfect, but I hope it’s great.

All right, I will read the next one.

I am fat and queer. More specifically, I am homoromantic and asexual. This means that I am romantically attracted to women and femmes, and I do not experience sexual attraction to people of any gender. To be ultra clear, I don’t experience sexual attraction, but I do experience sexual arousal, and I do have and enjoy sex—people tend to make assumptions when they hear the word asexual. I find dating to be very hard. On the one hand, it’s hard to find a partner who can accept that I will never be sexually attracted to them. On the other hand, I find it’s very hard to be a lesbian, sapphic, WLW, etc, who is fat but not butch or ultra femme. Very few people exist at that intersection. Now my question, how do I direct my anger, frustration and sadness about the systemic anti-fatness and anti-queerness that has led to the situation without making my body and identity the problem? I know that my body and identity aren’t the problem, but my emotional logic always goes there, since it feels easier to change my body than it is to change the enculturation of my potential partners.

Mmmm, this is a big one.

Corinne

My instinct is, I wish you had more community. I feel like you need maybe some fat friends, maybe some like fellow asexual friends, that you can talk about this with. I just know you’re not alone out there. I know there are other people, probably close to where you live, who are experiencing the same stuff.

Bri

I would agree that I think what can be really hard is feeling like you’re alone or like that you’re the only one that experiences this. This is actually how my body grievers group came to be, was because I was meeting client after client. I’m like, you’re saying the same exact thing as the person before you, but nobody’s talking about it because they feel so much shame or they feel embarrassment.

And so I wouldn’t necessarily worry so much about directing your anger and frustration and sadness in the right place, because I think when you heal, it will direct itself that way.

But ask yourself, how do I meet myself where I’m at? If I was talking to a friend or a loved one, how would I show up for them to advocate for themselves and do that? So if that would be like, you need to go find some people. Even if you don’t have evidence that it’s it exists, or that it’s real or that there are other people, it doesn’t mean that’s proof that that’s true.

I just want to hold my privilege when I say that. But I also remember just it, the idea of me existing in the body that I exist in… As a superfat person, I would have never believed in a different time, that the life I am living was possible. And if I had gone based on the evidence of like, oh, I believe it could happen, or I’ve seen it happen, I wouldn’t be here.

But I allowed myself the unbelief that maybe it won’t get better. But how do I not let it get worse? How do I not stay stuck in this grief or this sadness about where I’m at? You get to grieve. You get to be frustrated. It gets to be difficult, and it is not your fault. You get to have what you want unapologetically. And it might take some work to figure out how to navigate it. And you’re worthy of that. You’re worthy of that time and space to navigate it.

Virginia

I’m thinking about the piece at the end where they say, “It feels easier to change my body than it is to change the enculturation of potential partners.” And we’ve talked about this a little bit in other episodes about dating: How do you navigate the biases your partners might be bringing to the situation? But I’m just curious, because I can understand why they go to like, well, if I can change me, then I won’t have to deal. I understand the logic of that. But obviously that’s not where we want to land. So do you guys have thoughts on, how do you address this with partners? Especially as this person’s navigating multiple marginalized identities?

Bri

Well, I definitely understand the narrative of, like, I would rather just change my body so that I don’t have to deal with it. And this is the same thing I say to my clients is, well, how long can you do that for? What’s the sustainable way of changing your body to avoid this grief?

Truly, you’re just delaying it. So you’re either going to deal with the discomfort now or you’re going to deal with it later. And you’re going to miss out on life now if you’re spending your time changing your body so that you can feel comfortable in a romantic relationship or sexual experience. If you’re spending all your time and energy changing your body, you’re not going to be able to be present for that.

The way that I do this work, is a distress scale. So on a scale of 1 to 10, low, medium, high. If the idea of, I don’t know, talking to a partner about this is like a 10, okay, so then maybe we don’t start there. Maybe we talk to a therapist about it first. Maybe we bring somebody else into it that it doesn’t feel like an overwhelm to your nervous system. Because I think you just need to feel validated that what you want is, you’re allowed to ask for it.

This happened to me, and again, I have a lot of privilege, but it’s like, if I would talk about my body discomfort, the immediate response was, well, why don’t you change your body? And that’s that’s just harmful, right? Because it’s not sitting with me in the discomfort of this is where we’re at, and this gets to be uncomfortable. And what do you need? How do we take care of you? Not to fix it, not to make it completely better, but just to make it suck a little bit less.

Corinne

I think it’s hard. It just might not be ideal. You might meet people, and you might have to explain to them what those identities mean to you. But I think you will find people out there that are open to it.

Virginia

Corinne, can I ask you to be be my queer friend and explain something to me?

Corinne

Sure.

Virginia

Where they said, “it’s hard to be lesbian who is fat, but not butch or ultra femme.” Is that true? I don’t know about this.

Corinne

It made me curious about where this person lives, because I don’t know. I mean, I know lots of people who are fat and not butch or femme. I have dated people who are fat and not butch or femme. I myself am attracted to people who are fat, but not butch or femme. I mean…

Virginia

I would even say, you yourself straddle those lines?

Corinne

Perhaps. Could be said.

Virginia

You’re not ultra femme.

Corinne

Yeah, I’m not ultra femme. It sounds like maybe their community is people who are mostly butch and femme, but other stuff exists.

Virginia

Yeah, I was like, is that all lesbians? Do you have to check one box or the other? That was kind of my question.

Corinne

No, definitely not. I mean, identities are just so varied. There are butch people who are only attracted to other butch people, and there are femme people who are only attracted to other femmes. Like, there are people in the middle who are also attracted to people in the middle. There are just all kinds of people, you know?

Virginia

Who are fat and yet not butch or femme.

Corinne

Yes, I’m sure.

Bri

I remember when I first started online dating, I would be like, “Well, I don’t think that person would be attracted to me,” so I wouldn’t even attempt. And now I’m like, “Am I attracted to this person? Do I see myself kissing you?” And if yes, okay, I’m going to swipe right, and we’ll see what happens. But yeah, it is very hard. Anti-fatness, as Aubrey Gordon says, is the water we live in. So it’s like the water we exist in. So I understand that at pressure, but ugh, tough.

Corinne

I think there are apps or websites just specifically for asexual dating. And I think even Feeld has stuff where you can check that off. So just something to consider.

Bri

I’ll just say, I’m on Feeld, and I have found it to be very, very nice. And I pay for it, but this way I can filter out what I’m looking for and who I’m looking for, and it’s great. And I’ve had some really, really great and lovely connections and experiences.

Corinne

OK, last question:

Virginia, do you want to talk about your post divorce dating?

Virginia

Ahh! Okay, we have gotten a lot of questions about this. And as someone who was in a 25 year relationship and then newly exploring dating in her 40s, I felt it was pretty important to keep that off the Internet for a while. To keep that private.

But I am now six (almost seven!) months into a relationship with a really wonderful person. His name is Jack, and it’s pretty exciting. So that is the main update. If you’ve heard references to me suddenly watching football as a 44 year old woman who never liked sports before, you may have started to piece it together. I’ve had a few eagle-eyed readers be like, “I think there’s something very boyfriend-coded about this,” and you were not wrong.

Corinne

That’s funny. Well, I’m single, on the other hand. If anyone wants to slide into my DMs.

Virginia

Slide into Corinne’s DMs! She is a catch, everyone in the Albuquerque area.

Corinne

Brianna, I don’t know if you want to do a little dating promotion for yourself?

Bri

I mean, I am single. I know that my audience is like, do you have a boyfriend? And I’m like, oh my gosh, no, I don’t have a boyfriend. But yes, I’m also single. I do date men.

Virginia

So two red hot catches here. I’m just saying. I really hope our audience delivers on that front.

Bri

You know, any brothers or you know, anyway you want to send my way? I’m in New Jersey.

I did a dating course with my friend and colleague Lily Womble, and I don’t know if we talked about this in the last episode, she said that the statistics are, like, I don’t know, 80% of people actually meet their partner in real life. And I’m like, ah!

Virginia

Oh I don’t I believe that at all? I mean, I met Jack through an online dating app. It’s the only way anyone’s meeting anybody.

Bri

Either people are lying or it means I have to go out of my house and then I have to talk to people.

Virginia

Corinne might say you do.

Corinne

I mean, I would love to meet someone in real life. All the people I’ve dated recently I’ve met online. I feel like that’s maybe an outdated statistic.

Virginia

Just with so many more people working from home, it seems impossible.

Bri

I work from home and I work online and I work for myself. I don’t have any spheres of people other than my online community. So her whole thing is, like, do things that bring you joy, and then you get involved in communities where you potentially could meet someone. And I’m like, okay, I understand that.

Virginia

I mean, I hear that. But I will say, as a someone who is navigating dating, as a divorced mom, I did not want to accidentally date my kid’s teacher. I did not want to date a dad in my town. Like I needed some distance.

Jack has now met my kids, that’s all going well. But before I knew this was a person I wanted in my life, I needed some boundaries to protect them. I mean, I’m very involved in my community, and not in a way that would get me dates. Most of my friends are other moms, who are married or partnered in some way. So I think, think online dating gets a bad rap. I think it can be terrible, but it can be a really useful tool.

Bri

I would love to just ask one question, because I know we had talked about this on our episode of like, when you started this process, there were so many things that you thought would disqualify you from this, like being divorced, being a mom and over 40 and fat.

So did any of that matter?

Virginia

It did not matter at all. Not one little bit. There was no shortage of people interested. I mean, you know, it was the experience everyone has where you start a lot of conversations. They don’t all go anywhere, some bad dates, some good dates, people that I was like, okay, that was fine. I never want to see you again. It wasn’t like every date was a home run or every conversation. But there was never a feeling that nobody was interested, or that those things were barriers.

I will say there were conversations where I could tell it was more about this is a guy who wants to get laid, and less about “I am directly interested in you. You are interesting to me.” I think that’s something everybody’s going to experience, especially if you date men, that’s going to happen.

But then I found someone who I really super clicked with right away. And none of those things were deal breakers or even concerns of any kind.

Bri

When I started sharing that I’m going on dates, there were some specifically thin white women being like, “I don’t define my worth by whether a man desires me.” And it’s like, shut up.

It is really fun to be in my fattest body and having this much fun like and be desired and desiring other people and like… so, even if you don’t think it’s possible, that’s not evidence that that’s actually true. You will not be for everybody, and not everybody’s going to be for you.

Virginia

Yes, that’s the other thing. You get to be just as choosy as anyone else is being. Which feels really good.

Well, this was a fantastic conversation. I feel like I learned so much from both of you. Thank you! And listeners, I am sure you will have follow up questions and thoughts, so I’m excited for the comment section on this one.

Bri, why don’t you remind folks where they can find you and follow your work and all that.

Bri

Of course. And again, thank you so much for bringing me in on this. I would say the best place to find me is on Instagram. I also have a Substack called

Body Image with Bri

so you can, you can follow me there. Thank you so so much. I appreciate 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!

---
1. THIS is what I am talking about.

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.

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

I 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.

Jessica

So 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.

Virginia

More people in the club would not be a bad thing. It would actually make it easier to advocate for the changes we need.

Jessica

Exactly, exactly.

Virginia

That’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.

Jessica

Especially 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.

Virginia

I 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?

Jessica

Yes, 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.

Virginia

It 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.

Jessica

So 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?

Virginia

Yeah, so fascinating. Because people think they’re making their bodies bulletproof.

Jessica

Exactly 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.

Virginia

A little cooling crunch. I get it.

Jessica

And 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.

Virginia

It 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.

Jessica

Yeah, and also not think about eating as, like, “I better not mess this up.”

Virginia

You 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.

Jessica

Right? 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.

Virginia

That 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.”

Jessica

Yes, right, right.

Virginia

A 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.

Jessica

I’m sorry, that sounds like a really hard way to be introduced to parenting.

Virginia

It was a cold plunge, for sure. She’s amazing. But it was a cold plunge.

Jessica

That 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!”

Virginia

I mean that story! I was like, okay, okay.

Jessica

Yes. 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.

Virginia

Wow.

Jessica

And 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.

Virginia

You 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.

Jessica

Dr. 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.

Virginia

And 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.

Jessica

Right, 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!

Virginia

They’ll do a good job with it! You should treat them. Also, it’s literally your job to do that.

Jessica

They deserve to know.

Virginia

Could 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.

Jessica

Before 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?

Virginia

I 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.

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

That is such a gift of second child parenting!

Jessica

But 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.

Virginia

Oh, this is just a thing babies do, okay. We thought it was a weird personality quirk.

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

That 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.

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

That sounds useful.

Jessica

Yeah, 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.

Virginia

Moms 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 Images

Jessica

And what a narrow view of “good parenting,” if you have to be able to sit on a swing to be a good parent?

Virginia

Yes, 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.”

Jessica

Yeah. 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.

Virginia

Most days.

Jessica

Well the cucumber on the bagel, I’ve done it actually.

Virginia

You’ve achieved it!

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

And something like vaccines obviously alleviate suffering.

Jessica

And it’s social responsibility! We’re very pro-vaccine because it alleviates our suffering and the suffering of other people.

Virginia

I 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.

Jessica

Thank you. That means a lot.

Virginia

Anything else about the book we didn’t touch on that you want to make sure we get to before we wrap up?

Jessica

I 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.

Virginia

I’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.

---

Jessica

So you had told me that ahead of time, and I was positive that I was going to say these new Birkenstocks I bought.

Virginia

I love that.

Jessica

They’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.

Virginia

Oh, they’re cute.

Jessica

Thank you for saying they’re cute. My whole family thinks they’re horrifying.

Virginia

They’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.

Jessica

We were trying to discuss what situation you would need that much rubber on the bottom, but really no protection on the top.

Virginia

Decorative rubber at best.

Jessica

And 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.

Virginia

Oh, it’s so good!!

Jessica

Okay, 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.

Virginia

It’s so good. This is the one with Emma Thompson as The Trunchbull, right?

Jessica

Yes. 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.

Virginia

It’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.

Jessica

Well, even better.

Virginia

My kids and I had a whole conversation about it. We decided that it’s a cake positive, body positive interpretation of the text.

Jessica

I’m so glad.

Virginia

Oh, 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.

Jessica

So 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!