All Fat People Are Strong

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.

Happy 2026!!! To celebrate—and kick off the most diet-y month of the year!—we are here with a roundup of the very best anti-diet fitness advice in the Burnt Toast archives.

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Episode 226 Transcript

Virginia

Happy 2026! We made it. It's a whole new year. 

Corinne

Thank God, honestly.

Virginia

See you later, 2025. Excited to be here in a new in a new chapter.

Corinne

To celebrate, we're bringing you a helpful episode to kick off the most diet-y month of the year: A roundup of our favorite anti-diet fitness advice.

Virginia

I'm excited for this. I hope this is grounding to people and helps prevent you spiraling off into some new thing that doesn't serve you. 

We're also holding space for the fact that a lot of people do like fresh start culture. We will be coming to you next week with our annual Ins and Outs episode. So don't think we are immune from resolution culture! That's the Burnt Toast version of it. It's coming.

All right. First up, we have an excerpt from an episode called “We Have Only Recently Acknowledged That Female Athletes Need to Eat.” This episode aired October 19, 2023. It's an oldie, but a goldie. And the guest was Christine Yu, author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes.

And one of the main things Christine wanted us to understand was carbs are good for you.

Virginia

I also want to spend some time on your very excellent chapter about diet and sports. This was so well done. It feels like nutritional science, athletic research— all of this research—has only just recently given women permission to eat as athletes, and to eat enough to support their sports. This feels really staggering to me, that there has been this underfeeding of women athletes for so long.

Christine

Consistently. All the time. And I think it’s in part because of just general diet culture in our culture and society and these ridiculous expectations that we have or we place on girls and women in terms of what their bodies need to look like. And then you have the sports performance side, you have this idea that certain body types are the ideal athletic body types. 

It’s almost no wonder that we create this perfect storm and a way for disordered eating and eating disorders and all these other problematic behaviors to take root. Especially because bodies are so central, obviously, in sports and performance. And we focus so much on bodies and how they look, what their body composition is, and all of these different things, the shape of you, all of that.

It’s wild to me that it’s only been recently that we do acknowledge the fact you just need to eat. We talked so much about nutrition and sports as this idea of fueling your body, which I think was at first kind of helpful in the way of reframing food within this context. Your body needs fuel to be able to do all this stuff, in order to start to give folks a little bit more permission to eat or feel like they could eat what they needed. But that, I think, even still creates this idea that there’s a certain kind of fuel that you need to be eating in order to be an athlete, in order to fuel your body correctly, if that makes sense.

Virginia

It’s, again, mind blowing, but makes sense that we had to first embrace the idea of eating, period, as opposed to eating being the enemy. You have so many heartbreaking stories from athletes in this chapter talking about feeling like they were so tapped out at the end of a practice that they couldn’t function and that when they started eating enough, they were like, wow.

Christine

Turns out!

Virginia

“I can do a 90 minute workout without a problem!” The fact that they were performing at all when they were being asked to do it while starving is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous what they were being asked to do. Then seeing that immediate and logical shift that if you feed yourself, you can perform better. But then from there, this idea of food as fuel can also become very limiting because, of course, athletes are human beings, as well. And food is more than fuel for all of us.

Christine

It’s really easy within sports and athletics to look at food as almost a hack, in a way. Like, as a way to like fine tune your performance. Oh, I need more iron, or whatever other very specific thing that you need. And again, I think it dissociates food from what it actually is. I think that also just makes it really ripe to encourage a lot of these behaviors that aren’t always helpful or healthy.

Virginia

You also do some amazing work in this chapter dissecting a couple of the modern big diet trends: Intermittent fasting, keto, and you even look at some of the less extreme ones like the Mediterranean diet, and show how they underserve athletes and especially women athletes. I wondered if we could just spend a little time talking about your findings there, because that felt super important to me. 

Christine

In the last several years, we’ve seen things like intermittent fasting and keto pop up within athletic communities as this way to make your body a better machine. Especially, I think, within endurance sports, it’s this idea that your body can run longer or you can somehow create these these efficiencies, if you will.

But the body likes to be in homeostasis, it likes to be in balance. So anytime energy levels start to dip, your body starts to send out these flares that are like, “Wait a second, hold on. Are we going to be starving real soon?” Because if so, I need to make some adjustments, physiologically. So with a lot of these diets, you’re actually ended up with these long periods of under-fueling your body. With intermittent fasting, you’re not eating for anywhere between eight to many, many hours. So you’re leaving your body in this huge deficit of energy so it starts to freak out and starts to shut down these non essential systems.

And the thing with women is that our bodies are much more sensitive to these downturns in nutrition. It starts to send up those flares a lot earlier, it starts to make those those physiological changes a lot earlier. That can have repercussions on things like your menstrual cycle and all the hormonal things that your body does. 

Similarly, with keto, this whole idea of eating a lot of fat and very few carbs might seem like, Oh, I’m really full, I don’t need to eat as much. But it’s the same idea that you end up inadvertently underfueling your body. But more importantly, especially for women, by not eating carbs, it sends up those same flares to the body. Women’s bodies, in particular, need carbohydrates in order to function well, in order to do all the things it does. And when we don’t have carbs, the body starts to send all these warning signs.

We tend to see intermittent fasting or keto “work” in men because it seems like male bodies can get away with that under-fueling a little bit more than female bodies. But when women tend to try these diets they end up feeling, unsurprisingly, really flat, really fatigued, a lot of brain fog. They don’t see this performance boost and then they wonder what they’re doing wrong because all the podcasts, all the influencers, say I should be intermittent fasting. This is going to be how I’m going to lose weight. This is how I’m going to cut time on my race. This is how I’m going to improve performance, improve body composition, all the stuff. But I’m not seeing that. I’m feeling flat. I’m not seeing all these other positive benefits. It’s because your body is essentially saying, ah, this isn’t working for me.

Virginia

Just because it works for Peter Attia does not mean—and question mark on if it even works for these guys? Thats the other thing I just want to interject. It might improve athletic performance, it doesn’t mean it’s not having other consequences on their mental health or their relationships with food and body. But that’s fascinating to realize specifically, if your goal is improving athletic performance—one of these diets is not going to deliver for you the way you’ve been told it might. 

Christine

Especially the idea around carbs. I feel like carbs still have like a bad rap. People are still really afraid to eat carbs and I just want folks to know it’s not a bad thing. Your body actually needs it. It wants them. 

Corinne

I mean, what can I say? Perennial wisdom.

Virginia

Perennial wisdom. Really important. And it's just absolutely wild —the science she gets into about how little female athletes in particular, were allowed to eat for decades, and how much better everybody performs as a human being and an athlete when they eat carbs.

Corinne

Yeah, this makes me sad. 

Okay, next we're going to hear a clip from an episode called It’s Time To Free The Jiggle. This one aired on December 14, 2023 and our guest was Jessie Diaz-Herrera. Jessie is a body affirming dancer, health and wellness influencer, and fitness enthusiast. You might know her on Instagram as curves with moves or from her Free The Jiggle classes.

Jessie's advice is so helpful if you're thinking about starting about starting any new kind of workout or entering a new workout space, especially as a fat person.

Virginia

The first question is:

Do you have any tips for focusing on how you’re feeling in your body versus imagining how your body could look? This feels especially hard with dance.

Jessie

This is a very honest and vulnerable question, but also very real. Especially in any group setting, whether it’s group fitness, group dance classes, there’s always this like, “How am I perceived by other people? How am I looking at myself in the mirror?” and that can be really hard. But dance is an art form, right? So let’s relate it to art, right? Let’s say our bodies are paint brushes. If I’m a paintbrush and you’re a paintbrush, you may have slightly different widths right. And my strokes are not going to be the same as yours, right? But we’re still creating art. We’re both still moving. We’re both still working through this. I think sometimes we like to compare ourselves to other people. Like, “I don’t look like the instructor.” But the instructor is more of a facilitator, right? They’re there to help you and guide you. 

Obviously, in more fitness classes, there’s a form and there are things that you want to make sure that you’re doing safely. But if it’s a feel good class, if you’re like in a cardio dance class where you’re just there to feel the rhythm and dance or like a Zumba type class and there’s nerves, bring a friend and laugh. Be in the back and laugh.

Like, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been nervous about a class and I’ve taken a friend and we’re like, “We’re just gonna be in the back and try our best but also just laugh at each other if we’re a hot mess.” Let’s give ourselves permission to say, “We’re probably going to mess up and that’s going to be totally fine because we have the intention today of laughing at ourselves and being silly with with ourselves and trying something new.” 

And you’re just not going to look like the next person, so get that out of your head. Because this is your body, this is what you’ve been given. And how you move in this world is different. So sometimes, especially in dance, when it is an art form, I say own it. Own how you dance. Own how you move. It does not have to look like the the instructor or the person next to you. If you feel good, if you are feeling the energy. I know when I dance, there’s a weariness that goes away. There’s this feeling of “Yes, I just feel so good.” Like, I’m sweating. This is my favorite song. Tap into those other things, too.

Maybe you’re not there yet with your body journey. Maybe you’re like, “I can’t stop comparing myself.” Well then maybe you’re thinking about other things within the class, like is this your favorite song? Are you hitting those basses? Can you get that move? Or is the rhythm really hype? Do you want to cheer on the person next to you?  I tell people at the beginning of class, “Hey, if you don’t want to dance, cheer for the person next to you.” Take a water break and just encourage them. 

Virginia

I also want to say to this person, do some of Jessie’s online videos. Because I am someone who has no dance experience. You know, white girl dance moves—that’s what I’ve got. It is what it is. 

Jessie

All of those are safe here.

Virginia

And especially being in a bigger body, I would feel self-conscious going into a group dance class. But what was really fun for me was doing Jessie’s videos in a room in my house without mirrors, because then I wasn’t constantly looking at myself and critiquing how I looked. I could just be in my body and I was able to tap into the joy you’re talking about because there wasn’t an audience. I was just doing it for me. If you’re someone who really doesn’t have a dance background, maybe try that first before you do the group class where you’re just going to feel really intimidated and depending on the context, maybe less welcome.

Jessie

I teach kind of a myriad of different classes, but one of our mainstays is called “Free the Jiggle,” and we purposely jiggle. We purposely do things that we would say, like, I’m afraid to do this, we will do it. Kind of to laugh and also in spite of and really to say, why not?

Virginia

It’s a body. It’s moving. 

Jessie

Yeah, exactly. Bodies do jiggle.

Virginia

I really love this. I love embracing that bodies move and jiggle—and everybody's does, straight size, plus size, doesn't really matter. I think this is really powerful. And if you need to do that in the privacy of your own home for a while before you're ready to do that out in some group setting—that is valid, too. 

Corinne

Totally.

Virginia

Okay. Next up, I want us to hear from Disability Rights activist and author Emily Ladau. This is from an episode we did last year called I Don’t See Myself in Fat Liberation Spaces.

Emily is a wheelchair user, and we had a great conversation about how ableism shows up in fat liberation work, but also in fitness spaces. And a cool spin-off from this conversation is that Anna Maltby, friend of the show, who we'll hear from later in this episode, developed a wheelchair friendly workout for her newsletter How To Move, after hearing this interview and connecting with Emily. Which I love. I love seeing fitness professionals taking wheelchair friendly workouts more seriously.

And the big piece of fitness advice I want us all to take away from the conversation with Emily is that sitting down is not going to kill you.

Virginia

One that you put on my radar is all this fearmongering about how we all sit down too much, and sitting is killing us. And if you have a job that requires you to sit all day, it’s taking years off your life.

And yet, of course, people who use wheelchairs are sitting down.

Emily

I think about this a lot, because I would say at least a few times a year some major publication releases an article that basically says we are sitting ourselves to death. And I saw one I know at least last year in the New York Times, if not this year,

Virginia

New York Times really loves this topic. They’re just all over there with their standing desks, on little treadmills all day long.

Emily

I actually decided to Google it before we chatted. I typed in, “New York Times, sitting is bad for you.” And just found rows of articles.

Cool beans, NYT.

Emily

The first time that this ever really came up for me was all the way back in 2014, and I was kind of just starting out in the world of writing and putting myself out there in that way as an activist. And I came across an article that said that the more I sit, the closer I am to death, basically.

It’s really tough for me, because I’m sure there’s a kernel of truth in the sense that if you are not moving your body, you are not taking care of your body in a way that works for you. But the idea that sitting is the devil is deeply ableist, because I need to sit. That does not mean that I cannot move around in my own way, and that does not mean that I cannot function in my own way, but it’s just this idea that sitting is bad and sitting is wrong and sitting is lazy. Sitting is necessary.

Virginia

Sitting is just how a lot of us get things done every day, all day long.

Emily

Right, exactly.

Virginia

Sure, there were benefits to lifestyles that involved people doing manual labor all day long and being more active. Also people died in terrible farming accidents. It’s all part of that romanticization of previous generations as somehow healthier—which was objectively not true.

Emily

You make such a good point from a historical perspective. There’s this idea that it’s only if we’re up and moving and training for a 5k that we’re really being productive and giving ourselves over to the capitalist machine, but at the same time, doing that causes disability in its own way.

Virginia

Sure does. Sure does. I know at least two skinny runners in my local social circle dealing with the Achilles tendons ruptures. It takes a toll on your body.

Emily

Or doing farm labor, as you were talking about. I mean, an agrarian society is great until you throw your back out. Then what happens?

Virginia

There are a lot of disabled folks living with the consequences of that labor.

Emily

And I’ve internalized this messaging. I am not at all above any of this. I mean, I’m so in the thick of it, all the time, no matter how much work I read by fat liberation activists, no matter how much I try to ground myself in understanding that fatness does not equal badness and that sitting does not equal laziness, I am so trapped in the cycle of “I ate something that was highly caloric, and now I better do a seated chair workout video for my arm cycle.” And I say this because I’m not ashamed to admit it. I want people to understand that disabled people are like all other people. We have the same thoughts, the same feelings. We are impacted by diet culture.

Corinne

Such great advice. Important.

Virginia

Emily made me realize how much that anti-sitting agenda is everywhere, especially in the New York Times, for some reason. They're weirdly obsessed with standing desks there.

And it feels similar to wanting to go back to a time before smartphones. Like, okay, maybe it's not ideal that so many people sit so much, but it's the way the world is now. It's what work is now. Unless you're preparing to completely overthrow capitalism and have us all spend our days doing different things. Regardless of ability, most people are sitting so what if we stopped being ashamed of it?

Corinne

I feel like this is just one of those moments where if you weren't aware of it, now you're suddenly aware of the way that we talk about certain things and how it's really fucked up for a whole group of people.

Virginia

For sure.

Corinne

Next let's hear from Lauren Leavell, a weight inclusive fitness professional with an awesome online workout program that Virginia is obsessed with.

Lauren has been on the podcast twice, but joined us last summer to talk about some TikTok drama that erupted when a thin Pilates trainer made a video saying you shouldn't be allowed to take Pilates if you weigh over 200 pounds.

This episode was called Stair Masters Are the Mean Girls of Cardio, and this conversation is a great reminder that you don't have to have the right body for any type of exercise or be really good at any particular sport. You're allowed to just do things because you like them.

I think Pilates is a great workout for people who are in, all different types of bodies and diverse bodies. Pilates is super low impact in a lot of ways, and really good for folks who have chronic illnesses, particularly like reformer, because it could be recumbent and you’re not putting a lot of stress on your joints in the same way. So the idea that this workout that’s really almost like super in line with disability and rehabilitation, to say that there’s like a weight limit—again, fatphobia, joining in with ableism—is like, so so off base. So deeply off base.

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

Yes, I love Lauren obviously. I'm obsessed with Lauren's workouts. but I also just really like how she thinks about this stuff, and I think it shows up a lot in how she teaches fitness. I mean, this idea that only certain bodies should do Pilates or do any sport, is absolutely wild. It's problematic at every level, but especially since most of us are not doing any of these activities with a hope of being the best version of that in the world.

Corinne

This one is crazy too, because that was such a huge controversy, and then I completely forgot about it.

Virginia

 It's a good reminder that the Internet is forever, but also these things do blow over. I can't even remember the name of the girl who made that stupid video. We're over it. You can obviously do Pilates if you weigh over 200 pounds. I did some last week.

Last we're going to hear from my girl, Anna Maltby, who is an amazing anti-diet trainer, Pilates instructor and health journalist. Anna writes the newsletter How To Wove, which features weekly workout videos, which is what I do when I'm not doing Lauren's videos. Basically, my workout program is Anna and Lauren on repeat, and it's amazing. 

Anna has also been on the podcast twice, because whenever I find smart fitness people, I do like to keep bringing them back. And she came on last December 2024 to unpack some internet discourse that was happening then about whether core workouts are a scam.

And what we distilled is: Strong core muscles are not a scam. They're really helpful for all the things we need to do with our bodies. But if you hate traditional ab workouts, you probably don't need to do those exact exercises to get a stronger core. And more importantly, you don't have to have flat abs to also have strong, functional core muscles.

So this episode is called A Pudgy Belly Can Be A Strong Core, and I suspect that is really useful for a lot of us to remember right now.

I’ll also just share, as someone who does identify as hating core work, I have come to appreciate it so much more through your workouts and through talking to you about it, because it’s made me realize how much the “I hate core workouts” came from knowing I’m never going to have the visible six pack. Being able to put that down means now I do notice, ohhh, when I get my core properly engaged, my back hurts so much less. Taking the giant bag of dog food in from the curb feels less painful. I get off the floor a lot more easily after giving my seven-year-old a bath. it’s these small things that are really not that small, actually.

Anna

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s almost about safety in your body, right? I’m capable of doing these things. I don’t have to feel fear around movement. I’m comfortable moving throughout the day. There’s so much to be said for that. You say they’re they’re small things, but they’re not really small.

I really want to encourage people to get to know how their body responds to exercise because of all this noise about aesthetics, we haven’t been trained to notice these more internal or intrinsic kind of things, but if you can tap into functional changes, or just how you feel moving through the day. Are you waking up a little less creaky? Are you able to pick that thing up, or are you able to bend down into the bath more comfortably?

Virginia

Shampooing a fast-moving seven-year-old is quite the core workout, in fact.

Anna

Wrestle them into their jackets and all that stuff. This goes back to the central question of why is the myth of visible abs so frustrating? There are so many other things that not just abs, but a functional and strong body, can do for you. To me, those things are better motivators.

I exercise also because of back pain. What got me started on exercise, and got me sticking with exercise, was that I was throwing my back out all the time. And I do that a whole lot less if I’m active regularly. And that’s a really good motivator, and it is achievable and it’s noticeable. And I get punished if I’m not doing it, because my back hurts.

Virginia

Yep. It’s a real one to one connection.

Anna

We have to also talk about people who do need core-specific exercises. It’s a bit more of a rehabilitation focus, but that might include people who are recovering from an injury or surgery. And especially people who are recovering from childbirth, whether that’s a vaginal birth or C-section. A pretty functional body who’s not in that situation, they’ll get really great core work from whatever the else they’re doing, chances are. But in these situations, I do think that isolating your core and targeting your core muscles from a rehabilitative standpoint, is really important. And I think if, like those of us who are who are listening, who’ve had a baby at home, like a brand new baby that they gave birth to, have probably had that experience of like, “Oh my god, where, where are my abs? Where is my core?”

Virginia

They have left the building.

Anna

I can’t do anything. They’ve left the building. And it’s temporary. It’s okay. They will be back. You need to heal. You need to recover. But it’s kind of funny, because you’ll get the advice that you shouldn’t lift anything heavier than five or ten pounds or don’t pick up anything heavy. Try not to do anything until you’ve had more time to heal. But like when you have a new baby at home, you’re picking up and putting down a growing baby

Virginia

Plus a car seat!

Anna

75 times a day. I just remember nursing in bed and then trying to get up out of the bed while holding the baby, and you’re basically doing a weighted sit-up. It’s so, so brutal. And it’s not realistic to say you can’t do any of that stuff until you’ve rehabilitated your core. You need to be able to live your life. But I think that working with rehabilitative exercises as you’re working through your day to day life, is going to make it easier. You’re going to get better, you’re going to start to heal, you’re going to regain that strength so much better than if you’re just not doing any of the rehab and only doing this sort of demands of daily life.

So I want to say, if you’re in that situation—and I think this is also true if you’ve had some kind of abdominal or pelvic or hip surgery—and you’re recovering and you have to have that rest period, rehabilitative exercises can be really, really supportive.

Virginia

What I’m thinking as you’re talking too, is how all of these benefits we’re talking about have absolutely nothing to do with weight loss. This isn’t about, are you losing the baby weight? This isn’t about anything to do with that.

And yet, again, because of the way diet culture trains us to think about core in the past, if I wasn’t losing weight, I wasn’t aware of these benefits. It was harder to tune into these benefits, or if I did notice these benefits, I credited them with any weight loss that was happening. But whether your weight changes or not from exercise is its own separate thing. We could just put that over here. It might happen, it might not. And the core stuff, you can achieve that whether or not the weight changes. And I just want to name that, because I think that’s another place this gets so, so tangled.

Anna

Yes, I think that’s so important. There’s a wonderful perinatal coach named Jessie Mundell, who I’m a huge fan of. She takes a super inclusive approach. And she’s in a larger body. I think I texted you when I did her postpartum certification program, and I was like, “Virginia! There are fitness models in this program in larger bodies! It’s so helpful. It’s amazing. It exists.” And she likes to say, and I’m gonna gonna get the exact words wrong, but it’s something like, you can have a round, pudgy, poochy, cellulite, diastasis recti belly and a functional core. The aesthetics do not predict the functionality.

Virginia

That’s so helpful. It’s so important. Especially if you have the diastasis or the poochy belly, you just think, “Well, that’s it. I will never have a strong core.” And that can just be defeating to even starting with this kind of exercise. So, so important to name.

Anna

Yeah. There are elite athletes who are competing with a three or four finger diastasis.

Corinne

This is a great episode. Anna Maltby is so smart.

Virginia

And just like Lauren, se really helps me reframe some of the toxic messages. I had a really troubling relationship with core workouts for such a long time because of diet culture. But as someone who's really prone to back issues, they are super important for me to do. And being able to do them and appreciate the non-aesthetic benefits of them has been really helpful. So I really appreciated this reframing. 

All right, any final thoughts, any words of wisdom about how you're going to be navigating January Fitness culture? Is the entire month of January a diet, Corinne? Shall we skip it?

Corinne

Well, I would not like to skip it, because my birthday is in January.

Virginia

That's right! Corinne is turning 40 this month!

Corinne

Yes, I'll be turning 40 and I will be not starting any new fitness programs.

Virginia

Love this for you. I'm very excited. Do you ever start workout stuff in January, or do you just, like, kind of try to opt out of that whole piece.

Corinne

Well, it's funny because I just kind of passed my three year anniversary of starting to go to the lifting gym that I go to. And so I did start that in December, which is very close to January. But yeah, I don't think I'll be starting anything new. 

Virginia

Yeah, same.

Corinne

 It wasn't like a New Year's thing.

Virginia

That'sjust when you went. I don't have any new goals. Maybe this is the year I'll learn to do push-ups? We can always hope, right?
Corinne

 Yeah, why not? 

Virginia

I don't have any plans to set out specific goals towards them. I feel like in the last year, I did a pretty good job of keeping movement in my life, even when my life was chaos, and that is new for me. Like, often I would have long periods of like, life is chaos, so I don't have time for that, and then my back would go out. So I feel like, if there's anything I want to maintain this year, it's just to keep doing things I enjoy and keep enjoying the benefits of having movement in my life—to whatever extent that makes sense for my life at any given point.

Corinne

Jas your back gone out this year?

Virginia

It did go out over Thanksgiving. That was a bummer. But not as extremely as it has in the past. I was able to get it back on track in like, three or four days. Whereas I've had times where it's like two weeks of I couldn't stand up. It was just like, oh, okay. It's, you know, it needs some extra attention. And I think it was a stress response. 

Butter

Virginia

My Butter for this episode is that I'm lifting heavier weights now! That has been really exciting. I historically thought of myself as not a strong person.

Corinne

Wait, really?!

Virginia

Emotionally strong, whatever. Like, psychologically strong, yes, like, I'm a powerful woman. I know that. But I didn't think of myself as physically strong.

Corinne

I'm just like.. all fat people are strong.

Virginia

Well, okay, I didn't start out life as a fat person, Corinne, so it's taking me a while to step into my power. I still had an inner skinny girl who thought she wasn't strong.

But you're correct. And, you know, getting into weightlifting because of Burnt Toast, really, like you being a power lifter got me interested and meeting Lauren and Anna and all that, you know, like, a lot of it has to do with, like, conversations on burnt toast that I got into weightlifting and, yeah, upgraded to a heavier. I actually got kettlebells, two heavy kettlebells.

[CW for numbers talk if that's not good for you!]

Corinne

Wait, I want to know how much.

Virginia

My previous heavyweight was 20 pounds, and like when I do deadlifts, or--

Corinne

20 pounds in each hand?

Virginia

Yeah, I could do 20 pounds in each hand for deadlifts. So like, 40 pound deadlifts, 40 pound RDLs, 40 pounds for lunges, or farmer carries. And I have even been able to use the 20 pounds with some upper body, like, sometimes bicep curls. I can do that. And so I got two 30 pound kettlebells.

Corinne

Wow.

Virginia

I can definitely do both of them for a deadlift and an RDL. I'm working on a farmer's carry, like a grocery carry type of thing. I'm working on them for some other stuff. Just playing around with this idea of oh yes, you can lift heavier. 

Corinne

Awesome.

Virginia

It's super satisfying.

Corinne

I love that. 

Virginia

What about you? 

Corinne

Well, now I feel like I should have a fitness related Butter, but I don't have one. I'm also going to show you my Butter, and I just have to grab it. 

Virginia

I'm excited. 

Corinne

Oh, okay, this is a Butter that was also sent to me. It is a Butter that I'm giving to my little baby nephew.

Virginia

Oh, I'm excited to see this.

Corinne

It is the cutest little sweater I've ever seen in my life.

Virginia

I mean! There's a sheep on it.

Corinne

It's from the brand Misha and Puff. This is an expensive baby sweater, let me tell you. It is nearing $200. It's also the softest thing I've ever felt, and it has a sheep on it.

Virginia

I mean, so no pressure to your sister, but she has to have like, five more kids so that that sweater can get enough use. Because the thing about baby sweaters is they fit for five minutes. 

Corinne

I know. It's 18 to 24 months. 

Virginia

 That's a good range. He'll be able to wear it for a while. But I'm just saying, like, she's got to have more kids now so you can have more cute babies in that sweater.

Corinne

Yeah, yeah. I want to say, like, I was kind of skeptical of, like, a wool sweater for a baby, but it's just like, it's so soft.

Virginia

I will say we are very lucky, I have several knitters in my family. So my kids had some hand\knit sweaters, including some handknit sweaters that my grandmother made for me when I was little, that we had handed down. So I think it's a totally great investment. Knitting is an incredible talent and worth supporting. 

All right, well, I hope this has everyone feeling good about the new year and what's coming up for us. I want to hear about people's fitness goals or lack thereof! We support it all.

🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈

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

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Farideh.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

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