The Burnt Toast Podcast

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

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

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your January Indulgence Gospel! Today we are talking about former restaurant critic turned diet crusader Pete Wells—and why the New York Times always spends January turning into a women's magazine from hell. CW for discussions of intentional weight loss and lazy fat jokes (from Pete), including some that are offensive to both humans and bassett hounds. You do need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month!Join Just Toast!Don't want an ongoing commitment? Click "buy for $4!" to listen to just this one.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This episode may contain affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 229 TranscriptCorinneUgh. That's all I can muster.VirginiaAnd it's not a new ugh. They do this every January, guys. We have to emotionally prepare ourselves—those of us who still have an admittedly increasingly problematic subscription to The New York Times—we have to emotionally prepare ourselves that every January they become like Cosmo from 2004, and do this ridiculous weight loss challenge bullshit. And it's so odd and misaligned with actual journalism. OK, so dd you see the piece that came out like two days ago? Corinne“Our Former Restaurant Critic Changed His Eating Habits, You Can, Too?"VirginiaThe before and after journey of Pete Wells.CorinneI sure did see it. I mean, my first thought was... the food looks good. VirginiaFood does look good. CorinneI might be making some of these recipes. And guess what? I'll still be fat.VirginiaVirginia comes in hot and angry. Corinne...angry, but also willing to make a delicious chickpea dish?CorinneI'm definitely going to eat this. But don't get me wrong, also very angry.VirginiaOne of the listeners said in the chat today, Why does New York Times Cooking do this to me? They have good recipes and then they have to,take this weird turn. Like, just make good recipes. That's what you do. That's what we pay for. We just want the pretty food pictures and the useful recipes. We don't want this. We don't need this. CorinneArticles like this are literally putting people off the recipes.VirginiaBefore we talk about the current "Reset Your Appetite" challenge, and the way he's talking about his story now, we'll just quickly back up for people who blessedly missed this whole thing. Pete Wells is a former restaurant critic for the New York Times. And last July he wrote a piece titled, "After 12 years of Reviewing Restaurants, I'm Leaving the Table." It was all about how the job had made him fat, and so he couldn't be a restaurant critic anymore because he felt bad about being fat.Wells talked a lot about his own health issues, too. He said, “my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I expected. The terms pre diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around.” And sure, that is all upsetting, and a lot to deal with. But he blamed it all on his weight and then made all these really lazy fat jokes. He wrote, “I've decided to bow out as gracefully as my state of technical obesity will allow.” Which just, why? Why do you need to frame it like that? Fat people are graceful. Fuck you. There's no need for talking about bodies in such a gross way. Even though he's making a joke about himself, which I'm sure makes him think it's okay. CorinneI mean, I hate it. It makes me feel really weird.VirginiaIt is really weird. It's like we're watching one man's midlife crisis just unfold in our nation's supposedly most reputable newspaper. CorinneThere is just something confusing about it, too. You wanted this job! Why can't you eat the way you want to eat? I don't know. He makes it sound like he's being force fed or something. VirginiaI do think restaurant reviewing is a job where you often have to eat even if you're not hungry. Like you have to taste things, right? He talked about how he was eating an average of 125 multi-course restaurant meals a year. Which is not how most of us eat.CorinneThat is like, twice a week? I bet a lot of people go to restaurants twice a week. VirginiaBut you don't necessarily get appetizers and cocktails and dessert every time, because you don't have to try the whole menu when you go. And let's see, 52 meals a year... it would be 104 if it was twice a week. So it's two to three times a week. CorinneOkay. It's a lot.VirginiaSo I agree there's an open question of: Did eating this way take a toll on his health? Possibly. Does he need to make it all about his weight and make lazy fat jokes? He doesn't. We don't need to do that. And do you need to tell America that the reason you're quitting your job is because of health reasons? I don't know that this was news. A lot of people quit jobs after 12 years. I don't care.CorinneAnd a lot of people quit job for jobs for health reasons, and then don't write weight loss stories. VirginiaThat was the other layer to this piece last year that really bugged me. He talked to other former restaurant critics, including Adam Platt, who was at New York Magazine for a really long time. And Adam Platt called the job "the least healthy job in America." I'm sorry, sir. You are not an underwater welder. You are not working at coal mines.CorinneProfessional athletes come to mind, too. Football players. VirginiaThe least healthy job in America? You get to eat in beautiful, comfortable places. You get to expense the cab ride home. You're not being underpaid. You're not being abused. You're not being forced to have sex against your will to stay employed. You're not being held captive in a workplace.There are a lot of jobs that are less healthy than this, sir. And just the total lack of acknowledgement of that privilege made me insane. I find it just so exasperating. Another great quote from Platt: "Your body changes over time. You have this giant distended belly which wants to be filled. All those weird sensors in your brain that cry out for deliciousness are at DEF CON one all day, you become an addict." It's just such a dramatic—and again, super anti-fat— way of talking about your experience with a career which brought you...a lot of success and financial privilege.CorinneIt's troubling.VirginiaSo that is the back story. CorinneA successful white man thought he was fat and decided to quit his job.VirginiaHe felt bad about his body, so he quit his job. That was the tragedy that befell Pete Wells. And now he's back, Corinne! Because he lost 60 pounds in a year!Corinne"An entire basset hound." Doesn't he say that?VirginiaYes, I'm sorry. And trigger warning that we're using numbers. He's using numbers, we're just quoting. “Today, I'm about 55 pounds later than I was at my zenith, a loss roughly, roughly equivalent to dropping an entire male basset hound.” Is there nobody at The New York Times—I am truly asking, as someone who has written for this newspaper, been interviewed for this newspaper—is there not one editor in any of your departments who can spot anti-fat bias? Is there not one person in the copy editing department, or maybe one senior editor reading a draft of this, who would say, "Wow, this is wildly offensive, dehumanizing language to use about people's bodies?"CorinneOr notice how ableist It is against people with diabetes. Because that's what struck me when I read this. VirginiaYes, to Pete Wells, diabetes is a death sentence and a moral failing. It is the nightmare scenario he's desperate to avoid. And I'm not downplaying the stress of managing a chronic condition. But that is extremely offensive to the many millions of people who live functional, happy lives with diabetes.CorinneAnd who don't have a choice to focus all their energy on avoiding it and get a New York Times column to write about how they avoided it. VirginiaLet's talk about after he describes his "basset hound" weight loss. He then says:"...Slimming down was not my main purpose. I never counted a single calorie. Somehow that took care of itself because of the new ways I started shopping, cooking and eating back then, and it more or less stuck to since.”CorinneI mean, could it get any more diet-y? You're selling us a diet.VirginiaIt's absolutely about slimming down. All you're talking about is how unhappy you were that you got fat. Obviously, you care about slimming down. Yes, you were worried about your biomarkers. But if that was all you were worried about, you would shut up about the basset hound! You would not use that phrase. It's so egregious. What's also egregious is that this is the first of four articles Pete Wells will be writing on this theme. We are recording this on January 7. You are hearing it on January 22 which means by the time you listen, there have been two more atrocities that we can't even get into because we haven't read them yet. But I can bet they're crap!CorinneI think it's also kind of interesting to think about this whole thing within the greater GLP-1 era. He doesn't really say whether he's taking a GLP-1 or not, although it feels like he's implying that he's not? And with that, there is some kind of moral judgment.VirginiaThat struck me as well. This first article is all about how to break up with sugar. That's literally a headline in here. Which, again, they stole from a women's magazine from 2005. Like I wrote that! "Break Up With Sugar" is classic women's magazine bullshit. But okay, Pete Wells. When a white man writes it, we get to pretend it's real journalism. CorinneDoesn't he also talk somewhere about how sugar makes you crazy?VirginiaYes, he writes: "And having raised two boys, I probably should have known that going through sugar overdrive many times a day was not producing the most rational behavior." There have been multiple studies proving that sugar highs do not exist, that they do not cause hyperactivity. That is a myth. Restriction causes weird behavior. Deprivation causes weird behavior. Being told you can't have something you want to have causes kids to be cranky and irrational sometimes. But sugar itself doesn't do it. He's really light on actual scientific information. I also have to note the hypocrisy of being so proud he never counted a single calorie, and then he says, "Figure out whether you're getting more than 10% of your total calories from added sugar, which should be the maximum intake." So you have to count some calories to figure out that number. It's all just the classic diet industry playbook. "It's not a diet. You don't have to count calories...Fine Print: Actually, you're gonna have to do a lot of math and be really stringent about your intake." It is a diet, completely. Corinneit feels like an old guy who's realizing that his time on the planet is limited and he doesn't want to deal with the fact that he's not going to be around forever.He doesn't like his body and then tries to adjust what he's eating without counting anything. And then loses weight and then writes a column about it.VirginiaIt's very like... I was about to say big dick energy, and I think I'm going to stand by that?It's the hubris of "This thing worked for me. I effortlessly lost weight. So now all of America, you should do that, too." Because I'm assuming, as a restaurant critic, Pete Wells is pretty handy in the kitchen. He has a nice, generous grocery shopping budget. Since he stepped down from a very time-consuming job, he might have more leisure time with which to make Millet with Corn and Mango and Shrimp, which is one of the recipes. But this is all very much in the tradition of how white guys at The New York Times talk about food. It's very Michael Pollan. It's very Mark Bittman. They all want cooking and eating to be this luxurious aesthetic experience that also makes them effortlessly thin and healthy. And they never really want or need to think about how the labor of making food and feeding people fits into actual lives.CorinneWell, and it's supposed to be so effortless, but—he literally had to quit his job in order to do it.VirginiaAnd devote himself to this whole new way of eating and living in order to have these amazing changes that he's now touting as so doable and easy for anyone to try. If only we all just want to make Roasted Broccoli and Chickpeas with Mole Verde Sauce...which Corinne maybe does.CorinneI mean, as I said, the recipes do look good to me. But they don't look like something I'd be throwing together for lunch.VirginiaI'm looking into it...the roasted broccoli and chickpeas dish says total time is 50 minutes. That's a lot to pull off on a weeknight. I don't have that much time to cook dinner on a weeknight.CorinneWhat's he eating for lunch? Because I just opened my fridge and ate a plastic wrapped piece of cheese. VirginiaListeners don't need the full back story, but we had some extreme technical difficulties today, and before continuing this conversation, I stood in my kitchen and ate a spoonful of Nestle cookie dough straight out of the fridge.CorinneThat was me with plastic wrapped cheese. VirginiaI was like, Enough of this day. This is what this needs. There was probably more than 10% added sugar in the cookie dough. I'm going to guess. And that might be the difference between me and Pete Wells. But I am going to cook dinner tonight, and I am going to cook something with vegetables. It's just not going to take me an hour to cook it. We can have both, is my point. He's like, "Either you're a glutton who's eating uncontrollably, or you're living this life of Sheet Pan Coconut Curry with Squash and tofu." There's no in between.CorinneThere's no world in which I follow Pete Wells's diet and end up weighing the same as Pete Wells.VirginiaGreat point. CorinneIt's just not going to happen. Yeah, the recipes look great. And that's not how my body works.VirginiaYou are two different humans with different experiences of being in bodies.CorinneI'm also a lot fatter than Pete Wells, and I don't eat four teaspoons of sugar in my coffee, you know?VirginiaYes, there's a one-to-one-ness. He describes what he considers to be an extreme eating habit—putting four teaspoons of sugar in your coffee—and then he's like, "That explains why I couldn't get out of my car." But it's not a one-to-one. Lots of people are fatter than you and don't eat that way. Lots of people are thinner than you, and eat more sugar. And again, can we not need to lean so far into the ableism and the fatphobia with your descriptions of your experience in your body?CorinneThe blood sugar stuff really riles me up. He writes, "Sweet potatoes are called sweet for a reason, but I don't think twice about eating one for dinner, because they're fairly gentle on blood sugar.” Did you test your blood sugar before and after? Like, how do you know that? You're just parroting something you saw on Tiktok?VirginiaHe's like, this Tiktok gym bro seems fine with sweet potatoes, so I guess they're good for me. Let's also note he was only ever pre-diabetic, which is a term that's murky at best. A lot of folks get fear-mongered about pre-diabetes who are not actually on the cusp of diabetes. We don't know, that's Pete's business. His body, his choice. It's just the need to mansplain to the rest of us and develop an entire month-long eating plan series. That's what we're balking against. If he was unhappy with his experience as a restaurant critic, I'm glad he's made some changes that make him feel happier in his life. But he does not need to lay it out in this way, to use this incredibly offensive language to talk about bodies while he works through his own personal demons there. We don't need it. I hate it a lot. What do you think is going to be in the next few weeks since we're recording this right at the start?CorinneI am So curious. I have no idea. VirginiaI feel like I have some ideas. CorinneOkay, tell me.VirginiaProtein. CorinneOkay, yep, yeah. Sorry, my bad. Protein. Obviously protein.VirginiaHe's got to do a protein week. If this was the breakup with sugar week. I think there is going to be a get married to protein week. Okay, what else do I think? Oh, ultra processed foods. He's going to do a week on getting rid of ultra processed foods. And how would we like to round it out? Let's see, what else do we have on our diet industry bingo card? It's just food, so he's probably not going to get into weightlifting.CorinneWell, I think fiber, but that's kind of in this one, right?VirginiaYeah, fiber could round it out. CorinneI'm feeling fiber is having a moment? VirginiaWell, I think that'll be fun to see as these columns continue to come out over the months.[Post-recording note: Our predictions were off! Pete went more retro with this piece on shopping the perimeter of your grocery store, and this one on mindful eating, again mining mid-2000s women's mags for cutting edge advice.]CorinneWe should do like a little Pete Wells bingo.VirginiaEvery time he says something fatphobic—oh, wait, your whole card is full. Everyone has bingo. Well, I'm glad we got to rant about this. I hope this is cathartic for folks, because, this is a real piece of garbage journalism in a newspaper that is increasingly going downhill, but really likes to reach new lows every time it can. I want to hear what folks think. And you know, if this was a whole new to you topic, don't go read it. I will gift link the article, but it's fine. You don't have to give them clicks if you don't want to is what I would say. CorinneGood advice. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginiaAll right, let's bring it up with a Butter.CorinneAll right, I'm going to Butter a book that I just finished reading. It's called The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. I started listening to it on my drive up to Oregon and finished it on the drive back. It's pretty long and kind of slow at times. But in the end, I really loved it. It's a romance, intergenerational story of their lives, kind of thing that takes place between India and the United States and some other places. There is kind of like a mystical element, but it's very beautiful, and I would definitely recommend it if people are looking for a long read.VirginiaOkay, your book recs are always good.CorinneYeah, might be good for your book club.VirginiaI'm going to do a book Butter, too! I think you would really like this one. It's called The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett. This is why I feel very confident with this recommendation: Kate Baer told me to read this book so it's a Butter for me and Kate Baer so, you know, that's two solid votes. She recommended it to my book club. It's about this man PJ, in his 60s. He is estranged from his wife and his daughter. This is not a spoiler alert, but it is a trigger warning: One of his children has died, and he's still processing the grief of that loss. But I don't usually read books where kids die, and I could handle this book. So that's your context. He's also a like, raging alcoholic and a lottery winner, and through a variety of circumstances, he ends up acquiring these two orphaned children, and then they all go on a road trip together across America with a cat named Pancakes. And it's just, like, incredibly heartwarming and beautiful and funny and sad and all of the things. It's a very specific style and I really, really loved it. I couldn't put it down. I finished it, like, two weeks ago, and I still keep thinking about the characters.CorinneWell, I'll definitely be reading that. VirginiaI think you would really like it.So everybody read some good books, and don't worry about Pete Wells. And I think that's how we get through the rest of January.CorinneDon't go on the Pete Wells Diet.VirginiaTruly, don't. I mean, or make the chickpea thing if it sounds good to you, but like, live your life. Don't get caught up in his nonsense. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

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

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for our annual Ins & Outs Episode! This is what we do every New Year, instead of making resolutions or setting problematic body change goals. It's deeply unserious but still satisfies that urge to reflect and make some (fun) plans for the year to come! Listen to hear... ⭐️ The pants Virginia forgot she was wearing. ⭐️ The food trends Corinne is SO OVER. ⭐️ Virginia's new religion!!To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.Join Extra Butter!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This transcript contains affiliate links. If you're going to buy something we mention, shopping these links supports Burnt Toast at no extra cost to you! Episode 227 TranscriptCorinneSo today we have a topic that we have done before. VirginiaI think we've only officially done it once before? But it now feels to me like a Burnt Toast institution.CorinneYes, and that institution is called Ins and Outs.VirginiaIns and Outs for the new year, because it is 2026!CorinneIt's our little way of ringing in the new year and talking about what we're feeling right now. It's not a resolution. It really is a snapshot of what we're thinking at any moment in time.VirginiaWhenever we happen to make the list. I like it because it's the epitome, to me, of anti-diet resolution culture. It's really just: These are things I love. These are things I'm done with. I suppose you could do a diet-y version of this. But we don't, and we encourage you not to.CorinneAnd I think we'll see, perhaps, as we look back at some of ours from last year, how fleeting some of these really can be. VirginiaWhich is the fun of it. So you brought this concept into all of our lives. And I'm very grateful to you, because I do like having a New Year's ritual. The part of my brain that gets excited for New Year, fresh start, blah, blah, blah. That part of my brain that likes new pencils and whatnot, is like, oh, good. I have a thing to do.CorinneI feel like in past years people have done ins and outs like on Instagram. Like they would just do them in their notes app and then post a screenshot of it. And I haven't seen any of that yet this year. It is a bit early, but I'm curious whether that's going to be happening.VirginiaOr if this social media trend is dying. But not here!CorinneNot here on Burnt Toast! VirginiaIns and Outs are still In. For us.All right, should we look back at our 2025 lists before we get into the new lists? Listen to the 2025 Ins & Outs ep!CorinneYes. I'll read yours. Okay, so for 2025: In for you was Bird Buddy. Out was Instagram.VirginiaI do think I've done a lot less Instagram! I wouldn't say it's gone completely, although I am currently in the middle of a spontaneous extended break for the holidays, and I love it. And Bird Buddy, I do still love. I ended up getting one for my mom for her birthday, and we have both our Bird Buddies on the same app. That said, ours is currently on a technical hiatus because we had to switch our wifi network. And I have to re-sync it with the wifi network. And, you know, that's the kind of annoying chore that's going to take you, like, six months to do. But I'm getting there. And bird feeders in general, are still very in over here. We're very into them. We did them all year, and it's a major joy. CorinneOkay, cool.In: bootcut pants. Out: Colette cropped pants. VirginiaDid I even buy any bootcut pants? CorinneWasn't it bootcut Beyond Yoga pants?VirginiaOh, wait. I'm wearing them right now!CorinneOh my God. Okay, wow.VirginiaI guess they're in! I didn't take it any further, though.CorinneAnd are the Colette crop pants still out?VirginiaWell, I think those blue corduroy pants I wore over the fall are the Colette pants. CorinneSo, no.VirginiaI don't know, man. All pants are out for me. They're all out, they're all in. It's ever changing.CorinneOkay. In: air fryer cookies. Out: Tate's cookies.VirginiaWell, I definitely did not stop buying Tate's cookies, even a little bit. But I did make so many air fryer cookies, like at least once a week. So I think pants are always out, cookies are always in.CorinneThat seems fair. All right, In: two pieces. Out: apology ruching.VirginiaI do love a two piece swimsuit, and I don't think anyone needs to ruch. I think your midsection can be whatever shape it is, and you don't need to put bumpy fabric on top of it.CorinneFair. In: buying meat and eggs from the local butcher. Out: buying grocery store meat and eggs.VirginiaI think we did pretty well with this one. I mean, now our eggs are our own chicken eggs. CorinneThat's awesome.VirginiaThe meat we are mostly buying from the local butcher, or we have one grocery store that  stocks some local farm-sourced meat. It's a very bougie thing, but it also, if you're going to be a meat eater, trying to be an ethical meat eater, is, I think, valuable. So I feel good about that.CorinneIn: teal, dark green and pink. Out: light gray.VirginiaIf you could see my house, there's so much teal, dark green and pink in it.Corinne That's awesome. VirginiaI'm really noticing what a stranglehold gray had on home decor from like the 2010s on. And when I go somewhere with a lot of gray now, I'm like, oh, this is kind of sad. And I mean, I had a very gray, neutral house for a long time.CorinneThat's so funny, especially because wasn't the Pantone color of the year was just announced?And it's like... cloud. VirginiaIf depression were a color. Not good. But for me, color is in. Okay, let's do your 2025 list. In: wearing one thing over and over. Out: buying multiples of the exact same thing.CorinneOkay, I'll say I think I did okay at this. I don't know how I did wearing one thing over and over, but I think I did cut back a little bit on buying multiples. Although I have bought some of the same thing in different colors.VirginiaIs that not buying multiples?CorinneWell, I don't know. It was unclear what "buying multiples" was supposed to mean. I think buying multiples meant buying the exact same thing.VirginiaOh, because of scarcity mindset.CorinneYes. And I think I've done better at this.VirginiaIf you're buying multiples, but they're different colors, that feels like a baby step out of buying multiples of the same item. So I give you a gold star.Okay, bird watching is in. Tiktok watching is out. Corinne, how did it go breaking up with Tiktok?CorinneI have not broken up with Tiktok. I am still watching Tiktoks. I did recently start using an app blocker to block Tiktok after 10pm and that is working pretty well for me. VirginiaThat seems great. CorinneAnd I haven't done too much bird watching, but I do still really enjoy passive bird watching.VirginiaDo you do bird feeders? Bird feeders are really great if you just want to passively bird watch. CorinneNo, I should get a bird feeder. VirginiaYou would really enjoy a bird feeder. The key is you hang it somewhere that you already sit, and have a window you can look out of, so then they really are just coming to you. Otherwise, you'll forget about it and you won't fill it. CorinneOkay, let me think about that.VirginiaIn: Decluttering. Out: Organizing.CorinneI mean, who knows. VirginiaI'm confused about how those are different?CorinneIt was based on some blog post I read where she was like, "Organizing is pointless. You need to declutter first." So if your closet is messy, don't just buy new hangers. You actually need to get rid of stuff. VirginiaYou actually could stand to have like, a third less stuff. CorinneAnd I will say I did do a big closet declutter, and it has been helping. So.VirginiaYes, you did, we have not yet seen post clutter, post decluttering, organizing photos of that closet. But we trust.CorinneProbably doesn't look that different to anyone else, but.VirginiaYou know.Corinne Wait, I think I did do photos.VirginiaOh, maybe you did. I'm sorry. Okay, In: accessories. Out: matching sets. CorinneUm, hard to say. I will say, I think this is still true for me. I think matching sets, I really want them to work, and then when I put it on, I just don't feel it.I just wrote this post about sweatpants, and I have a matching sweat top for all of those sweatpants, and I almost never wear them. Accessories are in, though. I'm currently wearing a bandana.VirginiaAnd you've been wearing your new red collar quite a bit. I also struggle with the matching sets. Although I will say Naadam, which is a sustainable cashmere brand that Corinne and I both love, gifted me some pieces recently. (Full disclosure, it was gifted.) And because I've already bought myself several Naadam pieces, I didn't really need stuff. I did get this hoodie that I'm wearing, but then I got Jack a matching set, like cashmere pants and a zippered hoodie. And every time he wears it, I'm like, God damn it, I really want a matching set. This is so cute. CorinneThat's cool. VirginiaHe wears it around the house all the time and loves it. And now I'm like, maybe I do want that? So I don't know. I think I'm coming back around on those. Okay, in was beef stew. Out was pulled pork.CorinneI mean, yes, sure, yes.VirginiaControversial position.CorinneI haven't had too much pulled pork this year. If it was offered to me, I would eat it.VirginiaI made a delicious pulled pork yesterday. Throw it in the slow cooker and put a Dr Pepper over it.CorinneOh, that sounds delicious. VirginiaSo easy, so good.I made beef stew two weeks before that. I mean, this isn't my list, so I'm allowed to have it all. In was passion fruit as a flavor in pastry and desserts. Out, was matcha as a flavor in pastry and desserts.CorinneI mean, I'm still really excited about passionfruit. I did drink a lot of matcha this year.VirginiaI will say neither of those flavors ever come up over here with air fryer cookies.CorinnePassionfruit is so good. I ate a lot of passion fruit ice cream this summer.VirginiaThat does sound delicious.Corinne It was really good. VirginiaWell, when you look at your 2025 list, do you feel like, who was that person? Or do you feel like, yeah, that's pretty consistent with what I'm still into. CorinneI feel like, I remember that person.VirginiaI feel like I stood by most of mine, except being confused about pants. But that's also very universally on brand for me.All right. I feel like we need a drum roll sound effect or something. Tommy drop in whatever speaks to you. Here, it is time for the 2026 lists!CorinneOkay. In: meatballs. Out. I don't know what the out is. I want it to be beef stew, but beef stew could never be out.VirginiaI'm sorry you only get one delicious meat dish per year.CorinneAt first I was like, mac and cheese, but no, mac and cheese can't be out. I don't know what's out.VirginiaVeggie meatballs?CorinneI mean, veggies could never be out.VirginiaOut with a food is a really hard choice. CorinneI know it is. I will say, I'm never eating meatloaf. Meatloaf could be out, but like... I like meatloaf! As a concept. VirginiaYou're not politically or morally opposed to meatloaf.CorinneOr maybe it's like, deli meats.VirginiaI'm sorry. You're not gonna eat a hoagie? CorinneI'm definitely going to eat a hoagie. I was just trying to think of meat in non-ball form. Like flat meats. Meatballs are in. Patties are out. Virginia If you want a hamburger, you'll just make a big round one. CorinneTotally normal.Virginia"Sorry, I only consume ground meat if it's ball shaped." CorinneI was actually kind of wondering if you might have meatballs on your list.VirginiaI don't have meatballs on my list. At this moment, I don't have any food.Corinne Wow. I definitely made my list when  I was hungry, because I have three.VirginiaMy first one in for 2026 is therapy, because I just restarted.CorinneCongratulations.VirginiaThank you. I have been in and out of therapy for years and years, but I've been on a break for a while, and I was like, you know what? It's time to get back to it. The break was nice, but my brain needs it, so I'm back. My therapist was very happy to see me, and I feel good about that. I think all the mental support in 2026, for all of us. Out, this one's optimistic, but I wrote migraines? Question mark because they are my body's primary response and manifestation of stress. So maybe being back in therapy will help cut down on migraines. CorinneI love that. VirginiaWe shall see. But it feels good.Corinne Okay, my next one is In: card games. Out: board games.VirginiaAll right, I respect it. What card games are you into?CorinneWell, this is again, me being slightly influenced by my very current present self. I just went away for the weekend with some friends, and we were playing cards. We're playing a game that we were calling, up, up, up. And then I was trying to google it, to find some finer points. And I think it's called Oh Hell or Oh Pshaw. Something like that. VirginiaThese all have nothing to do with each other.CorinneI was reflecting on how many card games have swears in the title. Oh Hell, Shithead, a lot.VirginiaAnd these are traditional pack of card games that are sold in decks?CorinneThese are using a traditional deck of cards.VirginiaGot it, got it. CorinneI think the traditional deck of cards is nice also, because most people have them. They're easy to get. VirginiaSuper easy to travel with. And you can do a lot.CorinneVersatile. You can play so many different games with them. But again, if someone invites me to play a board game, am I saying no? No, I am not.Virginia "Sorry. This year is for cards."I also do like quite a few games that are card-based. I'm a big fan of Quiddler, which is like Scrabble, but in card form. Jack's family introduced to me, and I love it. CorinneWait, you don't need special cards?VirginiaOh, no, sorry. You do need a Quiddler card deck. Their cards are all letters, and you get letters and you make words. So it's like a more portable way to do Scrabble. That's cool and faster than Scrabble. It's fun. Next up is my one food-adjacent one. In for 2026 is the AnyList app where you can put recipes and do meal planning. And Out, I say tentatively and with some trepidation, Instacart. I'm moving away a little bit from my "people need to bring food to my house for me all the time" era. Because I have someone to share meal labor with now. We are using the AnyList app. It's really great. You can dump in your recipes, and it will pull the ingredients out, put them on a shopping list for you. I've always been skeptical of this concept, but I've actually been finding this very helpful for my brain, and especially Jack having the list as well. So if either of us notices something's out, it goes on the list, and then we both know. Shared mental labor, food labor stuff. Big fan. CorinneHow do you put the recipes in? Is it just a link?VirginiaI don't understand the technology. But I do know that now, if I'm in the New York Times cooking app, or I'm looking at the Smitten Kitchen website, or one of the other places I get recipes, if I go down in my phone to "share," a little option comes up to put it in AnyList.CorinneOkay, cool. VirginiaAnd then I go over to the app, and it's there, and then it can go on the grocery list. And if it's a week when I'm not over Instacart, you can even click "add to online order," and it will put everything on your grocery list into Instacart for you. But like I said, I'm trying to live clean now, so. Trying to do less of that, because the fees have really gotten quite out of control, yeah? But there are some weeks where it's necessary, and that's fine.CorinneThose are good ones. All right, my next one is: In is wearing a t shirt over a long sleeve shirt. Out is wearing a long sleeve shirt over a short sleeve shirt.VirginiaMy eight year old is so with you on this trend. They really like to put a t-shirt over a hooded sweatshirt. CorinneOh, cool. VirginiaOr over a really thick buttoned cardigan.CorinneWow. I love that.VirginiaThey really feel like their t shirt collection is getting short shrift in the winter, and while they hear me about weather, they are unwilling for it to be a base layer. They want it to be a top layer. We're also doing a lot of shorts over fleece leggings.CorinneOh, interesting. Okay. VirginiaAnd skirts over sweatpants.Corinne Inspiring. I've been seeing this one a lot out in the wild, and I have yet to really try it myself. I actually feel a little confused about what t-shirt goes over a long sleeve shirt, because I have a lot of plain, colored t-shirts, and I feel like sometimes it's better if it's graphic or stripe or something.VirginiaWhat this trend brings me back to is eighth grade, when my eighth grade crush—Brian Chamberlain, hope you're doing well, wherever you are—always wore a band t-shirt or some kind of t-shirt over a turtleneck. In retrospect, I'm sure this was his mother being worried about weather. But I was like, that is a look.CorinneI do like that look, but I don't really wear band t shirts. So like, what am I doing?VirginiaYeah, do you have whimsical t-shirts, or political t-shirts, food based t-shirts?CorinneI have one t-shirt that has a graphic on the front, so I'm going to try with that one. And then, yeah, I might need to buy some graphic tees. VirginiaMaybe this is the year you get really into t-shirts! In for me in 2026—okay, this one might be controversial, and I'm worried people are going to tell me it's bad ethically. I just want to say right now that if that's true, I don't want to know about it just yet. But you can tell me in a few months. Okay, In for me for 2026 is being really good at credit card points. And out, I hope, will be paying for vacations, because I'm going to pay for them with credit card points. CorinneOh, cool.VirginiaBut I am worried that there's some consumer ethics issue around credit card points? I think I'm doing something bad, but I don't know what it is. I'm being complicit with big banks, I guess. CorinneYou're asking the wrong person. I have no idea.VirginiaI don't know. I'm pretty sure there's a moral dilemma around this that I'm choosing not to look at because I did just book a February trip to Jamaica on points. And I feel great about that. CorinneWell, I like not paying for stuff.VirginiaYeah, not paying for stuff, seems great. My friend Tracy is a points master. She's been teaching me a lot. There's an online course you can take. It's all about opening new cards to get the sign up bonuses, and then knowing how to use your cards so that you're maximizing points. So I'm not spending more, but I am being more careful about, like, oh, wait, I have to pay for that with this card, because it gets more points. Or let me get that bill moved over to a card, so at least if I'm paying a gazillion dollars a month for therapy for everybody, we're getting points on all those therapy appointments. CorinneI feel like I'm not type A enough for this. I would be like, Oh, I forgot I even have this credit card and now there are thousands of dollars on it. So that's who was paying my electric bill!VirginiaThanks, MasterCard! You do have to be really diligent about paying off your balances every month. I feel like it's actually making me engage more with my spending, because I am so petrified that I'm going to leave a balance on a card I forgot about. So I'm being really diligent about checking all of them. And a side perk is that I have spotted some recurring subscriptions to things I forgot about, and I've been canceling some of those. Because now I'm actually looking at my statements a lot more often. CorinneI'm going to do another controversial food one. In: breakfast sausage. Out: bacon.VirginiaThat's going to be hard for the Burnt Toast community. I think we're going to have to really sit with that as a community.CorinneOnce again, I will still be eating bacon. However, I just want to say some things about breakfast sausage. I think bacon gets all the love, and I think breakfast sausage deserves more love. Virginia I agree with you actually. CorinneOne, it's freaking delicious. Two, it's so much easier to deal with than bacon. Much less messy, much easier to cook. VirginiaYou can't screw it up. You're not like, oh, it's too crispy. It's not crispy enough. CorinneAnd I guess that's really all I have to say. VirginiaI feel like it's more filling, too. CorinneYeah. I think you're right in a way. So, breakfast sausage is in.VirginiaI can get on board with this. I like breakfast sausage. I find it hard to find good breakfast sausage.CorinneOh, not me. VirginiaIs there a brand you like? CorinneDoes your grocery store carry Niman Ranch? VirginiaI don't know, but I will look. CorinneIt's a slightly higher end brand. Whole Foods usually has it. But Niman Ranch has really good breakfast sausage. They have a basic breakfast sausage, and they also have one that's like bacon breakfast sausage, and it's freaking delicious. VirginiaWell, there you go. You just combined the best of both worlds. CorinneYes, exactly.VirginiaWe do breakfast for dinner a lot with the kids, and I often do breakfast sausage for the meat, because I just don't feel like dealing with bacon in the evening for some reason. CorinneYes, bacon is slightly annoying to deal with, so that's why breakfast sausage is in.VirginiaBut if other people want to make us bacon, we will still eat it.Corinne Yes, and I'm sure I will still be eating bacon.VirginiaOkay, this next one is a little obscure maybe, or just really only applies to me. But in for 2026 is putting all my lamps on timers.Corinne Ooh. Love that. VirginiaAnd out is basically either having lights that are always on or never on. I love a floor lamp. I prefer floor lamps to overhead lights. I like a cozy ambiance. But I'm tired at night. I can't be walking around the house turning off floor lamps. CorinneWait. Have you gotten into smart plugs, or you're just doing timers?VirginiaOkay, yes, I'm into smart plugs. I got an app on my phone. I can turn all these lights on and off with my phone. And you can schedule them so they just come on on their own and put themselves to bed. And I just feel like more of my house needs to be self-managing. Because there's a lot in my house that I have to be on top of, and I don't really need the living room floor light to need that much from me. I want it to show up, do it's job, be a cozy glow, and then put itself to bed. CorinneMy sister is really good at this.VirginiaYou have to get over the initial annoying 10 minute time setup, and then you're just like, oh my god, this is changing my life.CorinneYeah, I've set them up when I've gone out of town before, so they come on and off.VirginiaThe Home Alone strategy!CorinneBut then I get back and I get annoyed and unplug them, and then I forget what the app is called. VirginiaI can understand that.CorinneBut it is useful to be able to turn things on and off with your phone.VirginiaI also had my electrician put my front porch light on a timer for me, which I think is actually something you could do yourself if you are a more together person. Because otherwise it had just been on for, like, five years I think. CorinneOh, wow.VirginiaIt just never turned it off. And that's not great, so now it's on a timer, and that's making me really happy.CorinneThat's a good one. This perhaps another controversial one based on a product that I recommended in one of our recent episodes. For me, In is body butter--specifically this one made with tallow. VirginiaYes, we did talk about that.Corinne And I apologize for making it sound like I'm a MAHA, but IN body butter, OUT body oil. VirginiaI don't think I've ever liked body oil. CorinneOh, I like body oil, but, you know, I think my skin prefers a lotiony thing.VirginiaThe body butter is like a lotion? CorinneYeah, but it's not in a pump. It's a tub that you kind of swipe. It's so good. The texture is incredible.VirginiaOkay, yeah, I need to get that. In for 2026 which I will say, is a work in progress, is, I am trying to establish a new religion in my household. And the religion, the faith that I want us to all partake in is, which I'm calling church, is that every Sunday morning we get in the hot tub. CorinneOh, I love that. VirginiaFor a religious experience that is just sitting in the hot tub. We do not have any gods or dogma in this religion, but it's proving weirdly uphill to convince my kids we should do this. They're like, I don't feel like it. Whatever. That's why I started calling it church. Because I was like, you guys are like being dragged to church. CorinneReally funny. VirginiaKids I grew up with would always be like, don't make me go to church. And I'm like, we don't do that. I'm just trying to get you to relax in hot water and talk to your mom.CorinneThat sounds nice. I would like to go to that church. VirginiaIt's a great church. And I feel like it's a good way for me to make sure I put some rest in my weekends. I couldn't really think of an out. I put cold plunging, but I would never have gone cold plunging. That was never in for me. That's a terrible idea. CorinneI love to cold plunge. VirginiaYou've done cold plunging!CorinneAfter a sauna or something. I love it.VirginiaI mean, in the winter, you cold plunge from the hot tub to get out into the cold air to go back inside. Does that count? All right, that's all I'm willing to do. CorinneOkay, my last one. And I'm a little bit afraid to say this, is for me, in potatoes, out rice.VirginiaI really like how all of yours were food, and you're afraid of blowback with every single one. CorinneI just don't want to offend anyone, because, you know, rice is really good, as is bacon and whatever the opposite of meatballs is. But I'm really into eating potatoes right now.VirginiaFor me, it's always going to be pasta over both those two.CorinneYeah, I'm choosing potatoes over pasta right now. But I like pasta as well. VirginiaWell, that is hard for me to hear.CorinneI'm just loving potatoes. Potatoes are in for 2026.VirginiaAll kinds. Fries. CorinnePotato girl year.VirginiaPotato girl year. That's actually really good. CorinneYou know, chopped up and roasted. Also, I'm just loving a baked potato, which is not new for meVirginiaYou have been on the baked potato train for a while. That's a good reminder to me to make baked potatoes.CorinnePotatoes are such a good vehicle. VirginiaThey're a great base.CorinneAs are as rice and pasta.VirginiaOkay, that's a great one. I support you. I'm going to still be over here eating pasta, but I support you. Okay, my last one for 2026 in is oral hygiene. To be clear, I've always had good oral hygiene. I didn't just recently adopt oral hygiene, but I have leveled up my game. My dentist has really been on me about my perimenopausal gums. and something we all have to think about a lot in our 40s. Apparently, my oral hygiene has been too good. I was brushing too vigorously for too long, and I've eroded some gum. Yeah, that's a real lie fed to our generation, that you should brush hard. You shouldn't. Anyway. So now I have an electric toothbrush and I have a WaterPik. CorinneOh, cool. I'm so curious about WaterPiks. VirginiaIt has a learning curve. It took me a while, but I've got the hang of it now. And I will say my teeth have never felt cleaner. CorinneOh, that's very appealing. VirginiaThey're dreamy clean. And it's kind of the point where, when I eat lunch and that's not a meal I usually brush my teeth after, but I feel so gross. I want to go floss at least.CorinneA WaterPik is cleaning out between your teeth.VirginiaIn my case, they told me to use it to trace the gum line. People can't see, but I'm making a kind of scalloping motion. You scallop along your teeth, and you have to do the outside, and you have to get in and do the backs of your teeth.CorinneDo you still have to floss? Or no?VirginiaI am still flossing, but that's because I love flossing. So in the morning. I'm doing mouthwash and electric toothbrush. At night I'm doing floss, water pick, electric toothbrush. and so I decided my out for this one is hydration, because I am no longer tracking my hydration, and I'm putting all that same energy towards teeth. I'll hydrate when I hydrate.CorinneThat's awesome. VirginiaI'm realizing I had no clothes ones on my list this year, which is maybe fine.CorinneI only had one which was kind of random. Clothes are out.VirginiaBut also read Big Undies, Corinne’s fashion newsletter.CorinneBig Undies Announcement: 2026, clothes are out.VirginiaI do think clothes are the most changeable often. You're not going to stand by a clothes feeling you have in January.CorinneI think it's nice for clothes to not necessarily be so trend driven.VirginiaActually, that's a nice spin on it. I think I didn't have any clothes that I felt strongly I was over, which means I liked a lot of what I wore this year.CorinneYes, your in bootcut pants from last year are the pants you're wearing right now. Virginia I stuck with it. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginiaWe're going to do Butter, and full disclosure, this is a brand that Corinne and I love. We both shop here, we have both spent so much money at over the years, but they do also send us free stuff from time to time, so it's not sponsored, but there is a gifted element here. So do with that information what you will? CorinneYes. Well, this year on my gift guide, I put the East Fork Bitty bowls, which I had yet to own, and now I have gotten some which actually I did pay for, and I'm obsessed with them. I just want to double down on that recommendation. They're so useful and cute.VirginiaThey are so useful. I have them all over my house because I have a child who takes her earrings off wherever she stands, and then gets mad that she's lost her earrings. CorinneThat's hilarious. VirginiaAnd so whenever I find earrings around my house, which is always, I stick them in the nearest bitty bowl.CorinneThat's so funny. VirginiaThey probably didn't anticipate that as a use.CorinneBut it's so smart. I'm like, oh, now I need one next to my bed. I should put one on my desk. I also sometimes take my earrings off.VirginiaI have one on my kitchen counter, because I take my rings off if I make meatballs. So I'll stick them in there. But they are also great if you're putting out a little jam on a charcuterie board, or we eat chocolate chips out of them while we watch TV.CorinneOr, like, a little salt on the table.VirginiaThey truly have endless purposes. And if you're an East Fork fan, as we are, when they release a new color and you're like, oh, I want the new color and you don’t actually need anything, I'll usually get a bitty bowl just to, like, add to the collection.CorinneYeah, totally. VirginiaBecause it's like 14 bucks or whatever. CorinneThat makes sense to me.VirginiaI was also going to do an East Fork butter, because, yes, I love this brand. I am drinking tea out of an East Fork mug as we record. I have their weeknight serving bowl in two colors now, one I paid for, one was gifted. I have the light blue and I have the malachite green, and it's a very useful size serving bowl. I feel like sometimes serving bowls are too big, and feel like overkill. And sometimes they're cute, but kind of teensy, and then you're like, trying to toss the salad, and it's like, falling out of the bowl. The weeknight serving bowl is an excellent size for pasta salads, you could put potatoes in it for sure. All the things.CorinneI'm going to be needing some of those as well. VirginiaAll right. Well, that was a slightly sponsored butter. But anyone who's followed Burnt Toast for a while knows that our love of East Fork long predates when they sent us a few free bowls. So it's coming from the heart. And use BurntToast15 at checkout if you decide to join us in the bitty bowl obsession and get 15% off! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Happy 2026!!! To celebrate—and kick off the most diet-y month of the year!—we are here with a roundup of the very best anti-diet fitness advice in the Burnt Toast archives. If you find this useful, consider a paid Burnt Toast subscription! We're way cheaper than a gym or a diet app membership, and arguably better for your health too. And in addition to getting behind paywalled episodes and essays, Burnt Toasties get to join our awesome chat rooms like Team CPAP, Anti-Diet Ozempic Life and Fat Fashion! You'll find so much practical support, inspiration, and fat joy. Join us here! Don't diet, come hang with us! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links!Episode 226 TranscriptVirginiaHappy 2026! We made it. It's a whole new year. CorinneThank God, honestly.VirginiaSee you later, 2025. Excited to be here in a new in a new chapter.CorinneTo celebrate, we're bringing you a helpful episode to kick off the most diet-y month of the year: A roundup of our favorite anti-diet fitness advice.VirginiaI'm excited for this. I hope this is grounding to people and helps prevent you spiraling off into some new thing that doesn't serve you. We're also holding space for the fact that a lot of people do like fresh start culture. We will be coming to you next week with our annual Ins and Outs episode. So don't think we are immune from resolution culture! That's the Burnt Toast version of it. It's coming. All right. First up, we have an excerpt from an episode called “We Have Only Recently Acknowledged That Female Athletes Need to Eat.” This episode aired October 19, 2023. It's an oldie, but a goldie. And the guest was Christine Yu, author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes. And one of the main things Christine wanted us to understand was carbs are good for you.VirginiaI also want to spend some time on your very excellent chapter about diet and sports. This was so well done. It feels like nutritional science, athletic research— all of this research—has only just recently given women permission to eat as athletes, and to eat enough to support their sports. This feels really staggering to me, that there has been this underfeeding of women athletes for so long.ChristineConsistently. All the time. And I think it’s in part because of just general diet culture in our culture and society and these ridiculous expectations that we have or we place on girls and women in terms of what their bodies need to look like. And then you have the sports performance side, you have this idea that certain body types are the ideal athletic body types. It’s almost no wonder that we create this perfect storm and a way for disordered eating and eating disorders and all these other problematic behaviors to take root. Especially because bodies are so central, obviously, in sports and performance. And we focus so much on bodies and how they look, what their body composition is, and all of these different things, the shape of you, all of that.It’s wild to me that it’s only been recently that we do acknowledge the fact you just need to eat. We talked so much about nutrition and sports as this idea of fueling your body, which I think was at first kind of helpful in the way of reframing food within this context. Your body needs fuel to be able to do all this stuff, in order to start to give folks a little bit more permission to eat or feel like they could eat what they needed. But that, I think, even still creates this idea that there’s a certain kind of fuel that you need to be eating in order to be an athlete, in order to fuel your body correctly, if that makes sense.VirginiaIt’s, again, mind blowing, but makes sense that we had to first embrace the idea of eating, period, as opposed to eating being the enemy. You have so many heartbreaking stories from athletes in this chapter talking about feeling like they were so tapped out at the end of a practice that they couldn’t function and that when they started eating enough, they were like, wow.ChristineTurns out!Virginia“I can do a 90 minute workout without a problem!” The fact that they were performing at all when they were being asked to do it while starving is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous what they were being asked to do. Then seeing that immediate and logical shift that if you feed yourself, you can perform better. But then from there, this idea of food as fuel can also become very limiting because, of course, athletes are human beings, as well. And food is more than fuel for all of us.ChristineIt’s really easy within sports and athletics to look at food as almost a hack, in a way. Like, as a way to like fine tune your performance. Oh, I need more iron, or whatever other very specific thing that you need. And again, I think it dissociates food from what it actually is. I think that also just makes it really ripe to encourage a lot of these behaviors that aren’t always helpful or healthy.VirginiaYou also do some amazing work in this chapter dissecting a couple of the modern big diet trends: Intermittent fasting, keto, and you even look at some of the less extreme ones like the Mediterranean diet, and show how they underserve athletes and especially women athletes. I wondered if we could just spend a little time talking about your findings there, because that felt super important to me. ChristineIn the last several years, we’ve seen things like intermittent fasting and keto pop up within athletic communities as this way to make your body a better machine. Especially, I think, within endurance sports, it’s this idea that your body can run longer or you can somehow create these these efficiencies, if you will.But the body likes to be in homeostasis, it likes to be in balance. So anytime energy levels start to dip, your body starts to send out these flares that are like, “Wait a second, hold on. Are we going to be starving real soon?” Because if so, I need to make some adjustments, physiologically. So with a lot of these diets, you’re actually ended up with these long periods of under-fueling your body. With intermittent fasting, you’re not eating for anywhere between eight to many, many hours. So you’re leaving your body in this huge deficit of energy so it starts to freak out and starts to shut down these non essential systems.And the thing with women is that our bodies are much more sensitive to these downturns in nutrition. It starts to send up those flares a lot earlier, it starts to make those those physiological changes a lot earlier. That can have repercussions on things like your menstrual cycle and all the hormonal things that your body does. Similarly, with keto, this whole idea of eating a lot of fat and very few carbs might seem like, Oh, I’m really full, I don’t need to eat as much. But it’s the same idea that you end up inadvertently underfueling your body. But more importantly, especially for women, by not eating carbs, it sends up those same flares to the body. Women’s bodies, in particular, need carbohydrates in order to function well, in order to do all the things it does. And when we don’t have carbs, the body starts to send all these warning signs.We tend to see intermittent fasting or keto “work” in men because it seems like male bodies can get away with that under-fueling a little bit more than female bodies. But when women tend to try these diets they end up feeling, unsurprisingly, really flat, really fatigued, a lot of brain fog. They don’t see this performance boost and then they wonder what they’re doing wrong because all the podcasts, all the influencers, say I should be intermittent fasting. This is going to be how I’m going to lose weight. This is how I’m going to cut time on my race. This is how I’m going to improve performance, improve body composition, all the stuff. But I’m not seeing that. I’m feeling flat. I’m not seeing all these other positive benefits. It’s because your body is essentially saying, ah, this isn’t working for me.VirginiaJust because it works for Peter Attia does not mean—and question mark on if it even works for these guys? Thats the other thing I just want to interject. It might improve athletic performance, it doesn’t mean it’s not having other consequences on their mental health or their relationships with food and body. But that’s fascinating to realize specifically, if your goal is improving athletic performance—one of these diets is not going to deliver for you the way you’ve been told it might. ChristineEspecially the idea around carbs. I feel like carbs still have like a bad rap. People are still really afraid to eat carbs and I just want folks to know it’s not a bad thing. Your body actually needs it. It wants them. CorinneI mean, what can I say? Perennial wisdom.VirginiaPerennial wisdom. Really important. And it's just absolutely wild —the science she gets into about how little female athletes in particular, were allowed to eat for decades, and how much better everybody performs as a human being and an athlete when they eat carbs.CorinneYeah, this makes me sad. Okay, next we're going to hear a clip from an episode called It’s Time To Free The Jiggle. This one aired on December 14, 2023 and our guest was Jessie Diaz-Herrera. Jessie is a body affirming dancer, health and wellness influencer, and fitness enthusiast. You might know her on Instagram as curves with moves or from her Free The Jiggle classes. Jessie's advice is so helpful if you're thinking about starting about starting any new kind of workout or entering a new workout space, especially as a fat person.VirginiaThe first question is:Do you have any tips for focusing on how you’re feeling in your body versus imagining how your body could look? This feels especially hard with dance.JessieThis is a very honest and vulnerable question, but also very real. Especially in any group setting, whether it’s group fitness, group dance classes, there’s always this like, “How am I perceived by other people? How am I looking at myself in the mirror?” and that can be really hard. But dance is an art form, right? So let’s relate it to art, right? Let’s say our bodies are paint brushes. If I’m a paintbrush and you’re a paintbrush, you may have slightly different widths right. And my strokes are not going to be the same as yours, right? But we’re still creating art. We’re both still moving. We’re both still working through this. I think sometimes we like to compare ourselves to other people. Like, “I don’t look like the instructor.” But the instructor is more of a facilitator, right? They’re there to help you and guide you. Obviously, in more fitness classes, there’s a form and there are things that you want to make sure that you’re doing safely. But if it’s a feel good class, if you’re like in a cardio dance class where you’re just there to feel the rhythm and dance or like a Zumba type class and there’s nerves, bring a friend and laugh. Be in the back and laugh.Like, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been nervous about a class and I’ve taken a friend and we’re like, “We’re just gonna be in the back and try our best but also just laugh at each other if we’re a hot mess.” Let’s give ourselves permission to say, “We’re probably going to mess up and that’s going to be totally fine because we have the intention today of laughing at ourselves and being silly with with ourselves and trying something new.” And you’re just not going to look like the next person, so get that out of your head. Because this is your body, this is what you’ve been given. And how you move in this world is different. So sometimes, especially in dance, when it is an art form, I say own it. Own how you dance. Own how you move. It does not have to look like the the instructor or the person next to you. If you feel good, if you are feeling the energy. I know when I dance, there’s a weariness that goes away. There’s this feeling of “Yes, I just feel so good.” Like, I’m sweating. This is my favorite song. Tap into those other things, too.Maybe you’re not there yet with your body journey. Maybe you’re like, “I can’t stop comparing myself.” Well then maybe you’re thinking about other things within the class, like is this your favorite song? Are you hitting those basses? Can you get that move? Or is the rhythm really hype? Do you want to cheer on the person next to you?  I tell people at the beginning of class, “Hey, if you don’t want to dance, cheer for the person next to you.” Take a water break and just encourage them. VirginiaI also want to say to this person, do some of Jessie’s online videos. Because I am someone who has no dance experience. You know, white girl dance moves—that’s what I’ve got. It is what it is. JessieAll of those are safe here.VirginiaAnd especially being in a bigger body, I would feel self-conscious going into a group dance class. But what was really fun for me was doing Jessie’s videos in a room in my house without mirrors, because then I wasn’t constantly looking at myself and critiquing how I looked. I could just be in my body and I was able to tap into the joy you’re talking about because there wasn’t an audience. I was just doing it for me. If you’re someone who really doesn’t have a dance background, maybe try that first before you do the group class where you’re just going to feel really intimidated and depending on the context, maybe less welcome.JessieI teach kind of a myriad of different classes, but one of our mainstays is called “Free the Jiggle,” and we purposely jiggle. We purposely do things that we would say, like, I’m afraid to do this, we will do it. Kind of to laugh and also in spite of and really to say, why not?VirginiaIt’s a body. It’s moving. JessieYeah, exactly. Bodies do jiggle.VirginiaI really love this. I love embracing that bodies move and jiggle—and everybody's does, straight size, plus size, doesn't really matter. I think this is really powerful. And if you need to do that in the privacy of your own home for a while before you're ready to do that out in some group setting—that is valid, too. CorinneTotally.VirginiaOkay. Next up, I want us to hear from Disability Rights activist and author Emily Ladau. This is from an episode we did last year called I Don’t See Myself in Fat Liberation Spaces.Emily is a wheelchair user, and we had a great conversation about how ableism shows up in fat liberation work, but also in fitness spaces. And a cool spin-off from this conversation is that Anna Maltby, friend of the show, who we'll hear from later in this episode, developed a wheelchair friendly workout for her newsletter How To Move, after hearing this interview and connecting with Emily. Which I love. I love seeing fitness professionals taking wheelchair friendly workouts more seriously. And the big piece of fitness advice I want us all to take away from the conversation with Emily is that sitting down is not going to kill you.VirginiaOne that you put on my radar is all this fearmongering about how we all sit down too much, and sitting is killing us. And if you have a job that requires you to sit all day, it’s taking years off your life.And yet, of course, people who use wheelchairs are sitting down.EmilyI think about this a lot, because I would say at least a few times a year some major publication releases an article that basically says we are sitting ourselves to death. And I saw one I know at least last year in the New York Times, if not this year,VirginiaNew York Times really loves this topic. They’re just all over there with their standing desks, on little treadmills all day long.EmilyI actually decided to Google it before we chatted. I typed in, “New York Times, sitting is bad for you.” And just found rows of articles.Cool beans, NYT.EmilyThe first time that this ever really came up for me was all the way back in 2014, and I was kind of just starting out in the world of writing and putting myself out there in that way as an activist. And I came across an article that said that the more I sit, the closer I am to death, basically.It’s really tough for me, because I’m sure there’s a kernel of truth in the sense that if you are not moving your body, you are not taking care of your body in a way that works for you. But the idea that sitting is the devil is deeply ableist, because I need to sit. That does not mean that I cannot move around in my own way, and that does not mean that I cannot function in my own way, but it’s just this idea that sitting is bad and sitting is wrong and sitting is lazy. Sitting is necessary.VirginiaSitting is just how a lot of us get things done every day, all day long.EmilyRight, exactly.VirginiaSure, there were benefits to lifestyles that involved people doing manual labor all day long and being more active. Also people died in terrible farming accidents. It’s all part of that romanticization of previous generations as somehow healthier—which was objectively not true.EmilyYou make such a good point from a historical perspective. There’s this idea that it’s only if we’re up and moving and training for a 5k that we’re really being productive and giving ourselves over to the capitalist machine, but at the same time, doing that causes disability in its own way.VirginiaSure does. Sure does. I know at least two skinny runners in my local social circle dealing with the Achilles tendons ruptures. It takes a toll on your body.EmilyOr doing farm labor, as you were talking about. I mean, an agrarian society is great until you throw your back out. Then what happens?VirginiaThere are a lot of disabled folks living with the consequences of that labor.EmilyAnd I’ve internalized this messaging. I am not at all above any of this. I mean, I’m so in the thick of it, all the time, no matter how much work I read by fat liberation activists, no matter how much I try to ground myself in understanding that fatness does not equal badness and that sitting does not equal laziness, I am so trapped in the cycle of “I ate something that was highly caloric, and now I better do a seated chair workout video for my arm cycle.” And I say this because I’m not ashamed to admit it. I want people to understand that disabled people are like all other people. We have the same thoughts, the same feelings. We are impacted by diet culture.CorinneSuch great advice. Important.VirginiaEmily made me realize how much that anti-sitting agenda is everywhere, especially in the New York Times, for some reason. They're weirdly obsessed with standing desks there. And it feels similar to wanting to go back to a time before smartphones. Like, okay, maybe it's not ideal that so many people sit so much, but it's the way the world is now. It's what work is now. Unless you're preparing to completely overthrow capitalism and have us all spend our days doing different things. Regardless of ability, most people are sitting so what if we stopped being ashamed of it?CorinneI feel like this is just one of those moments where if you weren't aware of it, now you're suddenly aware of the way that we talk about certain things and how it's really fucked up for a whole group of people.VirginiaFor sure. CorinneNext let's hear from Lauren Leavell, a weight inclusive fitness professional with an awesome online workout program that Virginia is obsessed with. Lauren has been on the podcast twice, but joined us last summer to talk about some TikTok drama that erupted when a thin Pilates trainer made a video saying you shouldn't be allowed to take Pilates if you weigh over 200 pounds. This episode was called Stair Masters Are the Mean Girls of Cardio, and this conversation is a great reminder that you don't have to have the right body for any type of exercise or be really good at any particular sport. You're allowed to just do things because you like them.I think Pilates is a great workout for people who are in, all different types of bodies and diverse bodies. Pilates is super low impact in a lot of ways, and really good for folks who have chronic illnesses, particularly like reformer, because it could be recumbent and you’re not putting a lot of stress on your joints in the same way. So the idea that this workout that’s really almost like super in line with disability and rehabilitation, to say that there’s like a weight limit—again, fatphobia, joining in with ableism—is like, so so off base. So deeply off base.VirginiaFat people can do any workout, but Pilates in particular happens to be a workout that can be extremely body inclusive when it’s taught well.LaurenExactly. I think that that maybe also added to some of the outrage and and honestly, some of me thinking it was very funny.I’m not someone who regularly weighs myself, but I’ve always been someone who was extremely heavy, as a person. Even as a child, there were stories about me versus my cousin who was three years older than me and a boy, and how he weighed less than me for most of our childhood. I have always been so solid. And I think growing up, many of us heard like, oh, that person has the body of a swimmer. That person should play volleyball or basketball or whatever. I’m like, what is this body type meant for? Like, shotput? And then I’m teaching Barre, you know? I think it’s just so made up. And yes, maybe it’s good for people who swim to have long limbs, great. But when we close ourselves off to types of movement based on body types and weight limits, then people have a harder time finding things that they enjoy, because maybe they don’t enjoy something that they “look like they should.”VirginiaJust because you don’t have long limbs doesn’t mean swimming can’t bring you a lot of joy.LaurenRight? Just because I don’t have long lean muscles doesn’t mean I can’t teach Barre. The language around Barre and Pilates is always “long and lean.” And I just feel that’s so funny as someone who’s not long and lean. I love not being long and lean and and enjoying my classes.Some of the outrage did come from that number being named, because it’s a misunderstanding of what real people in the real world weigh when you are not around those types of people. But I also think that there are a lot of limitations put on bodies, particularly larger bodies, and what you can and can’t do. I have another video that’s actually making a resurgence right now, probably because of this conversation that fat people should only do cardio, because if you lift weights, then you might gain more muscle mass, which would increase your scale weight. So you should only do cardio, because that’s how you’re going to lose weight, which is inaccurate and very boring.VirginiaAnd it’s just really drilling into and this was the core of what she was saying. It’s the core of that Melania video, that exercise is only a tool for weight management. That you would only exercise to avoid or minimize fatness, and right?LaurenAnd because Pilates “isn’t actually good for burning fat,” you definitely shouldn’t be doing it if you’re fat.VirginiaYeah, you should be at the gym running. And it’s completely ignoring the many other reasons we would exercise, the benefits you can actually achieve. Because, as you’re saying, weight loss through exercise is a very murky thing for most people. And it’s just ignoring all the other reasons you would do it that are more fun.LaurenYeah, like “I like it.” You’re allowed to like things! But again, if you’re socialized to only know shame and punishment, then the idea that people do things out of pleasure is hard to wrap your mind around.VirginiaYes, I love Lauren obviously. I'm obsessed with Lauren's workouts. but I also just really like how she thinks about this stuff, and I think it shows up a lot in how she teaches fitness. I mean, this idea that only certain bodies should do Pilates or do any sport, is absolutely wild. It's problematic at every level, but especially since most of us are not doing any of these activities with a hope of being the best version of that in the world.CorinneThis one is crazy too, because that was such a huge controversy, and then I completely forgot about it.Virginia It's a good reminder that the Internet is forever, but also these things do blow over. I can't even remember the name of the girl who made that stupid video. We're over it. You can obviously do Pilates if you weigh over 200 pounds. I did some last week. Last we're going to hear from my girl, Anna Maltby, who is an amazing anti-diet trainer, Pilates instructor and health journalist. Anna writes the newsletter How To Wove, which features weekly workout videos, which is what I do when I'm not doing Lauren's videos. Basically, my workout program is Anna and Lauren on repeat, and it's amazing. Anna has also been on the podcast twice, because whenever I find smart fitness people, I do like to keep bringing them back. And she came on last December 2024 to unpack some internet discourse that was happening then about whether core workouts are a scam. And what we distilled is: Strong core muscles are not a scam. They're really helpful for all the things we need to do with our bodies. But if you hate traditional ab workouts, you probably don't need to do those exact exercises to get a stronger core. And more importantly, you don't have to have flat abs to also have strong, functional core muscles. So this episode is called A Pudgy Belly Can Be A Strong Core, and I suspect that is really useful for a lot of us to remember right now.I’ll also just share, as someone who does identify as hating core work, I have come to appreciate it so much more through your workouts and through talking to you about it, because it’s made me realize how much the “I hate core workouts” came from knowing I’m never going to have the visible six pack. Being able to put that down means now I do notice, ohhh, when I get my core properly engaged, my back hurts so much less. Taking the giant bag of dog food in from the curb feels less painful. I get off the floor a lot more easily after giving my seven-year-old a bath. it’s these small things that are really not that small, actually.AnnaYeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s almost about safety in your body, right? I’m capable of doing these things. I don’t have to feel fear around movement. I’m comfortable moving throughout the day. There’s so much to be said for that. You say they’re they’re small things, but they’re not really small.I really want to encourage people to get to know how their body responds to exercise because of all this noise about aesthetics, we haven’t been trained to notice these more internal or intrinsic kind of things, but if you can tap into functional changes, or just how you feel moving through the day. Are you waking up a little less creaky? Are you able to pick that thing up, or are you able to bend down into the bath more comfortably?VirginiaShampooing a fast-moving seven-year-old is quite the core workout, in fact.AnnaWrestle them into their jackets and all that stuff. This goes back to the central question of why is the myth of visible abs so frustrating? There are so many other things that not just abs, but a functional and strong body, can do for you. To me, those things are better motivators.I exercise also because of back pain. What got me started on exercise, and got me sticking with exercise, was that I was throwing my back out all the time. And I do that a whole lot less if I’m active regularly. And that’s a really good motivator, and it is achievable and it’s noticeable. And I get punished if I’m not doing it, because my back hurts.VirginiaYep. It’s a real one to one connection.AnnaWe have to also talk about people who do need core-specific exercises. It’s a bit more of a rehabilitation focus, but that might include people who are recovering from an injury or surgery. And especially people who are recovering from childbirth, whether that’s a vaginal birth or C-section. A pretty functional body who’s not in that situation, they’ll get really great core work from whatever the else they’re doing, chances are. But in these situations, I do think that isolating your core and targeting your core muscles from a rehabilitative standpoint, is really important. And I think if, like those of us who are who are listening, who’ve had a baby at home, like a brand new baby that they gave birth to, have probably had that experience of like, “Oh my god, where, where are my abs? Where is my core?”VirginiaThey have left the building.AnnaI can’t do anything. They’ve left the building. And it’s temporary. It’s okay. They will be back. You need to heal. You need to recover. But it’s kind of funny, because you’ll get the advice that you shouldn’t lift anything heavier than five or ten pounds or don’t pick up anything heavy. Try not to do anything until you’ve had more time to heal. But like when you have a new baby at home, you’re picking up and putting down a growing babyVirginiaPlus a car seat!Anna75 times a day. I just remember nursing in bed and then trying to get up out of the bed while holding the baby, and you’re basically doing a weighted sit-up. It’s so, so brutal. And it’s not realistic to say you can’t do any of that stuff until you’ve rehabilitated your core. You need to be able to live your life. But I think that working with rehabilitative exercises as you’re working through your day to day life, is going to make it easier. You’re going to get better, you’re going to start to heal, you’re going to regain that strength so much better than if you’re just not doing any of the rehab and only doing this sort of demands of daily life.So I want to say, if you’re in that situation—and I think this is also true if you’ve had some kind of abdominal or pelvic or hip surgery—and you’re recovering and you have to have that rest period, rehabilitative exercises can be really, really supportive.VirginiaWhat I’m thinking as you’re talking too, is how all of these benefits we’re talking about have absolutely nothing to do with weight loss. This isn’t about, are you losing the baby weight? This isn’t about anything to do with that.And yet, again, because of the way diet culture trains us to think about core in the past, if I wasn’t losing weight, I wasn’t aware of these benefits. It was harder to tune into these benefits, or if I did notice these benefits, I credited them with any weight loss that was happening. But whether your weight changes or not from exercise is its own separate thing. We could just put that over here. It might happen, it might not. And the core stuff, you can achieve that whether or not the weight changes. And I just want to name that, because I think that’s another place this gets so, so tangled.AnnaYes, I think that’s so important. There’s a wonderful perinatal coach named Jessie Mundell, who I’m a huge fan of. She takes a super inclusive approach. And she’s in a larger body. I think I texted you when I did her postpartum certification program, and I was like, “Virginia! There are fitness models in this program in larger bodies! It’s so helpful. It’s amazing. It exists.” And she likes to say, and I’m gonna gonna get the exact words wrong, but it’s something like, you can have a round, pudgy, poochy, cellulite, diastasis recti belly and a functional core. The aesthetics do not predict the functionality.VirginiaThat’s so helpful. It’s so important. Especially if you have the diastasis or the poochy belly, you just think, “Well, that’s it. I will never have a strong core.” And that can just be defeating to even starting with this kind of exercise. So, so important to name.AnnaYeah. There are elite athletes who are competing with a three or four finger diastasis.CorinneThis is a great episode. Anna Maltby is so smart.VirginiaAnd just like Lauren, se really helps me reframe some of the toxic messages. I had a really troubling relationship with core workouts for such a long time because of diet culture. But as someone who's really prone to back issues, they are super important for me to do. And being able to do them and appreciate the non-aesthetic benefits of them has been really helpful. So I really appreciated this reframing. All right, any final thoughts, any words of wisdom about how you're going to be navigating January Fitness culture? Is the entire month of January a diet, Corinne? Shall we skip it?CorinneWell, I would not like to skip it, because my birthday is in January.VirginiaThat's right! Corinne is turning 40 this month!CorinneYes, I'll be turning 40 and I will be not starting any new fitness programs.VirginiaLove this for you. I'm very excited. Do you ever start workout stuff in January, or do you just, like, kind of try to opt out of that whole piece.CorinneWell, it's funny because I just kind of passed my three year anniversary of starting to go to the lifting gym that I go to. And so I did start that in December, which is very close to January. But yeah, I don't think I'll be starting anything new. VirginiaYeah, same.Corinne It wasn't like a New Year's thing.VirginiaThat'sjust when you went. I don't have any new goals. Maybe this is the year I'll learn to do push-ups? We can always hope, right?Corinne Yeah, why not? VirginiaI don't have any plans to set out specific goals towards them. I feel like in the last year, I did a pretty good job of keeping movement in my life, even when my life was chaos, and that is new for me. Like, often I would have long periods of like, life is chaos, so I don't have time for that, and then my back would go out. So I feel like, if there's anything I want to maintain this year, it's just to keep doing things I enjoy and keep enjoying the benefits of having movement in my life—to whatever extent that makes sense for my life at any given point.CorinneJas your back gone out this year?VirginiaIt did go out over Thanksgiving. That was a bummer. But not as extremely as it has in the past. I was able to get it back on track in like, three or four days. Whereas I've had times where it's like two weeks of I couldn't stand up. It was just like, oh, okay. It's, you know, it needs some extra attention. And I think it was a stress response. ButterVirginiaMy Butter for this episode is that I'm lifting heavier weights now! That has been really exciting. I historically thought of myself as not a strong person. CorinneWait, really?!VirginiaEmotionally strong, whatever. Like, psychologically strong, yes, like, I'm a powerful woman. I know that. But I didn't think of myself as physically strong. CorinneI'm just like.. all fat people are strong. VirginiaWell, okay, I didn't start out life as a fat person, Corinne, so it's taking me a while to step into my power. I still had an inner skinny girl who thought she wasn't strong. But you're correct. And, you know, getting into weightlifting because of Burnt Toast, really, like you being a power lifter got me interested and meeting Lauren and Anna and all that, you know, like, a lot of it has to do with, like, conversations on burnt toast that I got into weightlifting and, yeah, upgraded to a heavier. I actually got kettlebells, two heavy kettlebells.[CW for numbers talk if that's not good for you!]CorinneWait, I want to know how much.VirginiaMy previous heavyweight was 20 pounds, and like when I do deadlifts, or--Corinne20 pounds in each hand?VirginiaYeah, I could do 20 pounds in each hand for deadlifts. So like, 40 pound deadlifts, 40 pound RDLs, 40 pounds for lunges, or farmer carries. And I have even been able to use the 20 pounds with some upper body, like, sometimes bicep curls. I can do that. And so I got two 30 pound kettlebells.CorinneWow.VirginiaI can definitely do both of them for a deadlift and an RDL. I'm working on a farmer's carry, like a grocery carry type of thing. I'm working on them for some other stuff. Just playing around with this idea of oh yes, you can lift heavier. CorinneAwesome.VirginiaIt's super satisfying. CorinneI love that. VirginiaWhat about you? CorinneWell, now I feel like I should have a fitness related Butter, but I don't have one. I'm also going to show you my Butter, and I just have to grab it. VirginiaI'm excited. CorinneOh, okay, this is a Butter that was also sent to me. It is a Butter that I'm giving to my little baby nephew.VirginiaOh, I'm excited to see this.CorinneIt is the cutest little sweater I've ever seen in my life.VirginiaI mean! There's a sheep on it.CorinneIt's from the brand Misha and Puff. This is an expensive baby sweater, let me tell you. It is nearing $200. It's also the softest thing I've ever felt, and it has a sheep on it.VirginiaI mean, so no pressure to your sister, but she has to have like, five more kids so that that sweater can get enough use. Because the thing about baby sweaters is they fit for five minutes. CorinneI know. It's 18 to 24 months. Virginia That's a good range. He'll be able to wear it for a while. But I'm just saying, like, she's got to have more kids now so you can have more cute babies in that sweater.CorinneYeah, yeah. I want to say, like, I was kind of skeptical of, like, a wool sweater for a baby, but it's just like, it's so soft.VirginiaI will say we are very lucky, I have several knitters in my family. So my kids had some hand\knit sweaters, including some handknit sweaters that my grandmother made for me when I was little, that we had handed down. So I think it's a totally great investment. Knitting is an incredible talent and worth supporting. All right, well, I hope this has everyone feeling good about the new year and what's coming up for us. I want to hear about people's fitness goals or lack thereof! We support it all.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

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

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.And it's time for the episode we look forward to all year long—ever since we made it a tradition exactly one year ago! It is time for... The Year In Butters, where we look back at everything we've recommended in the past year and tell you what's still buttery and what has...gone rancid. If you're new here: Butter is what we call the recommendation segment at the end of every episode. It might be a new favorite food, a great book, an experience, or a state of mind. But since we give recs every week, some Butters stand the test of time more than others! Find out if we still love...🧈 Tracking Virginia's hydration? 🧈 Corinne's new shower head? 🧈 The $16 sundress Virginia bought last summer! 🧈 And so many more! To get the full schmear, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Membership starts at just $5 per month and is the best way to support our work! (Just want the Butter, no strings attached? Buy this episode for just $4.)🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links! Episode 224 TranscriptCorinneWell our big realization when we did this last year was that a lot of things we had recommended, like clothes, hadn't stood the test of time.VirginiaThey sure did not. We took a real hard look at my fast fashion problem. And I think I've made some real progress on that front, so I'm excited. I think a lot of our Butters held up pretty well this year...but we'll see. CorinneYeah, when I was compiling this I could tell that we were having a reaction to the clothes recommendation thing, because I think there is maybe, like, one this year.VirginiaWell, it is a lot to think of a Butter all the time! When I invented this segment, I did not know what I was doing. Podcast guests always get very nervous about the Butter. (We're not going to go over the guests’ Butters, by the way. These are just the Butters that Corinne and I have recommended together on our episodes, or we'd be here all day.) It is a lot of effort every week thinking of a Butter. I try really hard to think of something that's a little quirky and random, and not necessarily something you have to buy, though sometimes they are things you could buy. What are your criteria for a good Butter?CorinneWell, I think we have both found that if you don't think about it a little bit in advance, and then when you're on the spot, everything you've ever liked just falls out of your brain.VirginiaYes, then you don't like anything. Nothing is good.CorinneThis year, for 2025, I really leaned into food and media Butters. I was basically recommending whatever I was enjoying making for dinner or a snack, or what I was watching or reading.VirginiaI do think those are the best butters. Although I always enjoy it when we have a wild card. My favorite ever Burnt Toast Butter probably still is your sun face shield, which was one of the very first Butters you ever buttered. It was so out of the box and delightful to me.CorinneThat one really did not stand the test of time.VirginiaI know. I guess for me—as much as I think it's valuable for us to look at what Butters hold up—sometimes a Butter is just a moment in time. Not all Butters are lifetime Butters. Some Butters are more fleeting. They're like the the sand art and, you know, that's fine.CorinneMaybe in 2026 we should try to have more wackadoo butters.VirginiaI would definitely be here for that. Okay, should we jump in and go back and forth?CorinneMy first Butter of last year was the Connally Goods denim chore jacket, which is named after me. My last name, Fay.VirginiaSo obviously a great Butter right there. CorinneI stand by this one. VirginiaFor you to back away from a denim chore coat would be breaking news. CorinneThey actually just came out with a brown version that has blue stitching, and I ordered that.VirginiaSo, you are doubling down on this Butter. You're going to be a Double Butter on the denim chore coat.CorinneI think that is my only clothing one of the entire year.VirginiaWell, and Connally Goods is not fast fashion, right? It's company we feel great about supporting. A good slow fashion brand. And my Butter from that episode was the brownies you sent me for Christmas last year from Vesta Chocolate. And I'm going to say, Yeah, that one holds up. I mean, I haven't had them since, but this is making me be like, ooh, who do I want to send those to? Maybe myself?CorinneI think it's hard for brownies to not hold up.VirginiaThat's going to be an evergreen Butter in the Burnt Toast universe. Okay, your next one was the TV show Bad Sisters.CorinneGood one. I still like that show. VirginiaI still haven't watched the second season. The first season was amazing.CorinneYeah, can't say I've re watched it, but.VirginiaIt's a great clothes show.CorinneYes, and I love Sharon Horgan.Okay, yours was Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.VirginiaThis is a good Butter and if you don't have that card game, and you regularly play card games, especially with kids, I recommend it. It's great if you have younger kids who aren't as good at harder card games—they can do well at it. We haven't been playing it as much recently, but I'm not getting rid of it. I think we've just cycled into other games for the moment? But it's a good one to have on hand if you have a crowd of people you're trying to get united in some way. This is a good crowd pleaser. CorinneYeah, that sounds fun. I feel like sometimes when you play a game a lot it gets too easy.VirginiaYou can get expansion packs that make it harder, and we do have some of those, but we just kind of maxed out on it for a minute. I could see that come back around.Okay, I've completely forgotten what your next one is. This outline just says the word Anora and I don't know what that is.CorinneThat's crazy, because it was a movie that came out at the very end of 2024 and won a bunch of awards.VirginiaOh yes! And it had what's her face from Better Things in it?CorinneYes. Mikey Madison. I stand by that. I thought that was a really good movie.VirginiaI have not seen it, but I love Mikey Madison in Better Things, which I believe was another Butter of mine last year. So, yes, great.CorinneYour next one was shearling, big buckle, Birkenstock clogs.VirginiaOn my feet right now. Absolute lifetime Butter, these clogs. I think I'm on my third pair? I've been wearing them eight years probably. They do wear out. I wish they lasted a little longer. Shearling often starts to kind of go bald on you. But they are my forever house shoes in cold weather, and they make me so happy.CorinneThat sounds really comfy. VirginiaI've still never bought Birkenstock clogs for outside of the house wear. but they're great slippers. If you're someone who works from home, invest in your slippers. Your feet are important. Okay, your next one is the book The Safekeep.CorinneThat was one of the best books I read this year.VirginiaI co-sign. I read it on your recommendation. My whole book club loved it. And we do not always agree on books. We don't always have the same taste, and we were all uniformly obsessed with that book. And then my mom's book club read it, and they were more mixed.CorinneOoh, interesting. VirginiaI think it was a little spicy for them? But I think I like that for them. My mom loved it. She got it.CorinneThat was one of those books I read, and then was just trying to get everyone I know to read it.VirginiaBecause you just want to talk about it. It's wild, it's so wild. I'm excited for anyone who needs a good holiday read. It's just such a good immersive novel. If you haven't read it, pick it up for your winter break read. CorinneOkay, your next one is one I am very curious about. It is the Water Llama hydration tracking app.VirginiaWe might have reached our first dud.CorinneHow long was Water Llama in your life?VirginiaI definitely Water Llama-ed for a few months. CorinneOh, that's a pretty long time. VirginiaI had maybe, like two-ish months, three months? So for folks who don't remember: This is an app that tracks your hydration throughout the day. The reason I started doing it was because I was having so many headaches and I thought I was dehydrated. And then I figured out that probably I have so many headaches because I have sleep apnea, so hydration became less of a focus. But what I'm actually proud of is that I didn't keep tracking. Because I am someone who can be a little too into tracking. I think the fact that I let go of tracking Water Llama is a sign of personal growth. CorinneI love that. VirginiaAnd if you do need to track hydration for medical reasons or whatever, it is a delightful app to use. But it's also okay to break up with tracking when it doesn't serve you.I do feel like I'm overall a little better hydrated, though, from the experience.  When I do a weightlifting workout now, I always make sure to have my big water bottle with me now. All right, you were really on the media kick. Your next one is the TV show Severance.CorinneStand by it. That was great. I feel like it was really fun to be watching Severance every week earlier this year. It was one of those shows that everyone I know was talking about. VirginiaI missed out on that! For some reason I loved the first season and have not watched the second season. CorinneOh my gosh.VirginiaI gotta get that and Bad Sisters going again.CorinneThis is Apple TV. You need to re subscribe to Apple TV.Virginia I am. I'm watching Slow Horses on it right now. So these will be next. CorinneAll right. Yours from this episode was...meatballs.VirginiaI mean, obviously I'm still pro-meatballs. I'm assuming there was a specific kind of meatball? Or a reason?CorinneI don't think there was a specific recipe, but I think you were like, "Meatballs are great because some people can eat pasta, some people can eat sauce, some people can eat meatballs."But it's so funny because I just saw a Tiktok that was like, "What is the deal with New York Times Cooking and meatballs? They are pushing meatball propaganda." And later in the year, I did recommend a New York Times Cooking meatball recipe.VirginiaWe're all in Big Meatball's pocket. I mean, I do feel like this recommendation could have been "dinner." Virginia's Butter is...eating.CorinneNo, I think it was like, meatballs as a good meal where people can pick and choose. Some people can eat pasta, some people can eat meatballs.VirginiaWe do still use them that way. Because the night the kids come back to my house is always a pasta night and one of my kids is a vegetarian, so we can't do a meat sauce. So we do often make her favorite marinara sauce and then have meatballs on the side for the meat eaters. I stand by it as a dinner crowd pleaser. CorinneEven as a single person meal, I feel like meatballs make pasta and sauce feel more substantial.VirginiaI definitely agree with that. Okay, you have Dune Sunscreen.CorinneI really like that sunscreen. I will say it is very expensive. It's less of a makeup-y sunscreen, so it's pretty liquidy. And it has a slight green color when it comes out. But I like how it goes into my skin. Virginia"I like putting green sunscreen in my skin."CorinneOkay, it's not bright green.VirginiaHave you considered a career as a beauty influencer?CorinneYes, obviously.Virginia"Guys, it's real green, and then it just goes into your skin."CorinneOkay, so you know what? It's a good sunscreen. Okay, well, yours, beauty influencer, was the magic Vulva Balm.VirginiaYou know, it's not green. And it does go into your skin. Certain types of skin. I'm not using this as regularly. Whatever chafing issues I was having at the time have have resolved, but I definitely keep it on hand. And I think if you're dealing with any dryness, it's a good starting point. I will say, don't rule out, like, do you have a yeast infection? Do you need some vaginal estrogen cream? For those of us in the perimenopause season, there can be a lot going on down there that you want to pay attention to. But this is a good starting point for short-term relieving discomfort. It's a great product. Okay, Corinne, how is your new shower head?CorinneIt is still there! Still working.VirginiaIs it bringing you as much joy as it was initially?CorinneWell, I think the joy I was experiencing at the time was that my old shower head was really effed up and not working well, and I changed it out myself. And I was just like, oh, that was a lot easier than I expected. And the new one is so much better than the old one. So I will say the joy has worn off a little bit. Now I'm just like, yeah, I have a shower that works.VirginiaAlways great, but also sort of a baseline expectation.CorinneYeah, but at the time, it was a revelation.VirginiaWell, I do think the advice to solve one small annoying thing in your house is good. That really does bring a lot of joy when you can tackle something, especially when it's something you think is going to be a nightmare to fix, and then it's actually not that big a deal.CorinneI didn't realize how bad the old one was until I put in the new one. And I was like, whoa, I could have more than a trickle of water hitting my bodyVirginiaThis is like when we first started dating, Jack changed the light bulb in my shower that had been out for like, I don't know, seven years, probably? I just had accepted that I lived that way. I was like, "I have a dark shower. Some people have dark showers." CorinneThat's really funny.VirginiaAnd it is a really dark shower. It's like, not a tub with a curtain. It's like, there's only one little door at the end. So it was real dark, and now it's not. That was quite revelation to me.CorinneWow. I can see why you kept Jack around.VirginiaWho knew light bulbs could be changed, guys? I learned. 2025 was a big year for me.CorinneAll right, your next one was giant coloring sheets. (Other options here and here.)VirginiaI do think these are great. We haven't done them in a while, so it's possible this was a Moment in Time Butter. It's a great thing to put out on the table if you're going to have people over, or if you just need a casual way to interact with your kids, especially if your kids are in a prickly phase. Just sitting down and starting to color is often a way to bring them like a moth to the flame. But it is the kind of thing that will stop working after a bit. Because then they're like, we've colored a giant coloring sheet. I don't know. It didn't become a family passion. I think when I first got them, I was like, "This is our new hobby!" And it's more like...we did this for a bit. Maybe I'll break it out with a different group of kids sometime. But I do remember when Amy's kids visited, and I put one out thinking it would be a good way for the kids to all kind of bond, who don't see each other super often. And nobody touched it. They were also off doing other things. It wasn't like we needed it. CorinneSounds kind of similar to taco, llama whatever. Goat Cheese. Water. Hydration. Taco Llama, hydration. Goat cheese.VirginiaYeah, I think sometimes you hit on something that really works to bring kids together and create a joyful family moment, and it's okay to just let it be like that one time or two or three times, and not have it be a forever thing.CorinneYeah, totally.VirginiaAll right, yours is black snail tea from Little Red Cup Tea Company.CorinneI stand by this one. An old friend of mine runs Little Red Cup Tea Company. And black snail is a really good tea that I always have on hand. But they also have a bunch of good teas. If you're a tea drinker, it's all Chinese tea, and I would say it's an upgrade if you're just drinking like whatever grocery store black tea.VirginiaCelestial Seasonings, no shade.CorinneYeah, delicious, delicious tea. Okay, yours was starting plants from seed.VirginiaOh, yeah, we did a lot of that this spring. I did way more from seed than I ever had before. And yeah, I stand by it. I had a really nice mix of flowers in the cutting garden that I wouldn't have had if I had just bought starts at the nursery. I was able to really plan which colors I wanted and grow different varieties of zinnias and cosmos that you don't usually find. So that was really fun. And we had great tomatoes. I'm trying to think if we had any real duds on what we started. We were a little too successful. We ended up with a lot of plants we had to give away.CorinneWill you be doing this again?VirginiaYes, I think we will. I think we'll try to be more strategic. And we also need to think through some logistics about where in the house the seeds live. We did them in the guest room last year. That worked pretty well, but then it was a pain to carry everything downstairs when it was time to start putting them out. I definitely wouldn't recommend it so much for new gardeners. I think it's a lot of work and stress to keep your seedlings going. And we did have a crop fail because we went on vacation and the pet sitter didn't water enough, and then we had to restart some stuff. So it's not without its headaches. But if you've been like a, you know, a seasoned gardener looking to up your game, I think it's time. I think you're ready. CorinneWhen do you start stuff? VirginiaWell, it's all plant specific. And depends on your growing zone. So in New York, there's some stuff I could start as early as March, and there's some stuff it doesn't make sense to start till the end of April. It's all over the map. So that's a lot of planning. For the next episode, you recommended the book Stag Dance, which is another co-Butter recommendation.CorinneYeah, That is a book by Torrey Peters. And another one of, I would say, the best books I read this year. YReally enjoyed.VirginiaAlso endorsed by my Hot Tub Book Club. Apparently you pick all our best reads. So good job. CorinneWhat are you guys reading now? I need a rec.VirginiaWe just did Kate Bear's new book of poetry, which was a fun one. But we haven't picked for next month. Yeah, Stag Dance is fun. It's really strange. It's short stories, which I often don't like, but I did like in this case.CorinneYours from this episode was...chickens.VirginiaStill pro-chickens. Also can't underscore enough that I would not get chickens if you don't have people in your household committed to chicken care. Because part of why I can endorse them is that I do very little work for them. But we are getting a lot of eggs now, and I am really enjoying the egg situation. And they are quite charming. As pets go—and keep in mind, I am a household that has four species of pets. We have mammals, we have chickens, we have reptiles I've had a fish tank in the past. I'm a seasoned pet owner—I would say chickens are less work than a lot of pets, and higher reward. They're not much more work than reptiles, but they're a lot more interactive and fun and you get the eggs and it gets everyone outside. So I really like having chickens with kids.CorinneHave you had to deal with any chicken death?VirginiaNo, we are very lucky that so far, all eight of our ladies are going strong. We haven't had chicken tragedies. We put a lot of thought into predator protection, which is a big concern in our neighborhood. I think we have some neighbors who are less careful about predator protection, and therefore they're kind of the frontline chickens and ours are surviving. I would say the greatest threat to them is our Bernedoodle, Penelope, who loves them so much and sometimes gets a little confused about her role as chicken guarder. Um, I don't know how to pronounce your next one, Mango Izze?CorinneYes, this is like a mango flavored like soda type of thing. I mean, still delicious. I'm not feeling enthusiastic about this right now. I don't have any in my fridge, But I did go through a real Mango Izze phase.VirginiaI could see mango being one of those flavors that you're really into for a bit, and then you're like, I've had a lot of mango. I'm ready for something else.CorinneI started on the mango, and then I got some other Izze flavors, and I think mango is actually really the best. And also, like, it's less versatile than just having seltzer.All right, your swing for the living room.VirginiaOh yeah. Oh man, best $80 I've ever spent on my children, hands down, is the sensory swing in our family room. I did have to replace the fabric because a child, and I don't know that it was my child, but some child did go in the swing with child scissors. and there was a hole that then turned into ripping the swing. CorinneWhoa. VirginiaDidn't see that coming. But not sure I can blame the swing manufacturers for this. CorinneSwinging with scissors sounds really scary.VirginiaObviously, it was not a parent-endorsed move. I wasn't there when it happened. I don't really know the details. I just know suddenly the swing had a big rip in it, and we've had a talk about no sharp objects in the swing. But the second one is holding up very well, and I'd already put the bolt in the ceiling and the cable and everything. I just had to replace the fabric. So it wasn't a huge issue. Obviously, this is kid to kid, but if you have a kid with any kind of sensory stuff, neurodivergence, but also just like any kid who, needs a comforting spot. It's a really, really great tool. Swinging is really regulating for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. CorinneThat's awesome. VirginiaOkay, the next episode, I think this was a summer episode, and we were both on a salad kick, so that's kind of funny. We don't tell each other our butters before we record usually, so it's like, then we just both happen to recommend salads. So yours was the Smitten Kitchen garlic lime steak and noodle salad.CorinneYeah, that's a good recipe. I stand by it. But yeah, again, a summer recipe. I'm not making it right now. It's a cold noodle with steak thing. VirginiaI mean, it sounds great.CorinneYeah, I'm more going for warm foods right now. And yours was sushi salad. It was like leftover sushi made into a salad.VirginiaYes, I do still do this with leftover sushi, because you know how sometimes you over order a little on sushi? You don't have a whole roll left. You have like three pieces, or you have like a weird amount of sushi where it's not a meal on its own. CorinneAnd I feel like leftover sushi gets a little dried out.VirginiaChop it up, toss it in a salad with whatever. I usually do, like, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, maybe some shallot or red onion or something. I try to do some, like, vaguely Asian ish feeling vinaigrette. I have, like, a store bought honey, Ginger one I use a lot. Or if I have some of the spicy mayonnaise left over, I'll use that to make a dressing. CorinneThat sounds good. VirginiaIt's such a good lunch. It's really quick. It's a great thing to do with leftover sushi. Love it. All right, you were back to TV the next month with rewatching Girls.CorinneI mean, stand by it. VirginiaYou have not backed away from a single Butter!CorinneI feel like my most backed away from was Mango Izze.VirginiaOh yeah, you were a little over that, but that could come back, too. CorinneI mean, it's a classic, you know? What am I going to say?VirginiaYeah, absolutely. Lena Dunham is a gift. CorinneYour next one is a fast fashion, Old Navy crinkle gauze maxi dress and not worrying about bra straps.VirginiaOkay, I continue to not worry about visible bra straps, and that has been liberating for me. Yeah, the maxi dress. Was a $16 crinkly cotton maxi dress ever going to be a lifetime purchase? Like, did we expect that from it? We didn't. I don't think. (Note: It appears to be gone from Old Navy's website, so clearly they didn't expect it to last either!) CorinneIt will not be coming with us into 2026? VirginiaI mean, I don't know. It might. It's also like, it's December. We just had our first snow day. Obviously it's nowhere near my brain right now. The fabric was looking a little worn by the end of the season. But it might be like a pool cover up, or it might not. It was for the moment. All right, yeah. I know the next one is a shopping purchase that holds up... Baggu bags.CorinneYep, stand by it. Feel like I really doubled down on things that are going to stand the test of time. I just used a Baggu Bag this morning.VirginiaI feel like I use them in all aspects of my life. They go in the car to the grocery store. I have all the pouches and organized things. My favorite purse is a Baggu. It's a great brand. It's a great brand. CorinneAgree.All right, what about one minute planks and possibly learning how to do a push-up?VirginiaI think what we're learning about us is...I have a lot of cool ideas.CorinneThat's true. VirginiaYou are better at committing. You're a little more loyal.CorinneI am very loyal. Loyal is a nice way of putting what we're seeing here.VirginiaI have more flights of fancy. Perhaps there was a week where I did one minute planks every day. That week did not continue into a second week. I mean, some of it was, I was doing the one minute planks because I was really short on time, and I was trying to get some movement into my day during a busy week or whatever. So I do think they're great for that. And I've just been able to get back into my normal workout routine. So if I've done a good weights workout two days ago. I'm not like, Oh God, I better do a one minute push up today. Like, what? No, it's fine. Learning to do push-ups remains an elusive bucket list goal. Maybe someday. Now is not that time for me and push-ups. No, I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable with my little pulses I can do.CorinneHell yeah.VirginiaMy counter push-ups. That's about it.All right, Fox Family potato chips from Maine. CorinneI mean, now we're getting into the really recent ones.VirginiaSo I assume that's still good. CorinneStill good. I wish I had some right now.VirginiaWhat would make one turn on a high quality potato chip? CorinneYeah. Nothing. VirginiaSpeaking of loyalty. We have values here.CorinnePotato chips.VirginiaFor sure, a core value. CorinneOkay, yours was pressing flowers.VirginiaWell, I mean, I'm not currently pressing flowers, but it's December. There are no flowers to press. But we did press flowers, and I'm very happy to own a flower press.CorinneAre the pressed flowers still present in your life?VirginiaYes! We framed some in little acrylic frames, and they're really cute. They're by my bathroom on a windowsill, and they look very pretty. And I think it's something I will do again, for sure. I'm glad to own a flower press. I don't know that pressing flowers is something one would do, like, weekly. CorinneYeah, no. VirginiaHow frequently are we expected to do it? if I press flowers once a season, I'll feel great about that. CorinneYeah, it seems like a good gardening add-on.VirginiaIt's a nice way to appreciate flowers that don't have good vase life. The really delicate stuff is the best for pressing flowers. Whereas, like, a Dahlia, you actually it's, like, too thick, it's hard to press. Your next one, I think you recommended more than once. I think you recommended it as a Butter on an episode, but then also during a live we talked about it. I feel like I've heard you talk about Taskmaster on more than two occasions. CorinneSo the real question is, when are you going to start watching it? VirginiaWhen am I going to start watching it? I have not watched it yet. CorinneI think one or both of your kids would enjoy it. I think Jack might enjoy it. I think you might enjoy it. It's a great show. It's funny. I endorse it. I know Burnt Toasties are Taskmaster fans.VirginiaWe heard from the people on this one.CorinneI think originally Aubrey Gordon endorsed it, so if you need someone cooler than me to recommend it...VirginiaThere's no one cooler than you. And I am sure Aubrey would agree with me on that, although Aubrey is very cool. You know what I'm going to do? I've been looking for a show the whole household can watch together. Because we don't have a show we can all four watch together super easily due to competing ages and preferences and mostly, opinions about how much you can talk when you're watching a show, which is a question, my children are real polar opposites on. So it can be hard to get them to watch something together, because one of them talks a lot and one of them does not like that. However, this feels like a show where some talking is okay.CorinneIt’s a competition show. But it's really, like, silly. And the season has a little bit of an arc, because it's the same people for 8 or 10 episodes or whatever. It's British. It's your cultural heritage.VirginiaNo, of course, my people. I'm going to try it as a dinner show, and I will report back to you. I'm going to say we have to do it.CorinneI feel like it's maybe PG-13 or something. There are sometimes innuendos.VirginiaAt their father's house, The Simpsons is the dinnertime show. CorinneOh, okay, I think we're okay.You recommended moving stuff around so you're more comfortable. Like moving your desk.VirginiaI moved my desk out from the wall. As you can see, I still have a wonky zoom background because I sit kitty corner in the room now, instead of with my back against a straight wall. And there's so much more room for my body, and I'm really glad I did it. Move furniture if your body does not fit! Okay, we're back to meatballs. Really could be the name of this segment. Instead of Butter, it's Meatballs. And this was your Korean barbecue style meatballs from the New York Times.CorinneThat's a great recipe. And I will say that I made it so much that I am slightly sick of it.VirginiaSo maybe not a long-term Butter?CorinnneIt was a moment in time. I made it for myself a bunch of times. I made it with my mom. My mom made it for my sister. I made it for a friend who I was bringing dinner to. Some friends started making it. It was a good recipe. It has spread throughout my community and and I will not be making it again for a few months probably.VirginiaBut it had legs as a recipe. Meatballs are a great thing to bring people. If you're bringing food to family with a new baby.Corinne Totally. And it's not a meatballs and sauce type recipe. It's just kind of like a, I don't know...meatballs.VirginiaHave some rice with it, or good bread or something.CorinneYeah, exactly. You recommended planting fall bulbs?VirginiaOh, Lord, okay, okay. My Butters are the ones that all fall apart under scrutiny. CorinneHow could this fall apart??VirginiaNo, I recommend it. And I did plant a bunch. However, have some somebody checking your bulb orders and making sure you don't over order beyond the amount of bulbs you can realistically plant. Because I have planted like 300 daffodils, and a bunch of other things. And I still have a whole bunch of tulips and a whole bunch of alliums that have not gotten in the ground, and it is December 3, and we had our first snow yesterday. So I am just looking at the calendar, and I'm like, when am I going to get these in the ground? Like, when is the snow going to melt? I need a rare 50 degree day where I can now get back into it. So this was one where my enthusiasm exceeded my available time and energy. When I've had a Sunday afternoon where I could go plant bulbs, I really just needed to take a nap, and I did that. CorinneCould you hire some help?VirginiaThese are going in my raised beds. So it's literally like, I need to walk out there, dump the bags of bulbs in the raised bed and then dump soil on top. Like, I could hire help for that, but it feels wrong. And the fun part is figuring out the combinations and I want to do it. So I endorse plantnig fall bulbs. But maybe just have a friend on hand to say, do you need to order that many bulbs? Maybe you order a few fewer bulbs? Because you might be tired.CorinneI helped my mom plan some bulbs when I was still in Maine, and minutes after we finished, they were being eaten by squirrels. So yeah.VirginiaThat's another frustration. CorinneSo maybe planting a lot will result in more surviving? VirginiaThat is part of the logic. And tulips tend to be very squirrel--they like them. So you have to have a protected location, which is why they go in my raised beds and I cover them with chicken wire until spring. So I do endorse this. It's a great Butter. But if you're someone who has a little bit of an online shopping problem. You might over order and find yourself in a mess in December. Stay tuned. Maybe I'll get them in the ground this weekend. Somehow. Maybe the snow will melt. We'll see. All right, this is the most recent episode we did. So to be fair, these are recent Butters. Can we say they will be lifetime Butters? We don't know. I, however, do feel confident that this Mayana Chocolate Bar you recommended is going to remain a fave.CorinneI mean, yes, very delicious. And I will say I did order some to my house, and now I'm a little sick of them. VirginiaOh, my lord. CorinneSo maybe my pattern is going all in on Butter, and then it growing old.VirginiaYou go too hard. It's not really the fault of the butter. CorinneNo, and like, I'm sure that we'll still eat all of them.VirginiaBut you hyperfixate. CorinneI bought a bunch, and I have them, and now I'm like, hmmm I also need, like, a different treat. I don't want to only be eating these. VirginiaBut also that seems like a great thing to have on hand when you have guests over, or, if you, like, need to bring a treat to somebody. Now you've got a treat stash. Being the friend who brings good chocolate is a good friend to be. Corinne Hell yeah, yeah. Okay, your red Adidas.VirginiaThey are so comfortable. I wore them for airplane travel, and they were really comfortable walking through airports. I love them. because they are so comfortable. I'm considering getting a pair in a more neutral color palette to have even more versatility with them, because the red goes with most things, but not everything. But yeah, they're really great, and the red is so fun. And I get compliments every time I wear them. And I'm like, I know, Corinne has great taste.CorinneI wanted to get a pair during the Black Friday sale. I would be like, this color, and then it would sell out. And it happened like, three times, and I feel like, now I'm waiting for the refresh. Virginia All right. What do we think of the Butters this year? We had a lot of really good Butters.CorinneI think we had good Butters. I am kind of like, maybe I should have some more crazy whimsical stuff and less, like a television show that is objectively good.VirginiaThat everybody agrees is amazing. You're like, "I also like this Oscar winning movie. Great choice."CorinneMore plastic sun shields and fewer Girls. VirginiaI think you need less safe Butters. Although these were all excellent recs and  you did recommend my two favorite books of the year. So you know, you do have excellent taste in culture for sure. CorinneYou know, you didn't rec any books this year.VirginiaI think it's because we do so many authors on the podcast? So I often don't do books for Butter.I think I do have these little crazes I get into, like I'm tracking my water! I'm doing planks! And I think it's good for everybody to know that if I'm recommending something like that, it might be more of a just for now Butter. But I don't have regrets about either of those. I think it's good. And same with my recommendations for kids, I should try to drill a little more into when I think it's going to be a really durable kid related recommendation.Corinne I mean, kids change and grow so fast.VirginiaIt's so hard to predict. The swing could have been a bust, and instead it's beloved, which is good because it's permanently installed in my ceiling. And, coloring sheets have had their moment in the sun. CorinneWell, should we go out with a Butter? VirginiaLet's go out with a Butter!CorinneI'm going to put mine on right now. VirginiaOh boy. CorinneI'm excited. This could be a sunshield type butter. Maybe don't look. Close your eyes.Virginia I'm closing my eyes. CorinneYou can open them now. I want to recommend: This festive red collar from Connally Goods.VirginiaI feel like you've been wanting one of these for so long!CorinneI really have and I've been like, this is not practical. But I ordered a bunch of stuff from Connally Goods, and I got this, and I have only worn it once. But you know, it really does jazz things up.VirginiaIt's jazzing! You were just in a purple sweatshirt, and now! CorinneI'm in a purple sweatshirt with a bright red frilly collar.VirginiaIt is frilly. It is large. It's not a little collar.CorinneNo, it's substantial. VirginiaIt's definitely Henry the Eighth vibes, like a ruff. I mean, it's not layered, but maybe a pilgrim collar? I'm trying to think, what's being evoked here?CorinneI feel like it's Alice in Wonderland.VirginiaI see that, too. I love it. And you're just throwing it on any outfit.CorinneYeah. I've worn it out into the world once, and it was like, to a friend's house, and I was like, I can't wait for my friends to see this and talk about it.  VirginiaWait and did they?CorinneYeah, they were like, what is that? It's amazing.VirginiaI'm glad they weren't just like, "don't say anything about the collar," because I'm really hoping someone comments.CorinneNo, no, yeah, it's, I mean, you're going to say something about it, I feel like, right? VirginiaYou have talked before about being interested in a bib. We've talked about how we both bibs were more normalized. And this feels like, once you're done with it as a collar, just turn it around, and it's a great bib option. CorinneI wouldn't want to get soup on it, though. VirginiaNo, I understand. I'm saying, like, when you're when you're done, keeping it pristine for collar usage. Just seems very versatile. Goes with everything.CorinneI do like the idea that you can use it to turn a non-collared shirt into something a little more fancy.VirginiaYou can fancy up a lot of garments.CorinneAnd I think they have it in other colors. VirginiaWell, I love it. Great Butter.  CorinneThank you. What's your Butter? VirginiaMy Butter? In light of recent conversation, I will own that this is a Butter of the moment, perhaps unlike your collar.CorinneMy forever collar, yes, definitely.VirginiaBut I'm on a real kick this week with organizing. Like, just one kitchen cupboard, or like one small closet. And I think this is absolutely something I do when I'm stressed, and it is the holidays and life and blah, blah, blah, but it gives me a sense of calm and regulation. This is my sensory swing. Is like, can I just like, solve this one function issue in my house? So a big one is both Jack and my 12 year old love baking. They bake together a lot, but we had all the baking stuff in the kitchen stored between two or three different cabinets. So whenever they baked, it was like, everything comes out, and where does it all get put back and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I had one large cabinet that I was able to empty out, find new homes for that stuff, and then make that the dedicated baking cabinet. And it's so satisfying to my brain. CorinneThat's great. VirginiaI guess this is similar to moving furniture to fit your body. And maybe this will continue. I just don't know that I'll be organizing something every week for the rest of my life. Probably not. But I think if you're feeling a little overwhelmed finding one small space you can tackle can feel really good. CorinneAwesome. VirginiaAll right. Well, this was a delightful episode. Listeners, tell us! Did you try any of our Butters this year? If so, are you still feeling buttery about them or did you too stop tracking your hydration? No judgment, safe space! And if you have new Butters for us, drop them in the comments! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

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

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your December Extra Butter episode.Today we've got a couple of rants and answers to your listener questions. On the agenda: ⭐️ The tyranny of School Spirit Weeks — especially during the holiday season! ⭐️ How it feels to date another fat person 👀🔥⭐️ How we're surviving — even thriving? — this Ozempic Season. To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.Join us here! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 222 TranscriptVirginiaOkay, before we dive in, I have a quick rant, which I think the moms listening are really going to feel me on. I would like, Corinne, to quickly rant about school spirit weeks. Because they're really breaking me a little bit this year. Do you know what school spirit weeks are like?CorinneWell, I saw this on our agenda, and I was like, wait, what grade is your oldest child in?VirginiaShe's in seventh grade. CorinneOkay, that is too young for school spirit weeks. VirginiaOhhh Corinne. Corinne. Sweet summer child. School spirit weeks start in preschool. I've been doing this the entire time I've had a child attending any sort of school.CorinneBut that's the whole thing! That’s more work for parents.VirginiaCorrect. School spirit weeks predate a child's cognitive ability to have school spirit.CorinneThat's not fair! Then who is it for? That makes it seem like it's for the teachers. Not that teachers don't deserve to have joyful spirit filled weeks.VirginiaSure, sure, I always want to appreciate the teachers. I don't know that the teachers enjoy it that much either though.CorinneWho is setting this up?The PTA or something?VirginiaThe PTA sets up some of them. Part of the problem in my own school community, is that school spirit weeks come from several different factions, and they don't appear to have ever coordinated their calendars. The elementary student council runs one, so it's a bunch of fifth graders organizing it. So they're jazzed for it! But they're expecting pre-K through fifth grade to participate, which doesn't make sense because the younger kids can't do it themselves. And then the week after they do theirs, we have Red Ribbon Week, which is a drug awareness thing. So there are themes like "it's no sweat to say no to drugs" so wear your sweatpants. CorinneUmm, okay.VirginiaBecause I'm sure wearing sweatpants as children completely prevented both of us from ever trying any drugs of any kind.CorinneI was really thinking I could come up with some great themes for that week. But I shall say nothing more of that here. Not for fifth grade.VirginiaSo the high school does their own thing. The middle school and elementary school are sometimes synced up, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes both my children have a random pajama day, but sometimes only one. They just come at us. Holiday spirit week is coming up this month, but they can't be too "it's Christmas" because they're trying to be non-denominational. But it'll be like, "wear your winter hats!" "wear something with snow on it!" CorinneOh my gosh. Are your kids into it?VirginiaI am fortunate that my kids historically only care about the day they can wear pajamas to school. Of all the themes of the week, that's usually the only one they're really like, "I want pajama day." And if they're allowed to bring a stuffy to school. But I should also note that we may re-up this rant in June because for the final 26 days of the school year, my school does something called the ABC Countdown, where every day is a letter theme, and it's like "B is for beach day, bring your beach towel to school."CorinneWhat?!?VirginiaIt's like all counting down to the end of the year?CorinneWhy are we making school harder? I don't think I ever participated in a Spirit Day, I will say.Virginia I do remember Crazy Hat Day being something I was very passionate about in middle school.CorinneThat does sound like something you would be passionate about.VirginiaBut when they are like, "wear sports team stuff," we don't support sports teams, you know? Despite my recent foray into football, I'm not going to get either my children in an Eagles jersey. That's a non-starter. I don't know sometimes they're low lifts, but even when they're low lifts, it's another thing to remember. And I have so many things in my brain at all times related to my children. I don't need another thing to remember. I also do think, depending on the district and the depending the way it's executed, spirit weeks can be really ableist and classist. There is often pressure to buy special things. If it's a crazy sweater day and you don't happen to be a family that owns a whimsical Christmas sweater, what are you supposed to do? Go buy your kids something? Not to sound like a Scrooge, because this is a December episode, but I'm coming out against all school spirit, period, as a concept, at the moment.CorinneAs a child-free person, I'm with you. I would not be participating. VirginiaMine mostly don't care. So we mostly opt out. But every now and then, there's this last minute, suddenly caring about it and it's so much pressure. So I'm opening the floor up to the listeners on this one. I'm sure there are people who would like to share their own rants. And teachers, I want to know, do you hate it, too? Is it making your job better? In which case I will try harder to participate, because I want your job to be better. CorinneI mean, I'm just imagining having 20 kids at the end of the school year with beach towels. It doesn't sound like it would make teaching easier.VirginiaAnd that's just B day. You've got 24 more to go.CorinneI'm sure 50 percent of kids lose their towels. VirginiaWhat do they even do with the towels once they get to school? It's never been made clear. Well, that's my rant about school spirit week. Now I have one more topic for us to get into before we go to listener questions. I have been struggling with a lot of getting dressed anxiety recently. It seems to have upticked for me. Do you go through periods where it is harder to figure out what to wear than others? How would you say it ebbs and flows for you?CorinneI want to say yes. I feel like there are a few different factors. I think one factor for me, and I assume probably for you, it's usually centered around social events, or if I have to leave the house. VirginiaThe worst. CorinneAnd then the other thing is if I just don't have anything comfortable to wear.VirginiaPants in particular. If the pants are not comfortable, God, it's just the worst. How are you going to make it through the day? CorinneOne thing I've really been leaning into—which is probably a controversial thing to say, as someone who makes part of their living writing about clothes—I've really been leaning into sweatpants.VirginiaBecause we're trying to be drug free, obviously, for Red Ribbon Week.CorinneWhat even what was that? Sweat? No sweat to say no to drugs? It doesn't even make sense.VirginiaIt's actually quite sweaty to say no to drugs sometimes.CorinneI've been leaning into wearing sweatpants out of the house. I have some of the elastic ankle Old Navy sweatpants. And I did Google how do you make sweatpants look less like you're wearing sweatpants?VirginiaOh, and what did you learn? Because this is what I've been working on, too. CorinneI looked at a lot of pictures. One direction you could go is wearing a button down shirt with sweatpants, so you're kind of fancy on top, sweatpants on the bottom. I've seen some fancier shoes with sweatpants. Like a loafer or something. VirginiaOh, interesting. I hadn't thought about that. CorinneAnother direction people go is full athleisure. Like, matching sweatshirt, make it a set. I also saw a lot of people wearing sweatpants with a nice t-shirt and jewelry. Like chunky necklaces, that kind of thing.VirginiaOh, that's fun. This is giving me a lot of good ideas. CorinneYou could definitely search sweatpants outfits on Pinterest or something.VirginiaOkay, this is very helpful.I have realized, for me, 100% of the time, it's not actually about the clothes at all. I won't share too many details, because they aren't my stories to tell. But I'm in a rough parenting season, and I've had some stuff going on. Which is why spirit weeks are especially unhelpful to me. At the moment, there is enough on my plate. CorinneIt is quite full. Yeah. VirginiaAnd in the last two weeks, where it has been very intense, this wardrobe anxiety has spiked so much. One day, it happened right before I was going to get on a Zoom with you! It took me 25 minutes to pick out what to wear. Guys, Corinne does not care. I could show up in my pajama. There is no bar here. CorinneI probably wouldn't even have noticed. VirginiaBut I was trying on everything, and everything felt wrong, and everything felt uncomfortable. And I think this was just where my other stress was landing. But it was really hard to break out of the cycle and recognize that. Part of my brain was getting it. It was like, "Pick a shirt. It doesn't matter. You're getting on Zoom to talk to Corinne." But I couldn't do it. I was totally just spiraling. So the spiral part of my brain was just like, "Should I layer somehow??" So my question is: What do you do when you're in that panic spiral to break out of it? Because logic was not working.CorinneThat is a great question. I'm having so many different thoughts. Next time, you could text me and say, "What should I wear to the Zoom?"VirginiaI mean, that is a great solution to that specific problem. CorinneShould we start doing spirit weeks for Zoom, where we show up to record in our pajamas?VirginiaOr sweatpants, no sweat?CorinneIt's a great question. How do you stop yourself when you're literally spiraling? VirginiaBecause you’re never going to make it better. Trying on three more outfits won't make you like any outfit any better. CorinneI always end up with a pile of stuff on my bed that then I later just scrape onto the floor and into a laundry basket of shame.VirginiaI'm doing that load of shame laundry right now. It's so pointless. But the fact that I did it before talking to you was really clarifying that this is about something else. Because obviously, that's not normally something I stress about. And then, anytime I had to leave the house for even minor stakes, like school pickup or kids' appointment or something where I was going to be visible, it would happen again. And I did stress shop a little bit. I will say, I don't think that's the solution. But I did stress shop, and I did at least specifically target my stress shopping, where I was like, "I am trying to get a very cozy sweatshirt. That is my goal right now". Because, to your point about comfort, I was like, I think if I feel physically cozy and comfortable in what I'm wearing, it will lower my stress a little bit. CorinneYou have also talked in the past about being a real uniform dresser. VirginiaYes. I have a basic cold weather uniform of joggers and a sweater or joggers and a button down. So this is the other reason I knew, okay, it's not about the clothes. Because I already have the uniform. But suddenly the uniform felt completely wrong. And I was like, no, no, this isn't what I should wear. So I don't have answers. I'm just throwing it out there because I bet other folks have experienced this. And it sucks! If this is a place your anxiety goes it just is a really hard thing to break out of. But dressy sweatpants, I think, is, is my uniform. And maybe one other idea is: When I can feel it's going to be a week like that, just decide ahead of time that it's dressy sweatpants every day. This is not the week to try on the jeans that you keep trying to convince yourself work.CorinneThat's probably wise. Maybe if you find yourself spiraling, and it's like, how can you snap yourself out of it? Put on music. Eat something. Or do something else to like, bring you back down to earth. VirginiaI think your idea about texting someone, like texting you, or texting someone else and being like, "I'm in a wardrobe spiral. Tell me what to wear," is really good. Just so people don't worry too much, I have a lot of support. Things are okay. It's just I noticed this was where the anxiety was showing up, and it wasn't a useful place for it to show up. And I thought, hey, it feels sort of like a Burnt Toast topic. All right, should we get into questions?CorinneYes, I'll read the first question. Is it affirming to date another plus size person? I feel like it would be, and it's something I want. VirginiaHell yes. Thumbs up for me. CorinneYeah. I also feel like hell yes. VirginiaI mean, look, mixed weight relationships happen all the time. They're very normal. It is totally fine to be a fat person with a thin person. Fat people are sexy and attractive to all people. So it is not like only other plus size people will find you attractive. But I think there's some comfort and safety and a shared language.CorinneI agree with that. I think part of what has been affirming for me is also just being like, yeah, I am attracted to other fat people. So it makes sense that other people would be attracted to me.VirginiaYes, yes. 100 percent. I completely co-sign that. It's very freeing and fun to realize and explore.  Jack and I call it "hot people problems." Like, you know, if your pants don't fit, you know, leggings fall down a lot. Just all the ways that, fat bodies move through the world and are not accommodated. It's like we have this shorthand joke, like, "whoops, hot people problems."CorinneThat's really sweet. I love that. Like, you knock something over with your butt, and you're like, "hot people problems."VirginiaHot people problems! And I think it's really fun to have someone you spend a lot of time with be someone who really gets that and is in it with you, right?CorinneAnd I love that reframing where you're like, "oh, like, I did something I could be embarrassed of," but instead it's a positive thing.VirginiaIt doesn't feel embarrassing. It's just welp, that's happening again. And I could imagine being with a straight-size partner, even someone who's super affirming, and super into your body, you would still would feel a little more vulnerable sharing some of that stuff. CorinneYeah totally. I mean, I will also say, even if you're both plus size, like, you could still have very different experiences of stuff.VirginiaEveryone has their own stuff with their body and their history of their body. I mean, we answered that question last month about when one person is pursuing weight loss and one person is not, and how to navigate those sorts of things. All of that can still come up. So I don't think it's just "look for someone in a bigger body," but leaning into "you find bigger bodies attractive" is really empowering and great. CorinneTotally agree. VirginiaAll right, I'll ask the next question. How are you both feeling towards the scale and seeing your weight? I'm navigating this in the later stages of recovery. Why do numbers hold so much power over us?CorinneA great question. In some ways, I feel I am the wrong person to answer this, because I feel less activated by seeing my weight. I think part of my own internal work has just been caring less about numbers and letting a number just be a number. Measuring different parts of my body to figure out if clothes will fit, getting weighed at the doctor's office, it's all whatever. But I know that numbers are really hard for a lot of people.VirginiaWould you say there was a time in your life where numbers were a lot harder for you? CorinneMy relationship to weight numbers, at least for a long time, was, like, I actually am not able to control this, you know? Or the effort to control it is insane. So, like, why? I think I also realized early on that different people weighed such different amounts. I remember as maybe a teenager realizing whoa, I weigh a lot more than my mom, but we're the same pant size. Obviously not true anymore. But I don't know, weight is so arbitrary in some ways.VirginiaI think what you're articulating is where most people are trying to get! I think it's a really great place to be, and I'm there a lot of the time, and then I'm not always. And so I'm sort of a middle of the road on this one. I should also say, I've never been in formal recovery from an eating disorder. I think if you're doing that work, this is something to really be working with your therapy team about. So that's sort of a little different than what Corinne and I can share here. But I do think that's the goal. I do think there's a lot of power in letting the numbers have less power. I think where I've been able to make that progress is on clothing sizes. Because just learning the absolute complete lack of science or logic or rhyme or reason to women's clothing sizes is maddening but liberating. I am able to absolutely not care, and have a completely neutral reaction, to whether I'm in the extra large in a line or the 3X in a line or any size. Other than I'm annoyed if I'm in the 3X because I'm like, "well, this is fake size inclusion." But I'm not taking that on personally. Whatever size I'm wearing, I'm just like, oh, okay, that's what this brand is saying. And I think that's hard. I think that did not used to be true for me. And I think a lot of people feel a lot of attachment to clothing sizes and so really learning to just have no reaction to those because they just tell you nothing.CorinneMaybe my not caring now actually comes from weighing myself so much as a younger person. Because I remember seeing how my weight fluctuates over the course of a day. It fluctuates with my period. I won't say numbers, but a thin person could be like, "I just went on a big diet and I lost X amount of pounds," and I'm like, "that's me taking a poop." I could fluctuate that much from morning to lunch time. I don't know. VirginiaEverything you're saying is just gold. It is a lot about just continually reminding yourself of how meaningless these numbers are, how arbitrary and fluctuating they are, and giving yourself permission to step back. And that's just not always the easiest thing to do, depending on your brain chemistry and a lot of other factors. I mean, I will say I'm completely not triggered by having my neck or my calves measured. That is just like, huh okay, that's what that is. CorinneIn some ways, it is useful information to have. And if you can just let it be information, then there's no value attached to it.VirginiaI wrote about weighing myself at the doctor's office out of curiosity a few months ago, and how that then did trigger a spiral, which surprised me. And so I don't want to weigh myself at the doctor's office ever again. So I think it's also worth noting, in which contexts will you feel more vulnerable engaging with these numbers? And that's a very vulnerable context for a lot of us. I am not going to have a scale in my house. I have daughters. I don't think scales are responsible home items, especially if you're a parent. But I do think I would feel more neutral if I were to randomly get on a hotel scale or something. Do you know what I mean? And part of it is, like, is this scale calibrated correctly? Did they put it on carpet and then it actually isn't working at all? CorinneThat's a great point, too. VirginiaThey're not giving you an accurate number most of the time. So I think it's also fine to, just as a protective stance, say, "I don't engage with those numbers." But if you do happen to come across it, remembering that it tells you very little about yourself.CorinneYeah. All right. How are you managing to stay positive in the Ozempic World?VirginiaOh man. Are we staying positive? CorinneI don't know. Before we started recording, we were talking about how both of us, and everyone we know, is holding on by a thread.VirginiaAnd not necessarily about Ozempic, just about life in general, the state of the world, government, etc. It's rough out there. CorinneIt's feeling like a hard time to be alive.VirginiaIt's hard be a human with a body these days. I think I am doing some protective things. I am continuing to curate my social media and unfollow people I need to unfollow. We talked about our love of Bad Skinny Girl TV, but I am mindful of how much skinny person content I consume, if I'm being honest. Especially when I was in the spiral in the last week of not being able to get dressed—because some of that did turn into body criticism. And I'm able to look at that now and be like, that was not useful. It's just a reminder that if you have something else going on, you'll turn it into dumping on your body, because that's what we've been taught to do. I'm doing that Fattify Your Feed series on the newsletter now, because, I want to keep looking at awesome fat people. I want to lean into that, as opposed to the toxic content.CorinneWell, I have been slightly wondering if we're starting to see a kind of Ozempic backlash, because The Cut just published that piece about kind of like GLP1s making life a bit miserable.VirginiaI was really interested they did that—because they certainly published some of the most pro-GLP1 content at the beginning of this whole thing.CorinneYeah, but at this point, the “I'm taking a GLP1” content is boring, because there's been so much of it. So now we've moved on to actually, there's another side to this story. I think we're still in the everyone's getting skinny thing, but.VirginiaI think, too, the more I hear people's stories and understand what goes into the decision for a lot of folks, the more I'm able to a have a lot of compassion for the decision. Very often it's not just "I want to feel better in my clothes," or whatever. Very often it is I need this to access fertility treatment. I need this to be treated fairly in my workplace. All of those sorts of reasons where it's like, you got to do what you got to do to survive and get what you need. So I'm less triggered by people's individual choices around it at this point. It's just like any other pursuit of weight loss—sometimes it makes sense to pursue weight loss, not because I think it's the "best thing" for anyone, but because it feels necessary. And so I'm able to say, well, it's feeling necessary to that person. And I'm glad it's not feeling necessary to me personally, but that's a function of a lot of privilege. I think another thing I want to say—and this is ironic, as someone who writes a newsletter and produces a podcast all about anti-fatness and diet culture—but being less engaged with the conversation is good sometimes. I don't mean be less engaged with our work, but, I've been thinking about it since we did our problematic faves episode. Like, it's okay to just let some of it skate by. CorinneYeah. Well at this point it's like, the Ozempic conversation has been going on pretty hardcore since.... 2023.VirginiaYeah, January 2023. CorinneThat's a long time to be getting mad every time.VirginiaWe're almost three years into it.CorinneI just can't get as enraged anymore.VirginiaAnd the conversation is not changing, right? "Is this killing the body positivity movement? What does it mean to not have food noise?" I'm getting the same interview requests over and over. Journalists don't have any new questions to ask me about it. So there's not a lot of news, or if there is, it's actually old news being repackaged. It doesn't change the core conversation around its role as a weight loss drug . So I think just finding ways to let it be, and stay true to what you want to do.Okay, okay, all right, I'm going to bring us up with the last question, which is a fun one. What is your fav winter holiday tradition and or food.Corinne Love this question. VirginiaI know you love these food tradition type questions.Corinne I love to talk about food. I mean, there's almost so many, it's hard to know where to begin. I feel like the first thing that comes to mind is soup. Aren't you not a big soup fan?VirginiaYou know, I'm reclaiming soup. I'm on a journey. CorinneI love soup so much. VirginiaI'm coming around quite a lot on soup this season in particular. CorinneOkay, great. Soup. As far as holidays go, I feel like my family usually does a big breakfast-y thing on the day of Christmas, and I really enjoy that. Like waffles and grapefruit and stuff. I love that. But I'm really here for all of it.Virginia Yeah, really not turning away any food traditions. I am becoming a soup person. And I realized a lot of that was about letting go of diet culture. I think soup has a very diet-y connotation, and realizing that that it is possible for it to be not remotely diet-y is how I'm able to enjoy it now, with a lot of bread, with a lot of cheese. There are many very non diet-y soup. CorinneCreamy soups. VirginiaCreamy soups! Love it. Probably my favorite Christmas tradition, since my mom is British, we always have crackers on the table. For folks who don't know are these long paper tubes. They're twisted at each end. They have a firecracker thing inside that just makes a bang. And before you start the meal, everybody comes, there's this complicated way you cross your hands, and everybody pulls the crackers together all at once. CorinneWow, that sounds so fun. VirginiaIt's always like herding cats. Like, is everyone ready to come to the table? Can we all hold the crackers? No one can ever remember how to move their hands. And then there are paper crowns inside and a joke, and sometimes little prizes and stuff. It's the tradition that I always felt like, as a kid, and as a British American child, made my Christmas feel special, because my American friends didn't have those. So I really love that my kids have that it's really fun. I think it has become a lot more popular here now. It used to be really hard to find them when I was a kid, and now there are tons of options. So that's probably my favorite holiday tradition. Food-wise, we always do roast lamb for Christmas dinner, which I love, and my mom makes all the cookies. And there are endless Christmas cookies that I love. I realized the other day, I think cookies are my favorite type of dessert. It's tied with brownies, but, I'm much more interested in a cookie than I am in a cake or candy situation. And so a holiday that's really celebrating many types of cookies, I just am like, yes please. CorinneI'm with you. I love cookies.VirginiaI also make a lot of really good pasta sauces this time of year, like the ones that you let simmer for a bunch of hours. It's just comfort food season. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterCorinneShould we do Butter? VirginiaYes, let's do some Butter. I have a pretty good Butter I think. I regularly update folks on what my 12 year old and I are watching for our mother/daughter bonding TV show time, and I have exciting news for the elder millennials, which is: We have begun our journey with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.CorinneI shall now admit that I have never watched.Virginia I had a feeling you might be one of the non-Buffy millennials.CorinneIt's very embarrassing. I don't know. VirginiaIt's okay. Jack has never watched it either.CorinneI don't know why I've never seen it, because it also feels like it's just a cultural reference point.VirginiaWell, and not to tell you your culture, but it's very big in queer culture?CorinneI was going to say. People are constantly like, you know, Buffy, and I'm like, no, I don't.VirginiaWell, it's a very big part of my culture, and it's the show my siblings and I bond over the most, so they're very excited that she's being inducted into it. And she wasn't feeling it for the first few episodes. For any parents starting it with a child of generation alpha or something: They are used to a higher production value. They are used to a crisper television experience. If you're coming from Wednesday and going to Buffy, you're going to be like, wow, the monsters are less scary here. But that's actually great because it also means it's more campy and less scary, which is good for a show we watch in the evening. And Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, was canceled for being a toxic man. So we have to hold that together with it was also a show very much made by women, written by women, and starring women. So I canceled Joss Whedon and keep Buffy is how I'm navigating that one, and we'll be discussing it. But she's in now. She's hooked. We're in season two. It's great.CorinneWell, since you're recommending TV, I'm going to recommend TV, too. I'm going to recommend the show Pluribus, which has just come out on Apple TV. I have only watched three episodes. One of the reasons why I'm recommending it is because it takes place in Albuquerque, which is really fun for me to watch. And it's from the creator of Breaking Bad. So if you enjoyed that, you might enjoy this. It's, it is a little more like sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, but it's raising some interesting theoretical questions. And I feel like if you have enjoyed shows like Severance or The Good Place, you might like it. VirginiaOkay, that sounds really interesting. How's the violence level? Because Breaking Bad got too violent for me.CorinneSo far it's less than Breaking Bad, for sure. It is kind of like a post-apocalyptic thing. So the first episode involves a huge event, but, like, it's not a gory event. VirginiaOkay, that's good to know.CorinneWhereas I'm remembering the first episode of Breaking Bad is pretty gory, I think they're dissolving a person in a bathtub or something disgusting.VirginiaYeah, it starts out hot and by the final season, I was like, I can't, I'm done. I can't do it anymore. I also have a lower threshold than most people for violent content on TV. But that sounds great.This was a great episode! We want to hear your favorite food traditions. We want to hear all the things in the comments. Come chat 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!