The Burnt Toast Podcast

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your January Indulgence Gospel.It’s time for another mailbag episode, so we’ll be answering questions like:⭐️ Is it anti-fatness to care that your partner eats faster than you?⭐️ What ultra processed foods can we not live without?⭐️ What should you do when your friend starts weight loss drugs for “wardrobe” reasons?⭐️ Did Virginia buy the air fryer and if so, what is she air frying?To hear our answers, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can add on a subscription to Big Undies, Corinne’s newsletter about clothes, for 20% off.To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Also, don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.Episode 177 TranscriptVirginiaDo we have any pressing Burnt Toast business to discuss before we get into our questions? Anything new?CorinneNothing feels new.VirginiaWe’re all just hanging in there. My house has the flu still, but hopefully by the time this episode comes out, that will not be true.[Post-recording note: It is still true!]CorinneShall I read the first question?VirginiaGo for it.CorinneOkay, it’s a long one! Buckle in.I am grateful for the labor of your book; it was meaningful to me and sparked important conversations with my loved ones. The book answered many questions and has helped me develop my thinking. Yet one issue persists, and I hope you can help me explore it.What do I do when my partner eats much faster than me, takes up the space and amount of food he needs, but doesn’t leave enough for me? I feel petty asking this question, but it holds deep meaning for me.My partner was fat for much of his life and has had a complex relationship with his body and food. I don’t want to shame him, as he was shamed often in his youth. Still, I find myself resenting him deeply when he eats so fast that not enough is left for me. On the other hand, I’ve always been nervous about there being enough food. I tend to eat slowly, leaving some behind to ensure there’s enough for both of us—even though, deep down, I’d love to devour the food just as he does.On a deeper level, this feels tied to the concept of taking up space, a transformative idea for me. The notion that I don’t need to make myself small has been a crucial area of growth. But when someone else, like my partner, takes up space and eats all he needs, I sometimes feel he is inconsiderate, taking my space, and taking advantage of me. This triggers a rigid response in me—I want to strictly divide our food, even though our needs may differ at any given moment. Then, I feel compelled to eat only what I’ve “claimed,” sacrificing flexibility and connection in favor of fairness. The meal becomes about rules instead of enjoyment.This leaves me wondering: Do I harbor hidden anti-fat bias? How can I learn to take up space myself and encourage my loved ones to do the same, without becoming rigid, entitled, or instilling these same tendencies in my partner?VirginiaThere’s so much to this question.I have to say, when we first read it, when it came in, I had a little bit of a knee jerk “yes, this is your hidden anti-fat bias” response.But as you’re reading it this time, I’m thinking more about the gender dynamics at play here. There’s a lot to say about how men and women are socialized differently around food and sharing food and meal etiquette. So this question rests at a weird intersection of these two issues.CorinneYeah, it’s so complicated. When I read it, I think about food scarcity, and how experiencing that in your younger years can really impact you for the rest of your life.VirginiaAnd it sounds like there’s a background of that here, for both of them, right? If her partner was a fat kid, he might have been told to eat less. So he develops a scarcity mindset and copes with by eating as fast as he can before someone takes the food away, which is heartbreaking, but definitely happens.Then, on the other hand, she is always nervous about there being enough food, maybe because there wasn’t enough food at some point in her life. So she eats less.It sounds like she is starting from a place of, “it’s my job to make sure everyone has enough to eat,” but then quickly getting to the point of, “but now somehow my needs get sacrificed to that.”CorinneI also appreciate the level of self-reflection in this letter. Because when I was reading it the first time, I was like, well, just divide the food equally! But she’s like, “I’ve done that. I have a rigid response to it.” And then I’m sacrificing connection in favor of fairness, which does feel legit.VirginiaI almost feel like we have to take this apart and deal with this in parts.So just to think more about the gender piece for a second: One thing I see happen so often in heterosexual partnerships, is a man will start eating a meal before a woman has even sat down at the table. This was the reality in my homes growing up. I saw my father and my stepfather eating before my mom or my stepmother even sat down at the table. And I see it often in other relatives and friends now.In my own house, I frequently die on the mountain of no one eats until the cook sits down. And if someone doesn’t start to eat before I sit down, I notice and thank them and make a big deal about it. Because I want my kids to learn this matters. But it’s so incredibly gendered. Men are used to being served food. That might be flipped if they cooked the meal, but often even if they were involved in the food prep, they then sit down and just start eating and don’t wait. And it makes me incandescent with rage when I see it play out, because it is such an obvious way of saying “This is the power dynamic here. This woman serves me. I get to eat. My needs are being centered.”So if that’s happening, rather than getting into how fast he eats or how much he eats or any of those things—where you can very quickly be in anti-fat territory—you can say, “As a basic courtesy and sign of respect, can we sit down together and start eating at the same time?” Because it’s so awful to sit down and be like, “They’re already done,” and you haven’t even taken a bite. It is a panicky feeling. So I just want to name that. She doesn’t explicitly say this t is what is happening, but I wonder if that’s at play, and if it is, I want it to stop.CorinneWell and similarly, could he just ask if he can have a second serving or something? It does sort of feel like there’s maybe a low level of like inconsideration here.VirginiaYes, that has nothing to do with his body size or his relationship with food. That just has to do with him not being a very just considerate meal partner.CorinneI feel like if I was having dinner with someone and took a serving and wanted more, I’d be like, “Do you also want more? I just want to make sure there’s enough for both of us.”So part of me is wondering, have you had this conversation with him or no?VirginiaI mean, what we teach kids around this to avoid the scarcity mindset, but also make sure there’s enough is: Everyone gets firsts and then if you want seconds, you say, “Does anyone else want some?” And you offer it around as you’re taking your seconds. You can still have some, but you just build in that skill of noticing and checking, does anyone want some?CorinneWould you make the kid wait to have seconds until everyone was done with the first round?VirginiaI mean, I do not. But it’s different with kids. They’re not going to want to eat the thing that I’m going to want more of probably. I’m like, Yes, have more Cheez its. That’s fine.And it’s easy to do when it’s something like cookies or cupcakes. Or even cake, you can sort of eyeball it, and make sure you’re leaving enough for people to have seconds. I think that’s what it comes down to. Just make sure you’re leaving enough for other people to have some, whether or not they’re done with their portion.CorinneBecause it sounds like he doesn’t have that sense. So then it’s like, how do you have that conversation? Or do you?VirginiaWell, I think this is where I kind of need to understand more about the overall gender dynamics. Who is doing the food prep? If he’s not doing the food prep, how appreciative is he of that labor? And if he’s eating before you even sit down, then I would approach it very much like a “let’s discuss gender equity in our marriage or in our relationship” conversation. It’s really not about his relationship with his body.I would hope you have a comfort level with your partner where you can say that very clearly, “This isn’t about your body size. This isn’t about how much you eat. This is about I do the work to put dinner on the table and it feels disrespectful when we don’t share the meal.”CorinneI think you could still tell him how you’re feeling about it. I don’t think you can say, “I think you’re eating too much.” But I think you could say, “Mealtimes feel really stressful for me because I’m worried about not getting enough to eat.”And the other thing I wonder is: Could you just cook more food?VirginiaI was going to say that, too. I don’t know if this anxiety about enough food is like, are they on a very tight budget and they’re limiting? But could you make more of the rice or the beans? One of the lower cost ingredients that would help make sure there’s enough for everyone to fill up on?CorinneWell, and I feel like that is where then we start to get into some anti-fat bias. Are you worried that if you make more food, he’ll eat more?VirginiaThis is a good question. Maybe it’s not budget. Maybe she is doing some subtle portion control around only making as much as she thinks they should eat.CorinneAnd he’s clearly needing more food. And it seems like she’s needing more food, too.VirginiaShe says she wants to be devouring the food like he does, but she’s not letting herself. So giving yourself that permission, and freedom, to devour the food is another piece to work on. And maybe in order to do that you need to make more food for both of you to whatever extent you can realistically do that, so that you can both have your scarcity mindsets reassured.Because it really sounds like they both have a scarcity mindset, but it’s manifesting in opposite ways.CorinneI do think for me it has been helpful, when I’m feeling this kind of stress about not having enough to eat, to just have way more than I want.VirginiaEven if that’s like adding bread to the table. It doesn’t mean you’re making three pot roasts necessarily, but more potatoes, more of the things that will fill you up, but won’t break the budget.This is one I would love an update on, if it is something you guys do manage to talk about, or how it goes. And I’m also curious to hear what listeners think, because I think it’s a common dynamic. I think different appetites in relationships is a common stumbling block to sharing meals together.CorinneYeah, that makes sense.VirginiaOr different attitudes about appetites, I guess. Because, again, she’s saying she wants to eat more.CorinneAnd the socialization part, like different ideas of what’s polite. Or what’s considerate.VirginiaWhen in doubt, be considerate to the person who made the meal. That’s my bottom line.I’ll read the next one.How do you handle it when someone you like starts a semaglutide journey for reasons of, quote, wardrobe?CorinneWell, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone is starting semaglutides truly only for the reason of wardrobe. I can imagine that that could be part of it, or that could be what they’re telling people, but I feel like it’s probably more complicated than that.VirginiaWhat I often hear, is people will say the clothes thing. And they’ll say, “it’s really about the budget,” or like, “I don’t want to buy a whole new wardrobe that doesn’t feel doable or accessible.” But I mean, semaglutide is a pretty expensive drug. So, question mark there. Usually, what they really mean is, “I don’t like how I look in the bigger clothes I have to wear right now.”So I think reasons of wardrobe are always rooted in “I like how I look thinner and I want to be thinner.” It’s definitely just a code word for saying, I want to be thinner because I think I’m prettier that way, or, you know, more aesthetically pleasing to myself that way.CorinneI mean, it’s not great.VirginiaSo, how to handle it? I mean, if this is someone, you have a personal relationship with, boundaries. Wishing them well. But this isn’t a topic you really want to be keeping close tabs on.CorinneIf it’s someone on social media, unfollow.VirginiaYep. This is maybe not someone you need to be following, at least when they’re talking about this topic, which may mean unfollowing, because often when people are in this place, they want to talk about it all the time or it’ll crop up. And you can come back to them.I mean, the reality about this kind of experiment is we know people lose weight on semaglutide and we know when they stop taking semaglutide, they regain the weight. If someone is really doing it primarily for wardrobe reasons, I don’t know that they’ve committed to staying on for their whole life. And I think a lot of the doctors who buy into the wardrobe kind of reasoning also often mislead patients. I’ve heard a couple instances of this, where they’re telling patients, “Oh yeah, we can get you to this place and then we can titrate you off.” But that’s not what the research is showing to work. There will be regain. So this is another hamster wheel this person has chosen to get on, and you can wish them well, but I think taking some space is probably good.CorinneNext question. I like this one.With all the anti processed food fear mongering, what’s a processed food that makes your life easier and better?VirginiaI mean, I have such a long list.CorinneI feel like it’s also worth revisiting just how many things are processed foods. We can link back to that episode.One ultra processed food that I really love is bread.VirginiaBread is great. Big fan. Love bread. Love a sandwich.CorinneMakes my life so much better.VirginiaNamed my newsletter after it. actually.I’m gonna name three MVPs. Rao’s pasta sauce. Such a good jarred pasta sauce, great pasta with Rao’s on it for dinner. If I need just a fast, easy dinner. I can add a side of fruit and vegetables to that. I can not. It’s great. I love it.Frozen chocolate chip pancakes are a significant percentage of my children’s diets. They have them for breakfast with their smoothies most morning. After school snacks. It’s a meal they can make themselves because you just pop them in the microwave for a minute. I made some for a sick kid in the middle of recording episodes today with Corinne! It’s just a total go-to.The brand we buy is actually surprisingly reasonably high in protein. I feel like people forget that protein is in foods like pancakes and pasta, but it totally is.And then Amy’s frozen cheese and bean burritos. I just described to you one of my children, basically what they live on. And we’re covering a lot of nutrient bases this way. These are foods that she can make herself very easily. I can make for her easily. If she hates what I’ve made for dinner, I know she’s not going to starve. Everything about them is great. They’re just great staples of feeding kids. And I love them.CorinneI really thought you were going to say protein powder!VirginiaI mean, we’ve talked about that before.I have such a long list, but I was just thinking what are the things that go on the grocery list every week that I know we go through in significant quantities every week. And it’s like, easily, a jar of pasta sauce, easily, two bags of those pancakes, easily eight burritos. Those are staples for us.CorinneYeah. I was trying to think about what they are for me. I often get a frozen pizza from Whole Foods, just the Whole Foods brand frozen pizza. It’s a good backup last minute meal for me. Bread, pasta.VirginiaHave we mentioned bread enough?CorinneAlso like, candy. I love chocolate. I feel really good when I have some type of chocolate candy in my cupboard. Tate’s chocolate chip cookies. Love to have those on hand. God, I don’t know, it’s endless.VirginiaI really think the conversation around this whole category of foods needs so much more nuance. I am not against more regulation in the food industry if there are concerns about the levels of sugar, salt, and fat. But I think this is a regulate the industry issue. I am not here for the argument that people need to cook more from scratch, need to cook more complicated dishes, need to not rely on the convenience and efficiency of foods that offer a lot of nutrition. There’s such diversity in this category of food.CorinneI’m also thinking just off the top of my head, like, DoorDash. I love to DoorDash myself a sub sandwich with ultra processed meat in it. Mayonnaise. Love mayonnaise.VirginiaMy God. Imagine life without mayonnaise.I don’t want to think about that world. Being so rigid about this whole category of foods is bad. It’s just so quickly going to fall apart unless you are growing all your own food and doing all of that totally from scratch. And there are people who do that, and that’s wonderful. But most people don’t live in a place where they can do that. They have other jobs, have children, whatever. This is not a category of food we need to just completely erase. We need some better industry regulation around it, absolutely. And then we need to just give people respect for understanding the context of their lives and making their own choices.CorinneYeah, or give people more time off.VirginiaAlways a good thought.CorinneNot so that they have to make their own food, but…VirginiaBut if you want a society where people make their own food, what are you doing to actually make that possible?CorinneAll right, next question is for you, Virginia.What are you making in your air fryer, assuming you got one?VirginiaI did get one. I got it in the Black Friday sale. I bought the Breville—We’ll link to it. It’s from William Sonoma.CorinneEveryone calls it Breville.VirginiaOkay, so I’m already such an expert. The Breville. What else is my oven called? You’re the one who found it for me.CorinneBreville air fryer toaster oven.VirginiaOkay, that’s what I got. I think it has a fancier name, but that’s fine. It’s what it is.You had sent me the link. And said, everyone’s talking about this one being so good. And then when it went on super sale for Black Friday, I got it, and I freaking love it. I am converted. I guess I should probably do an air fryer essay at some point, or like a round up of what I making in it.I talked last week about how I’m making chocolate chip cookies with great regularity, because it’s easy to make a smaller quantity of cookies, and you can make them really fast, which is fun.They are great, as everyone told me they would be, for chicken nuggets and french fries and other frozen fried items that you want to make quickly.Roast broccoli has been really delicious in it. I mean, mine also replaced my toaster, so, I’m toasting a bagel in it most mornings. What are some other go-tos?Julia Turshen has a great newsletter called an ode to her air fryer. And she includes a recipe for this kale salad with chickpeas on top. And you do the chickpeas in the air fryer to make them really crispy. And I made that for Christmas, and I’m gonna make that possibly for dinner tonight, now that we’ve just talked about it because it was so freaking good. The chickpeas are excellent.Also on my list to do that way is meatballs. Anything you can do in your oven you can do quicker in your air fryer, is the bottom line. Fish is the other thing I’m doing quite a lot in there.CorinneLike frozen fish?VirginiaI do thaw the fish before, because you can thaw fish really fast. But Amy Palanjian has a recipe for salmon bites that’s really good that I’ve done in the air fryer. I think that’s the main way I’ve done fish so far. It’s shortening my cooking time. So it’s making dinner feel like less of a production because I can throw something in there and be doing something else and it’ll be done in the same time, as opposed to like, oh god, I forgot to preheat the oven an hour ago and I want to eat in 20 minutes. You can just skip that mental load of when to preheat the oven.CorinneAre you ever finding that you can’t fit enough of whatever you’re cooking for dinner in there?VirginiaNo, but I do think if I had a bigger household, that would be an issue. I’m usually cooking for a max of three people, and at least one of the children isn’t going to eat what’s going in the air fryer. You know what I mean? Or it’s like me and one other adult.Or when I was hosting, I was using it, but for things like the chickpeas that were an ingredient, but not the whole meal. So I could make a full can of chickpeas to go on the salad. You couldn’t do a big hunk of meat roast in there, and you’re only going to make one dozen cookies at a time. But during the holidays, when I was making a whole bunch of cookies, I could fill up my oven and stick an extra dozen in the air fryer and it was a value add. So if you’re doing something en masse, it’s giving you another oven.CorinneIt does make me want one.VirginiaWell, we measured your counters, and this one won’t fit, but we’ll have to find you a smaller one.CorinneI have an air fryer lid for my Instant Pot, but I find it really annoying and inconvenient to use.VirginiaThat feels like too many trendy appliances trying to be everything.CorinneThe Instant Pot is round too, so you really can’t fit very much in there.VirginiaYeah. This is the nice thing about the toaster oven style is it’s a quarter baking sheet size. Which was often what I was putting in the oven anyway. So now I’ve just saved the time of heating the whole big oven.CorinneThat’s a decent size.VirginiaI’ll read the next one. Okay, this person writes,I’ve finally embraced having a regular Coke. It’s delicious. I do get excited when I go to a restaurant and they have Mexican Coke, since it’s made with sugar and, quote, better than high fructose corn syrup. Is this just diet culture trying to get me to spend five times as much on a bougie coke?CorinneThis is an interesting question. Um, I feel like, yes and no. I’m also not a Coke expert. Does it taste different? I don’t know.VirginiaIt does. Mexican Coke does taste different. They are definitely upselling you.CorinneIt’s also the glass bottle.VirginiaYeah, it’s trendy and cute. You’re buying the cocktail version of a Coke, basically.CorinneBut it is the same amount of sugar, just one has more fructose versus glucose?VirginiaThat is my understanding. So, yeah, it’s diet culture to tell yourself that Mexican Coke is healthier than American Coke, because it’s sugar and sugar. It’s a wash. And yes, they are selling you on the fact that people think it’s cute in the little glass bottle.CorinneAnd also, if you like to get it, it’s fine.VirginiaIt’s a fancy way to drink Coke, and that seems delightful for you.CorinneNext question.How to manage all the no buy, buy only five things, etc, which seems just like New Year’s diet restrictions.VirginiaI feel like this is a little bit of a call in for us, since we are in the middle of our No Amazon January.And I just want to say, with all the love: I get this response to not buying things. Like, this is my first response. And we can link back to the conversation I had with Christyna Johnson last year, where she is very much a proponent of no buy experiments, and yet we talked about how they can bring up diet culture stuff. And my bottom line is: If it feels like a diet for you, you shouldn’t do it. Don’t do it.CorinneTotally. I would say, if listening to us talk about it makes you feel bad, then don’t listen.I do feel like there’s a slight difference between moralizing about food and moralizing about like—VirginiaConsumer goods?CorinneAnd these billionaires who are actually doing evil in the world.VirginiaWell, there’s not the health component to this. I’m not like, oh, I’m quitting Amazon for my health, right? I’m like, I’m quitting Amazon because Jeff Bezos is a terrible human being.CorinneI’m not quitting Amazon to try and make myself thinner.VirginiaNo, I do not expect to be thinner. I feel that it will have no bearing on my weight. But any of these experiments come with some moralizing, some expectation of perfectionism that’s hard to shed, right?I think this listener will feel better when they listen to our wrap-up of the Amazon experiment, because I don’t think Corinne and I are shooting for perfection.CorinneI don’t feel like I’m deprived in any way by doing this, you know? There might be certain things that do make my life a little bit more annoying, but I don’t feel like I’m going through major deprivation, right?VirginiaI don’t feel deprivation, but what I do think may happen is guilt when I fail at this in some way. And that guilt of like, my life became hard and complicated, and so I needed to take an easier route here, and not being able to have grace for that is similar to what happens when people fall off diets or fall off workout plans, because it becomes too hard to sustain those things within the real context of their life.That hasn’t happened to me yet, but when and if that does, I am interested in how will I release that guilt and be like, this doesn’t need to be a perfection thing. And I think depending where you are in your divestment from dieting, this may not be good for you, because it may just trigger that same stuff.I haven’t been on a diet since my 11-year-old was two. So I feel like I’ve got some time and space from the way that used to mess with my head, and I can experiment with something like this in a way that feels really different, but that’s just where I am with it.CorinneYeah, I think it’s not like saying I’m not going to eat ice cream. It’s like, I’m not going to eat ice cream from McDonald’s. There’s still so many other options for buying the exact same stuff. Is it better for the world? Who knows?VirginiaWe don’t know. And I just really come down to like, I’m not proselytizing this. Like, if it doesn’t feel like it serves you, I think there are lots of good reasons why the context of peoples’ lives mean that cutting down consumer spending is not the thing they need to put bandwidth and energy towards.CorinneYeah, and I think we also decided to do no Amazon for January. I’m not doing a no buy year.VirginiaSeeing how this feels for January. So stay tuned for next month when you get our full report on whether we keep it going.Okay, next question. This is a very fun one, and kind of related to the no buy stuff.What three questions should I ask myself before clicking purchase?CorinneOh man. Honestly hard to limit myself to three.VirginiaOkay, give me some of them.CorinneOkay, here are some of them.Have I bought stuff from this brand before that has not worked out?How do I wash this? Is it dry clean only or hang dry?Do I own anything similar?VirginiaI don’t want to answer that one.CorinneI’m not saying if the answer is yes, that you don’t necessarily buy it! Just something to consider.What’s the return policy?VirginiaThat is a big one! I have been burned so many times! Summersalt, I am talking about you! And your absolute predatory lack of return policy information.CorinneIt’s always worth considering.What is it made out of? Like, are you buying something really expensive that’s made out of plastic? Or are you buying something really expensive that’s Mongolian lamb’s wool?What could I wear it with? I feel like it’s good to have at least an idea of how you’re going to wear a thing that you want to add to your closet.VirginiaIs it final sale?CorinneYeah, I mean, return policy.VirginiaI know, but I just want to shout out the final sale thing because sometimes I think that’ll be okay and it has almost never been okay.CorinneWell, I think also, along those lines, it’s good to consider: Am I just wanting to buy this because it’s on deep discount? I have definitely been there.VirginiaSo many times.CorinneI think that’s about it for me. But that’s a lot more than three.VirginiaThat’s an amazing list. Like, you just wrote aBig Undiesnewsletter for us. I don’t think I have anything to add other than specifically shouting out the evils of Summersalt again. I’ve spent so much money on their bathing suits. But they don’t work for people with boobs. So if you have boobs, just don’t shop there and don’t be me, and keep thinking that it’s worth trying them again, because it’s not.Also for some reason on my last order, they wouldn’t give me a refund. I can only exchange. So I’m just like, repeatedly sending back two swimsuits that keep not working to try two more. Just take my $200. Like, fuck it. You robbed me, Summersalt. So that and final sale are not your friends.CorinneReady for the next question?If you operated a hotel of your dreams, what would the amenities be?VirginiaOoh, I love this. This is so fun. Absolutely room service. I think a lot of even nice hotels are phasing out room service and I’m strongly against it. I don’t want to go sit in your restaurant, especially if I’m traveling alone. I want to eat dinner in bed watching bad hotel TV. And I don’t want to have to go downstairs and come back upstairs.CorinneThat’s a really good point.VirginiaI feel very strongly about that.What would you add?CorinneIt’s funny because I was going to say an enormous and luxurious complimentary breakfast buffet. But I feel like now that I’ve heard yours, I’d rather have room service.VirginiaJust bring it to me actually.CorinneEnormous and free luxury breakfast buffet in my room.VirginiaSet up in my room. That sounds fabulous. I’m going to say enormous and luxurious bathrobes and towels, because that is never the case.CorinneI was going to say spa amenities, like pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room. Stables. You know.VirginiaStables. Visiting puppies would be nice. Puppy happy hour. I might leave my room for that, to go pet the dogs.This is going to tie back to our processed food conversation. My stepmother has this really great rant she does periodically about how we cannot be mad at families for eating at McDonald’s until good restaurants start putting in play places. Because it is, like the most brilliant thing McDonald’s ever did, that, like, you can go and eat dinner and your kids can be in the play place. It is always gross, and some kids peed in it, like it is what it is, but if you are trying to eat out to dinner as a family with any child under the age of eight, a play place is a godsend. And nice restaurants should have them, and it’s gross that they don’t.CorinneWhat about just child care?VirginiaChild care would be great. But I’m saying specifically at this hotel, I want there to be a great playground. If it’s not a hotel that accepts children, it’s fine. If it’s an adults only hotel, I respect that. I’d rather just know up front. But if you accept children, I would like there to be a good playground option near where parents can sit and eat their meal. That’s not like out back somewhere. I want to be able the parents can sit and have their cocktail and their dinner, and the kids can be on the play structure.CorinneOne thing I was thinking about was gyms, but I actually sort of feel like I don’t really care about a hotel gym and I would prefer like a hotel garden or something.VirginiaMuch better. No one needs a hotel gym.Ask Corinne!VirginiaSo our last question is for our new Ask Corinne segment about dating and sex. And this person wants to know:What are some good prompts or questions to ask on dating apps?And I think we should expand this to include good questions to ask on dates.CorinneYeah, this is an interesting question. I hate answering the prompts on dating apps.VirginiaYes. Those cutesy prompts are so annoying.CorinneOne thing I sometimes like to ask on a date is: What is your schedule? Very basic. But I feel like it can be really hard and annoying to date someone who has an insanely different schedule than you.VirginiaNo, I think that’s smart.CorinneEven in terms of like, getting up early versus staying up late. And also, like, do they work weekends and you work the week? Or do they work nights and you work days?VirginiaI mean, as a divorced parent, I think this actually comes up really quickly. But there was one guy I went on a date with over the summer who I didn’t want a second date with for so many reasons, but one part of it was I figured out our custody schedules were opposite. And I was like, “Well just forget it we’ll never line up. There’s no point, you don’t exist to me.”CorinneYeah, it’s not a fun or sexy question, but it can really make or break things.VirginiaI read a really good piece bySusan Cain, author ofQuiet, about how to make conversation. And she talked about how a common mistake people make with questions is they ask fact-based questions instead of feeling-based questions.So instead of saying, like, what do you do for work? I mean, you could start there, but then ask something like, “What’s the best part of your job?” Or what do you find most frustrating about that? So that then you’re getting people to go a layer deeper.CorinneThat’s a really good tip to move it from facts to feelings.I also think, like with the questions on apps, I think people can get really hung up on liking the same stuff, which I think can be important. It can be annoying if you’re dating someone and you have the completely different taste in movies or something. But I think if you see someone’s profile that’s naming all your favorite bands, it can be easy to be like, yes, this is the person for me.VirginiaNo, you just have similar Spotify algorithms.CorinneHow important is that?VirginiaThe algorithm has picked this for you. So much of the connection is not like, do you both like the same sports.CorinneAnd also, sometimes it’s fun to learn about stuff through a person you’re dating.VirginiaIn terms of the profiles, I also realized it was important to mix it up because I think I had a detail about having a lot of house plants. And then it was like, every DM conversation the guy led with house plants. And I was like, “All I’m doing is talking to men about houseplants.”CorinneThat’s really funny. Yeah. I mean, how much is there to say?VirginiaI love houseplants, but I don’t need to tell everyone my most favorite houseplant. So mix it up for your own entertainment. in terms of what you put out there.CorinneThis is reminding me that at one point I had “I can bake you a pie” or something. And then everyone would be like, “bake me a pie!!” And I’d be like, No. Something to know about me is I’m a good baker. And also, we don’t need to talk about it.VirginiaYou suddenly distill people down to these three nouns about them. Which I guess is just like a necessary stumbling block you have to get over to get to know someone. But it’s sort of a very fake connection to be like, “we both like pie, this must be a soulmate.”CorinneAnd pets, too. Honestly, like people say cute dog and I’m like, yeah, yeah.VirginiaWhat are the other things to talk about? Besides like pets and hobbies? I want to hear what other people say to this. What are other good questions to ask?I mean, we’ve talked plenty about how to suss out fatphobia and diet culture leanings. I think questions that get at values in general are good to get a read on whether you align enough there.CorinneYeah, it does feel more vulnerable, though, to be like, I don’t want to date someone who thinks this, versus I like making pie.VirginiaI don’t know that I put the values in a profile? I think that’s more once you’re on the date. Once you’re talking you need to do that.One guy asked me where I most wanted to travel, which was kind of a good question.CorinneThat’s a fun question.VirginiaIt was fun to think about. I think some of the questions that people send in for us to answer on Indulgence Gospel are good date questions.CorinneFive fingers!VirginiaFive fingers! I just was doing that with my kid this morning. I was like, “What liquids would you put in your fingers?” And she was like, oh, well, pink lemonade and yellow lemonade. And I was like, oh clearly. I didn’t even know she liked lemonade!CorinneMexican Coke and regular Coke.VirginiaYour finger turns into the cute, tiny bottle. It’s great.ButterCorinneOkay, my butter is the TV show Bad Sisters.VirginiaI haven’t watched the new season. I’m excited.CorinneI just finished the new season and I started watching, and I was sort of like, oh, I don’t know if this show is holding up, but by the end, I was on board.VirginiaOkay, okay, I’m excited for that. I heard mixed things about the second season, but I loved the first season so much. And I also was a little mixed on there being a second season, because it felt like such a little jewel box of a show, but I love them all so much.CorinneThey’re just all so fun to watch. And I feel like there’s some real, like, twists and turns, just like the first season, that I really didn’t see coming.VirginiaYes. Oh man, so good. Okay, I’m excited for that. That’s a great Butter.Okay, so my Butter is a card game that I’m playing quite a lot with my seven year old, but also was really fun to play with a group of all ages. And it’s called Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, which is a very popular game. So a lot of people, at least with kids, are going to know it. I don’t know if you’ve played it Corinne.CorinneI have not.VirginiaOkay, well, it’s very simple. You slap the cards down, and you take turns saying taco, cat, goat cheese pizza. And if when you say taco, you put down a taco, you all have to try to grab the card.But my Butter is that they’ve released expansion packs where now there’s like, even more animals, and you have to do these silly motions. If it’s a panda card, you rub your belly.And what’s funny about it is like adults tend to be worse at it than kids, because it’s like you have to remember motions and words and kids are just better at it. And it’s hilarious, and it gives us a lot of joy. If you already have it, definitely get the expansion pack, because there’s a moose, I forget what else, but it’s a good time. Oh, there’s pancakes.CorinneWow, sounds really fun.VirginiaYeah, it’s cute.

The hosts share personal challenges and triumphs while adopting a minimalist lifestyle. They introduce whimsical 'in and out' lists, highlighting the joys of birdwatching as a refreshing break from social media. A playful debate ensues over swimwear preferences, alongside lighthearted discussions on trendy desserts and evolving color choices in fashion. The conversation wraps up with reflections on the joy decadent food gifts bring to their lives, balancing style with personal experiences.

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your January Extra Butter! Today, we’re tackling two big topics:1. Can you do a diet-y thing and still be an anti-diet advocate?2. And can Corinne and Virginia divest from Amazon for one month?(Or is that…also kind of diet-y???)If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Substack. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter. It's just $99 per year, and is the hands down best way to keep Burnt Toast an ad- and sponsor-free space. PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.Episode 175 TranscriptVirginiaThis feels like a very timely conversation for January. We are getting inundated with all of the diet talk, all of the urge for self improvement. This is the month where even if you’re staunchly anti-diet…you might start drifting that way. So we thought, let’s get into it. Let’s talk really honestly about what that means and what it looks like.And then, on a related note, we are also going to talk about our own self improvement project—world improvement, I guess?— but also just Corinne and I trying to be better people. So we’re going to see: Can we divest from Amazon?Also, just a quick note that you may hear some background noise in this episode, because there’s some construction happening at my house today, and they are banging things. And I’m sorry.CorinneI think we should start by talking about what we mean when we say, can you do something “diet-y?” What kind of things are we talking about here?VirginiaWell I think of dieting as any time you are changing how you eat or exercise, with a weight loss goal in mind.CorinneYes. So the kind of questions that we hear a lot are like, “can I cut one thing out of my diet, or can I track this specific macronutrient and still be anti-diet?”VirginiaCan I count my protein? Can I go gluten free? Can I count my steps? It’s all of those kind of trendy habits that get marketed both for weight loss and for other reasons. And sometimes it’s the other reasons, and sometimes it’s the weight loss, and sometimes it’s hard to know why you want to do the thing.Do you personally have any diet-y somethings, Corinne?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.VirginiaWell, I mean, power lifting,CorinneI mean going to the gym could be on here.VirginiaWorking out, period, I guess. But the idea that exercise entirely belongs to diet culture—I don’t think that’s true. And I think reclaiming exercise is something we’ve talked about plenty, but it is really these specific little habits that I think are so fascinating,CorinneYeah And with the nutritional supplements I take —none of them are specifically tied to weight loss for me.I will just say, like, I’m susceptible. What’s the one that’s on all the podcasts? Athletic Greens? I’ve never tried it, but I’ve looked at it and been like, would this change my life?VirginiaThis is a major revelation. I’ve also written about Athletic Greens.CorinneReally? You have none of that?VirginiaNo no, we just haven’t gotten to my list yet. I’m enjoying your list. But I do feel like the listeners are going to be clutching their pearls a little bit over these revelations!CorinneI feel it’s so tied to millennial culture, in some ways? Like Goop and Moon Juice.VirginiaWait. Have you ever bought a Moon Juice powder?CorinneI’ve used the the magnesium one. Because magnesium is an electrolyte.VirginiaOf course it is.CorinneAnd well, also TikTok. Like for a while there was the the sleepy girl mocktail on TikTok which is tart cherry juice and and magnesium powder. It’s supposed to help you sleep. I did do that for a while.VirginiaDid it help you sleep?CorinneI do think that magnesium helps me. But also it’s just kind of fun to have a little pre-bedtime treat. What’s the harm? You know?VirginiaYeah, yeah, I get that.Okay, so my list. People know I’m a daily Diet Coke drinker, which is a reclaiming.I’ve talked about the protein powder I put in the smoothie I make every morning for me and my kids. I started using that protein powder in my last diet, which was when I was on a detox for a story I was writing for Self Magazine in 2015. And then I kept the protein powder, but ditched the diet.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.CorinneI think sometimes the nutrition supplements feel that way, too. Like, “I’m just giving myself a little extra boost” and sometimes it feels like a treat, which I don’t know, is maybe not great, but.VirginiaThe mindset thing I was just talking about is rooted in a lingering belief that weight loss should be the goal of exercise that I haven’t let go. But the protein powder really doesn’t feel about weight loss to me at all. I just really like the taste, and I like how I feel when I have that for breakfast. So which of yours do you think is, like, “is there still some like, residual weight loss goal attached?” Versus “I just like this,” and it’s fun to try different supplements and see how I feel.CorinneI mean, I honestly feel like the the supplements don’t have that connection for me. And, I have also wondered sometimes: If I had more trust in doctors and the medical community, if I wouldn’t go this route. It does feel like, “I don’t have trust in my doctor, so I’ll maybe try this weird supplement.”VirginiaThat makes sense.CorinneIt does sometimes feel like a like coping mechanism.I have also wondered, why do I care? Why do I need my Fitbit to validate my feelings about how I slept? You know?VirginiaWhy do I need to get an A on sleep? Yeah, there’s something there. I get that.CorinneMaybe it’s tied to perfectionism, not to dieting directly, but optimization.VirginiaI just remembered another one of mine! I’m always failing at hydration. I definitely have ambitions about how much water I should drink every day. And I know, as someone who’s very migraine prone, that I am a happier person when I drink a pretty extreme amount of water. Also as someone who has voice issues. And none of that has to do with weight loss—although there certainly is a whole hydration/weight loss thing that’s out there in diet culture. But it does end up feeling metric-y and judgy in a way that I don’t find helpful. I’m constantly aspiring to be someone who wakes up and drinks a bunch of lemon water, and I’m just never going to be that person. But I would like to be and I don’t know why exactly.I think this is the thing that’s tricky to tease out. What is the intention? Is it, this was a diet thing that you’ve reclaimed and reframed for yourself? Is it really still rooted in weight loss? And if so, what does that mean?So that’s what leads people to ask us: Can I pursue intentional weight loss and still be anti-diet? This came up a lot in that piece I wrote on the protein mom who was weighing her protein and teaching her daughter how to weigh her food. There were a lot of folks in the comments who felt like I was being anti-protein and wanted to defend her behavior as healthy because it was just part of how she was fueling her workouts. Or feeling like protein is getting like conflated with weight loss in these complicated ways.So it’s it’s messy. It’s messy. But I think this is a big question. Can you pursue intentional weight loss and still be someone who has anti-diet values?CorinneWhen I hear that question, what I think in my head is: Can you pursue intentional weight loss and be anti-diet? Maybe not. But can you pursue intentional weight loss and still be for fat liberation? Yes.So I think it also kind of comes down to, what is the line between those two things and where do your values lie?VirginiaOh, that’s really important. And I think, too, a lot of it has to do with your own amount of thin privilege and reasons for pursuing weight loss. Often fat folks are pursuing weight loss as a means to access health care or as a survival strategy, which is different from a very thin fitness influencer selling weight loss. Vastly different. One is somebody just doing what they need to do to survive their own life. And one is somebody profiting off weight loss and selling other people to do it.CorinneYeah, and that kind of came up on the protein girlies thing, too, where some people were, like, “I’m measuring the amount of protein I’m eating to make sure I’m getting enough,” versus I’m weighing my food or tracking calories to make sure I don’t eat too much. And I think some of that comes down to your own brain. Is that something that you can do or not?VirginiaYeah. I mean, the way you were like, I can use a Fitbit and ignore the step count, I’m like, wow, what’s it like to have a brain like that, because I know that my brain would be like, well, how many steps have we done by lunch?CorinneSometimes at the end of the day, I do look at it and I’m like, wow, I only took 3000 steps today. But I don’t find myself spiraling about it. And I think also it’s the thing where I can put it down. Like I will take it off and just kind of forget about it.VirginiaThat sounds like a very healthy, very balanced relationship with your Fitbit, as opposed to how I know I would be.So I feel like we can sort this into a couple of categories.Are you doing something that has a diet-y origin story and you’ve changed the meaning of it? Are you doing something that has a deity origin story, and you can do it without being triggered, like Corinne can use a Fitbit and Virginia cannot.Or are you doing something that you know triggers you to more of a weight loss fixated place? And that’s not what you want. And maybe this isn’t really serving you, but you’re doing it, so that’s something to look at.And then this third thing of like, Can you do it and still stand up for fat liberation? I think the answer is yes, and I want people to have concrete ideas about how they’re doing that.CorinneI think also sometimes where it feels tricky is people hold on to these behaviors and don’t want to acknowledge the inherent anti-fatness in it. I think about that with the Fitbit. Even if I can use it in a way that’s okay for me, is step tracking inherently anti-fat? I don’t know. I actually don’t really know.VirginiaI mean, it did definitely get popular as a weight loss strategy and I would say intentional weight loss is inherently anti-fat. But it is not it’s only purpose.And I think what I look for is, are you able to very clearly name that?CorinneYes, I completely agree.VirginiaIf you’re not able to say, yeah, it’s complicated, I can see that this is problematic, and I’m doing it for this reason. If you want to just sort of pretend it doesn’t have those connotations that tells me that you are not really doing that work.CorinneYeah. I think as a fat person, it feels better to hear someone acknowledge the complexity of this stuff.VirginiaWe’ve seen this a lot with the Ozempic conversation. Folks who are consciously choosing intentional weight loss for their own personal reasons often then feel shut out of fat liberation more broadly, and even of Burnt Toast specifically. Often the unsubscribe notes we get say something like, “I’m pursuing weight loss and I can’t be here anymore.”And that always makes me feel a little sad, because I don’t think that’s my goal. I don’t think that’s the goal of this community. I don’t want you to come and tell us the specifics of your diet and trigger somebody for whom that’s going to be harmful information. But I don’t want anyone to feel like their personal choices are going to be judged and policed here.CorinneUltimately, it would be nice to live in a world where weight gain and weight loss are neutral, you know?I think the Ozempic thing is a good comparison here because ultimately Ozempic is just a prescription medication. You could be taking it for weight loss, you could be taking it for other reasons. But it has come to signify so heavily pursuing intentional weight loss that now people who might want to take it for diabetes or something, don’t want to take it because it’s signifying this other thing.VirginiaGod, it’s so complicated. It’s so complicated. If the core of fat liberation is body autonomy, then we have to keep making space for “everybody gets to make their own choices for their bodies.” But we also have a responsibility to each other and in how we talk about those choices. And we have a responsibility to name the complexities of the choices.CorinneAnd if we want body autonomy for ourselves, we have to allow other people to also have that freedom.VirginiaJanuary is a hard month. If you’re thinking about some diet-y things, we’re not pushing you out of the club. You don’t have to turn in your toast merch that we’ve never made. It gets messy fast.CorinneMaybe we could talk a little bit about how if you are pursuing intentional weight loss, or doing things that could be considered diet-y, how can you keep showing up for body liberation or body autonomy?VirginiaYes, I want to talk about that for sure. I specifically want to talk about that if you are a straight sized person.And I want to say, don’t talk about what you’re doing. We don’t want to hear it.There have been a handful of instances of straight sized people in my life talking about their diet choices just recently. And every time I think whatever this choice means for you, however you’ve decided it’s necessary you want to fit into your old jeans, whatever that is, great. You are throwing every fat person around you under the bus by deciding that you, as a thin person, should talk about your need to be thinner. That is a fuck you to every fat person.So that’s an easy one. If you’re thin and you want to be thinner, don’t talk about it. Do it if you have to do it, but don’t tell us. We don’t want to know. Sorry, I know I’m being harsh, but I do feel strongly about that.CorinneI’m thinking specifically about a plus size influencer person I would see on Tiktok, who I didn’t see for a while, and then suddenly I saw a video of her being like, yes, I’ve been on GLP1s or whatever. And she went on this long monologue about how she had completely divested from fatphobia for everyone else, but not herself. And I was just like, I don’t buy this.VirginiaNo. When I’m saying “be willing to name the complexities,” I don’t mean rationalize your choice to us. I mean, be willing to own that you’re doing something that’s fundamentally anti-fat but feels necessary to you. Be willing to own that disconnect. And don’t look to fatter people to give you approval and say it’s okay. That that is asking labor of people that they don’t owe you while you are again, throwing them under the bus.CorinneThe other side of that coin is like, you can still keep showing up for people.VirginiaDonate to NAAFA, donate to ASDAH. Name anti-fatness when you see it in a doctor’s office, a workplace, a school, among your friends.CorinneTreat fat people like people.VirginiaConsider how size inclusive your furniture is. There are lots of things you can do to be showing up as an ally. And none of it has to do with us policing your own choices.CorinneYou can count your protein grams and still be nice to fat people.VirginiaAnd one of the nice things you can do is not talk about counting your protein grams.CorinneOne of the nice things you can do is not be boring.VirginiaPlease talk about anything else. So much more interesting.Yeah, all right. Well, that feels like a good place to leave that. I’m really excited to hear what folks think. I am hoping we have a rich and nuanced conversation in the comments. Not just people getting mad, but you can get mad, too. It’s fine. We have space for that.No Amazon JanuaryVirginiaAll right, should we talk about our personal project experiment that we’re both terrified to do?CorinneYes.VirginiaOkay, so it is January. There’s a lot of resolution energy. This is a kind of resolution adjacent experiment. Corinne and I have been talking for a few months now about how we don’t want to support Amazon. It’s an evil company. We’re going to talk about that. And I think especially since the election, a lot of folks feel like divesting from Amazon is something they want to do.For me personally, in the past year, we’ve started doing a lot more shopping content, affiliate links, things like that, and I got a lot more feedback about my consumer habits as a result, from readers, which was welcome and generally kind. Not always kind, but mostly kind. And something that I struggle with is shopping too much, and something I often think about trying to look at. And if I’m going to look at my consumer habits, I know my dependency on Amazon is a big piece of it. So that’s some personal motivation for me.What about you?CorinneAs you said, this has been coming up a lot since the election. I’ve been taking a look at where I’m actually spending dollars and feeling like, am I really saving myself that much time by ordering light bulbs on Amazon? Or could I just go to my local hardware store?VirginiaYou wrote some really good pieces after the election thinking about shopping in general, which we’ll link to.Big UndiesThere’s No Magic BulletIt feels strange to be sending an email this morning, especially one that was written by a past version of myself. The person who wrote this email did not know the results of the 2024 US Presidential election—although I guess it is likely that my present self doesn’t know either. And not knowing is making it hard for me to talk much about clothes, even …Read morea year ago · 112 likes · 21 comments · Corinne FayBig UndiesAre You Rethinking Shopping?Last week I was running errands and found myself at a strip mall with a little time to waste, so I stopped in to a Nordstrom Rack. I’m not a frequent shopper there, but I enjoy browsing every now and again…Read morea year ago · 81 likes · 66 comments · Corinne FayBig UndiesThe Revolution Will Be Anti-SexyI've been inundated with 4B content since the election. If you missed it, 4B is a feminist movement that started in South Korea in which women do not date, get married to, have sex with, or procreate with men. But 4B has a style component, too. As Anna Louie Sussman…Read more10 months ago · 85 likes · 30 comments · Corinne FayIt’s just been kind of a trigger point of, like, wow, capitalism brought us here. What are we doing about that?CorinneYeah, I think also, climate anxiety. It’s become so easy to rely on Amazon for those little household things. And is there a different way?VirginiaI really likeLaura Fentonwho writesLIVING SMALL. She did a post towards the end of last yearlisting everything she’d bought in the year, and it was like, 13 things. And I was just like, damn. I can buy 13 things in a week. In a day! That’s one Amazon order!I think Laura lives a lifestyle I’m never going to live. She’s great, but she and I have some different priorities. I’m never going to be a minimalist. I don’t want to be a minimalist. That’s not for me. But on a scale of Laura to Kim Kardashian, I would prefer to be closer to the underconsuming side than to the Kardashian side of things.CorinneShall we quickly run through some of the reasons we came up with for divesting from Amazon?VirginiaI think people know this, but maybe you haven’t heard it in a while. And maybe you don’t know it, and maybe you’re like, why are you guys so mad about Amazon? So yeah, let’s do a highlight reel.CorinneFirst of all, the packaging. There’s so much packaging.VirginiaSo much waste. For me, there’s also waste because I buy a lot of shit I end up getting rid of. You buy a lot of things you’re not going to keep forever on Amazon. Of course, you want to think you donate it to people who can use it, but we know a lot of it’s ending up in landfills.CorinneAlso, Amazon is not a great place to work.VirginiaNo, no. Lots of union busting. I think they claim $15 an hour starting pay, but don’t always deliver on it. Injuries. Just a lot of really terrible workplace stuff.CorinneAmazon also supports ICE and separating immigrant families. Also tax avoidance.VirginiaGreat. Feeling so good about things.CorinneJeff Bezos is not paying taxes.VirginiaWell, you know, I mean, times are tough for Jeff Bezos. He only has what? Like 10% of the Earth’s money? I don’t know. He’s only tripled his net worth in the time we’ve been recording this episode basically.CorinneHe’s also donating a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration.VirginiaYeah, they have a weird history. They haven’t always gotten along, but clearly at the moment, Bezos is Team Trump all the way. Because he thinks Trump will reduce regulations, which is just not what we need—for Amazon to have fewer regulations.Amazon has also been just wildly destructive for the book publishing industry for a really long time. Authors make lower royalty rates from Amazon versus bookstores. They do crazy price control, driving down prices in ways that make it really impossible for independent bookstores to compete. Basically everybody else in the book industry hurts while Amazon gets richer and richer.Now, some folks will say for self-published authors, Amazon has been a boon because you can often self-publish on Amazon more easily than you can other places. But I think even there, we’re seeing that it’s not longterm sustainable or great for authors. There’s also a lot of piracy. There are a lot of fake versions of your book going up all the time. It’s a train wreck.The one place I have 100 percent divested from Amazon on is buying books. I stopped buying books from Amazon about five years ago. I mostly buy them from Split Rock, my local independent bookstore. Or whenever I travel and go to another bookstore, I always buy a book.And that one was pretty easy for me. Part of why I want to do this experiment is for a long time I’ve been like, well, I don’t buy books from Amazon. And I do buy a lot of books, so that’s not nothing. But now I’m like, Okay, I could probably do more.But if you are looking for a starting place, giving up Amazon for books is a big one.CorinneI, on the other hand, have a Kindle and use Audible! So I don’t know what I’m going to do.VirginiaI mean, that’s the hard thing. I was actually just talking about this with Heidi Bender, who owns Split Rock Books. I was getting Amazon intel from her, and we were saying, it just shows how insidious this is, that you can’t take your Kindle and buy books from other places. You can only use a Kindle to buy from Amazon. Because there is Kobo, which is an alternative and they support independent bookstores. Bookshop.org is supposed to be working on their own ebooks. They’re not out as of this recording, but it’s in the works. But what device are you going to read them on is the big question, because Amazon is not going to let you put that on your Kindle. So that is a hard piece.You can do the Kobo app or another e-reader app on your iPad. Not that Apple is a great company, but we’re focusing on one at a time here, guys. Harm reduction! So you could read on a different tablet, if you have one for ebooks.For audiobooks, there is a good solution, which is Libro FM is a really great independent bookstore supporting audiobook site. I love them. They make it really easy to support, you pick the bookstore and they get a cut. And you can use the Libro app on any smartphone or tablet. So, that was really easy to sort out the audiobook piece, but the ebooks thing is a little trickier.CorinneThat’s cool. I think I will just only use Libby.VirginiaYeah, that’s a good solution for now at least. Use the Libby app on your Kindle. That’s how you know they have the technology, because you can get your Kindle to work with libraries. So why can’t you buy from different ebook sites?CorinneYou know why! Jeff Bezos needs more moneyOkay, what do you actually buy from Amazon?VirginiaCorinne…CorinneWe know it’s not books.VirginiaIt’s everything else.Okay, so my current Amazon Prime account I’ve actually only had for three months, because prior to that I had one shared with my ex, and then we finally divorced our Amazon Prime. So in the last three months, I have placed 24 orders with Amazon.CorinneTwo a week.VirginiaThat’s not great.CorinneCould be worse? I’m afraid to look honestly. What if mine is worse than yours? I share an Amazon with my sister, so I’m not going to be able to see which ones are just mine.But we have 81 orders. That’s for two households. But two households? That is still 40 each.I will say, my sister just had a baby.VirginiaYour sister just had a baby. It’s the holidays. We’re recording this on December 17, so I am in the thick of Christmas shopping. And then it’s getting close, so we’re in the panic stage. It’s not great though. It’s not great! We are laying ourselves bare. Judge us all you want.CorinneGive me your last five orders.VirginiaDry shampoo.Also, travel size dry shampoo.Something that’s a Christmas gift that I’m not sure whether I’m keeping, so I’m not going to say it.Protein powder. This is going to be a tough one. My protein powder is on a Subscribe and Save.A life size cut out of Nicolas Cage, which is a gift for my nephew. That one I think I stand by, seems great.A Christmas tree collar. I suddenly decided I didn’t want to look at the base of my Christmas tree and ordered a wicker collar for it. That one we can all judge.Stocking stuffer, stocking stuffer, stocking stuffer.Easy lunch boxes, these containers that we use for my kids’ lunch boxes.A new kitchen knife I arguably did not need at all.Liners for my air fryer and more stocking stuffers.That gets us back to December 6. Oh and, a shirt that my child needed for a holiday chorus concert, that we needed to acquire very quickly, which is the other place Amazon Prime comes in.What about you?CorinneKnitting needlesHangersLight bulbs—which, it’s a specific light bulb in a dimmable variety, which I did try to find locally and could not.VirginiaI mean, I hear you. I have to order reptile light bulbs. Well, now I get them from Chewy, but from Amazon.CorinneA heated mattress pad for my guest room because my mom was coming to visit.A touch lamp also for my guest room because my mom was coming to visit.Shout color catcher dye trapping sheets.VirginiaOh, do those work?CorinneYeah, they do.VirginiaGood to know.CorinneI also Amazon ordered two cookbooks to my sister. Sorry to Amy Palanjian andJulia Turshen.VirginiaWell, you bought their cookbooks.CorinneYeah, but from Amazon.VirginiaWell, that’s alright, their books are selling pretty well.So it’s a lot of, like, stress shopping. It’s a lot of like, I need to solve this problem quickly.CorinneMine is definitely a lot of last minute, like let me just order this thing so I don’t have to deal with going to the store.VirginiaI mean, what I have to say is, arguably, I didn’t need to buy a lot of it. I don’t really understand why I bought that knife? Can’t remember why I decided I needed a new knife? The Christmas tree collar also was a poor purchase.But otherwise, it was just kind of the stuff that we need to run our lives. It wasn’t like, luxury items. Do you know what I mean? It’s not even stuff that brings me joy.CorinneYeah, for me it feels like checking it off a list. Instead of having a note in my phone that’s like, go to target, get this, this, and this, I just do it immediately and then it’s off my plate.VirginiaYou can just, right as you’re thinking of it, press buy. So on the one hand, I don’t think that I will feel sadder not making these purchases, because they aren’t even things that make me super happy. But I do feel like there’s a convenience thing that we’re going to give up.CorinneI mean, we’re talking about doing this for 30 days. Like, I think I could live without most of the stuff for 30 days. But I’m also like, then is there gonna be a backfire, where after 30 days, we’re going nuts?VirginiaI do think we have to delete the apps on our phones so we’re not just secretly adding to cart all month.CorinneOkay.VirginiaOr is that too stringent?CorinneI’m fine with that.VirginiaI think we probably do need to do it.CorinneAlso, in this 30 days falls my birthday.VirginiaOkay? Do you purchase a lot from Amazon for your birthday? A lot of light bulbs for your birthday?CorinneWhat if I need last minute birthday candles or tinsel decorations or something?VirginiaI mean, I want you to have an amazing birthday, but I feel like there’s a work around.CorinneI just want everyone to acknowledge that this may be harder for me.VirginiaCorinne is sacrificing by doing this in her birthday month, of all times. You are the hero, for sure. I see that.I am someone who works from home, and I have kids, so my ability to like leave my house and run errands often feels limited. Like, I don’t want to drag a kid along on an errand they don’t want to go on. I have work I’m trying to get done, so I don’t want to go when the kids are at school. So if I have to do more in person shopping, this is going to be challenging for me. I’m very delivery-dependent.What I have been doing, to try to do a little less Amazoning, is I always check Target first. I can get anything shipped from Target, and their shipping times are honestly pretty close to Amazon’s a lot of the time. But is Target better? Is it worth doing that this month, just to cut the cord with Amazon? But it feels like a crutch. So I don’t know that it’s better.CorinneI don’t know either.VirginiaThey are also not great to their employees. They’re busting unions. But I think for someone like me, I don’t know that I can go all the way there. I think I need Target as a as a stepping stone.CorinneI mean, I think the good thing about this is we get to make up the rules, right?VirginiaWe are! We are making the rules.CorinneThough sometimes when I think about stuff like this, I’m like, is this a diet?VirginiaNo, it’s a very fair question. It’s a very fair question. Anytime you’re consciously trying to change behavior with a goal in mind it can verge on diet-y territory.Especially, I do often think with these no buy months or any of these experiments, like individual consumer habits are not what is going to change the stranglehold these corporations have on us. It needs to be wholesale reform, but we’re also not going to get that. So it feels like something we can do.CorinneHowever, we do have how many people reading Burnt Toast? Can we get all of them on board with us?VirginiaWell, there are 63,000 of them, but they don’t all pay for Extra Butter. But if more of them would, then yes. The thousands of you that are here listening to this, we would love you to join us. That would be really fun. And we want to hear your strategies!One thing that might be fun, since we’re doing this for 30 days, is I’ll post some threads in chat where anyone who’s doing it can check in and commiserate, and maybe it’ll be me being like, “Guys, seriously, where do I get a stapler” or whatever I need last minute. We can all help each other solve some of these problems.CorinneYeah, that sounds good. So just to summarize, our commitment is no Amazon for 30 days.VirginiaYes, and we’re deleting the apps on our phones.CorinneOkay, but we are doing Target.VirginiaI think for me personally, the no Amazon feels hard enough. I don’t want to put other rules around it. If you want to step it up and only buy secondhand or something, I really admire that about you.CorinneI think right now I’m just going to stick to no Amazon, but we’ll see.VirginiaI mean, it is your birthday month. So yeah, if this is super easy, what if we breeze through it? Then maybe next month we can be like, oh, we should start looking at something else. It’s not going to be Instacart, I’ll tell you that. Not ready. Not there in my healing process, thank you very much.CorinneTotally.VirginiaAlright. I’m excited. I’m nervous, but I’m excited.CorinneAnd we’re going to revisit this next month!VirginiaYeah, we’ll do an update in February, for sure.ButterCorinneShall we do Butter?VirginiaLet’s do Butter. Nothing will be from Amazon. We promise!CorinneMy Butter is from Amazon.VirginiaWait, really, is it?CorinneYes.VirginiaOh my God. Okay. It’s a last hurrah.CorinneI already bought it.VirginiaWe’re divesting from Amazon. But here is an Amazon link. Oh, my God, that’s really funny.CorinneYou don’t have to get it at Amazon.I want to recommend a heated mattress pad. Amazon is not the only place that sells them. However, I just think they are the best. I think they are far superior to a heated blanket.VirginiaInteresting.CorinneAnd I think that everyone who lives somewhere cold needs one.VirginiaIs it like having a heating pad but it’s your whole body? Because I have a heating pad that I use when I have cramps or something.CorinneI mean, it’s like a heating pad, but the heating pad is your whole bed. Instead of climbing into a cold bed at night, you’re climbing into a lasagna, as one of my friends said. A warm and cheesy lasagna.VirginiaA warm and cheesy lasagna bed,CorinneI don’t know, it just feels like it heats you faster and better than a heating pad or a blanket.VirginiaI want to get these for my kids beds, because their bedrooms are really chilly.CorinneI’ll often turn it on and then turn it off before I get to bed. I don’t even like to have it on all night, because it’s it’s really warm. Or if you have a king size bed it has two separate sides, so you can have one side on and one side off, and roll back and forth all night.VirginiaOh, I like that. Or if you sleep with someone, they could choose their own temperature.CorinneExactly. That is how it’s intended, but could never be me.VirginiaWe will just be rolling back and forth. I could starfish, and half my starfish is warm, and half is cold.CorinneExactly, exactly.VirginiaOkay. I’m intrigued. My other question is, what about my perimenopause night sweats? But I think you solved that by turning it off before you get into bed.CorinneYeah, I don’t leave it on all night, because then I do wake up sweating.VirginiaWell, on a related note, my Butter, which I did not purchase from Amazon, although they are sold on there, is my weighted blanket, which I’m obsessed with right now. Now that it is cold. I have one of the Bearaby ones, which was like an Instagram darling. It’s like a really pretty cable knit kind of blanket. It was a Christmas present a few years ago, during the pandemic. So it’s been going strong for four years, and I love it so much. And it is like being buried alive when you’re under it in bed, but in a cozy way.CorinneWow. So yours covers the whole bed?VirginiaIt covers all of me. It does not cover the whole bed. It says it’s a queen size okay, but I sleep in a king size bed. But it’s also even when I had it on a queen bed, it didn’t drape over the sides. It is like maybe the dimensions of the mattress.But it covers me completely. And what I like about it is, I move around a lot less when I’m sleeping, which I think means I sleep a lot more deeply.CorinneYou would need a Fitbit to tell you.VirginiaIf only I had some device tracking that and grading it for me.CorinneBut does this make it harder to get out of bed?VirginiaEverything makes it hard to get out of bed. It’s January. It’s dark outside. Nobody wants to get out of bed. You might as well love bed while you’re in it, because then you spend all day just wanting to go back.CorinneFair.VirginiaIt’s not a new concept. I feel like weighted blankets have been around for a minute, but I’m just if you’ve been on the fence, this is, this is the month to do it. This is the time. We’ve got a Trump inauguration coming. Some of us are trying not to shop on Amazon. We need our comfort.CorinneSo heavy that you can’t reach for your phone and click Add to Cart.VirginiaThis is my entire strategy. I’m just going to be pinned under my blanket.Well, this was really good, and I’m excited to see how this next 30 days goes for us.CorinneMe too.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and we’re dropping in today with your Burnt Toast Podcast Year In Review.Don’t forget! Burnt Toast subscriptions are 20% off right now — but that deal ends tomorrow night. Don’t miss it!And if you haven’t donated to our NAAFA fundraiser yet, we could really use your help funding fat.You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---Episode 174 TranscriptVirginiaIt has been a really great year for the podcast, wouldn’t you agree, Corinne?CorinneI would agree.VirginiaYes. I don’t know that we celebrated this properly at the time, but a few months ago, we actually passed 1 million downloads this year, which is wild to me.CorinneHonestly, I can’t think about that too hard.VirginiaThen I will not tell you that we are now at 1.32 million, as of this recording.CorinneMy gosh! It’s wild.VirginiaI know it’s really cool. I feel super proud of the podcast. I love making it with you.CorinneSo we are going to take this opportunity to chat about listeners’ five favorite episodes of the year—plus the least popular episode!VirginiaThe poor, unloved episode.Before we dive in, I feel like I need to own up that this is a very imperfect science I used to rank the episodes. Since we do a mix of paywalled and unpaywalled episodes, I can’t just go by total download numbers. That’s because the paywalled episodes—Corinne, this will be reassuring to you, as someone who’s primarily on paywalled episodes—have lower number of downloads on these. So the million downloads is not all you.CorinneYeah. And it’s a million downloads across all episodes, right?VirginiaYes. This is episode 174 so I think that number, the 1.3 million, is like, current to 170 or something like that.But I did look at which episodes were downloaded the most for the year, and then I also looked at which episodes the paywall was most effective—meaning that you all paid to listen. Because that tells us a lot about is this episode striking a nerve so much that you’re like, “yes, I will pay $7 or for Extra Butter folks, $99 to listen to this episode.” So I think that’s pretty indicative of its popularity.CorinneIt’s always fun to see what people are excited about. And where we sometimes fail with writing headlines.VirginiaWe work so hard on the headlines, and sometimes I think we’ve really nailed it and then we have not at all.I will also say I’m exempting from the data last week’s episode, as of this recording. The Tyranny of the Millennial Camisole episode came out last week. It’s not doing great, but it’s only had a few days and I don’t feel it’s fair to judge it yet! But you all should go listen to it, because it’s such a good episode.I feel that people are missing out by not hearing us discuss camisoles and horizontal stripes and whatever else we talked about in that episode.The Burnt Toast PodcastThe Tyranny of the Millennial CamisoleVirginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay·December 5, 2024Why everything you learned about "dressing for your belly" is trash.Read full storyCorinneIt’s about a lot more than just camisoles! Although camisoles were a big part.VirginiaThey were and I think maybe in my headline writing, I over-emphasized that. I apologize, but if you’ve ever worn Spanx, that episode is for you.2024’s Least Popular Podcast Episode!CorinneOkay, here we go. We are starting with the least popular episode. This is the one that has the fewest downloads and had the fewest people paying to listen.The Burnt Toast PodcastFatphobic Roller Coasters and Fatphobic SocksVirginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay·July 25, 2024You’re listening to Burnt Toast!Read full storyDo you remember this episode?VirginiaI mean, I’ll admit I had to open it up and be like, which episode was this?CorinneOh, interesting. It’s from July of this year.VirginiaDo we think everyone was just on summer vacation?CorinneIt’s definitely possible.VirginiaJuly is, historically, usually a pretty low month overall for newsletters and podcasts in general, I think because of summer travel schedules.CorinneBut I will say—the question that the headline is referring to, the fatphobic roller coaster question, was memorable for me.VirginiaYeah, no, absolutely. It was from a woman who was going to amusement parks and feeling really sad she couldn’t ride on roller coasters.CorinneIt was a good question.VirginiaI think our answer was also pretty good. Folks can click through and listen to that. I think maybe the headline is a little niche? If you haven’t currently struggled with roller coasters or socks, that might be why it didn’t speak to you.But I also want to say: If dismantling anti-fatness is important to you, these kind of mundane issues are the work. It’s not always the sexy stuff. Sometimes it is totally roller coasters and socks. Also Corinne on socks is just a great rant, guys.CorinneOh, my God.VirginiaThat’s also worth listening to!CorinneWell, yeah, I also think if you like the episodes where there are deeper questions and we’re thinking about the nuance of fatphobia and what do we give up when we decide to stop dieting. I think this is good one, and you might want to listen if you missed it.VirginiaYeah, agreed, agreed. And we’re not judging you, but a little bit we are, that you blew past some of our finest work.Okay, let’s now go through what you guys did like, and we’ll go from least to most, right?Top 5 Most Popular Episodes of 2024CorinneWe’re going from least most popular to most most popular.So the Number 5 Most Popular Episode is: Did Virginia get divorced over butter?The Burnt Toast PodcastDid Virginia Get Divorced Over Butter?Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·June 13, 2024Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!Read full storyCorinneHow do you feel about your divorce being one of the most popular episodes?VirginiaI feel zero surprise about it, and I am not going to answer that question here. People can listen to the episode and find out, what I think about it.CorinneIt’s another good episode. What else did we talk about in that episode?VirginiaWe talked also a lot about how the newsletter works.CorinneThe making of the sausage, how the sausage is made.VirginiaWe did talk about the weirdness of the Internet having a parasocial relationship with one’s personal life, so if that’s an interesting topic, it’s pretty juicy.And people have told us they really like the process stories. People are interested in how we make the podcast and the newsletter. I think I’m always interested in that for other people.Leave a comment4. Can I want to lose weight for a good reason?The Burnt Toast Podcast"Can I Want to Lose Weight for a Good Reason?"Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·March 21, 2024You’re listening to Burnt Toast!Read full storyCorinneThis is another, like, mail baggy episode. And I do think that question is kind of perennially interesting.VirginiaIt’s definitely another nuanced and chewy question, which we really love to do. But there are some other lighter questions in that episode: Is it okay to feed your children paleo waffles? My thoughts on single mom travel. Are there any comfortable jeans?CorinneThe third most popular episode—which I’m actually a tiny bit surprised about. I thought, honestly, it would be higher—was:3. When Fat Influencers Get Thinner.The Burnt Toast PodcastWhen Fat Influencers Get ThinnerCorinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·February 8, 2024Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!Read full storyVirginiaOh yeah, this was a juicy one.CorinneThis is one where we talked about fat influencers losing weight because of Ozempic.VirginiaI wonder if it would have been even higher if we had name-checked somebody in the headline.CorinneMaybe?VirginiaThat’s something—as we’ll see when we get to number one—that is sometimes effective. But it’s tricky. I think one thing we’ve realized about the podcast is that y’all really like us doing criticism and analysis of Internet culture as it intersects with diet culture and anti-fatness. So there are quite a few influencer episodes that have done well. But because Internet culture is as vast as it is, often these people are kind of niche. If you’re not already following plus size influencers, or you’re not already following kid food influencers or whatever, you might not know the specific players.So I think that’s why we didn’t include the names. Because we were like, will everyone know these people?CorinneAnd also this episode wasn’t just about one person, it was about a wider cultural phenomenon.VirginiaYes. It was the trend of influencers using Ozempic or Wegovy to lose weight, and suddenly, kind of radically changing the way they talk about weight and body acceptance and health journeys.CorinneThis is one of the episodes I was most stressed about recording, just because it feels so hard to get right. I remember when it came out, I was just like, oh, I kind of hope no one listens.VirginiaUnfortunately, many people listened. Thousands of people listened, Corinne.But what I always want to push back on is that the scolding we always get is “you’re tearing down other women,” or “you’re being mean girls.” And I think that is actually a very anti-feminist understanding of this work. We have to hold other women accountable when they are not being allies to other women and otherwise marginalized folks.And specifically, this episode—and I think pretty much all our influencer episodes—focus on white ladies with a lot of privilege who are not using that privilege responsibly. That criticism is really important right now. And it’s not being a mean girl, it’s being a cultural critic and someone who analyzes diet culture and is able to identify it. And sometimes women create diet culture. So we have to say that.But I get why you were nervous about it. People are going to be meaner to me than to you, though, if it helps. You’re the more likable one!CorinneOh, my God. I don’t actually remember there being a lot of pushback after that episode came out. But maybe you got all of it.VirginiaI don’t either but I also don’t go on Reddit very often.CorinneOh, yeah, no, me neither. At least not for that.VirginiaThat’s a self-care measure for us. We will not be doing that, and you don’t need to send us anything you find there!Okay, the next two are kind of like one and two. You can make arguments for which is one and which is two. But what I’m calling number 2 was our far and away most downloaded episode of the year:2. Is “Mom Rage” Actually “Marriage Rage?”The Burnt Toast PodcastIs "Mom Rage" Actually "Marriage Rage?"Virginia Sole-Smith and lyz·February 29, 2024You’re listening to Burnt Toast!Read full storyThis was my interview with Lyz Lenz about her new book, This American Ex-Wife. It has almost 28,000 downloads, which is easily 10,000 downloads more than a free episode usually gets. So it was off to the races.CorinneWow. It was a great episode.VirginiaIt was a great episode! I mean, it definitely also touched a nerve. I think the comment section got kind of spicy. Anytime we do divorce and marriage topics, we hear from people who really like their marriages and feel personally attacked.CorinneTotally makes sense.VirginiaAnd I’m not saying they need to get divorced, but they sometimes seem to think that’s what we’re saying? Butlyzis great, and it is a really fantastic conversation.And it’s interesting too, because, you know, I first had Lyz on the podcast to talk about diet culture and divorce well before my own divorce. And then she came back, and we were two divorced ladies together. It was kind of a fun little evolution.CorinneI love that. And the number one most popular episode of the year is…1. The Curious Evolution of Emily OsterThe Burnt Toast PodcastThe Curious Evolution of Emily OsterVirginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay·November 14, 2024Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! This month we’re talking about Emily Oster—and her evolving views on kids, weight and health.Read full storyVirginiaDrumroll for that. This one really blew up. The free preview for this has also over 25,000 downloads. The full paywalled episode is less, but it did convert a ton of people who wanted to hear the whole thing. And that is again, above average numbers for us.CorinneYeah, that’s also really interesting, because that one is from just last month. Whereas the last two were from February.VirginiaYes. I mean, usually the older an episode is, the more downloads it has, because new people discovering the podcast often go back and download old episodes. But Emily Oster was an immediate hit.And despite everything I said about feeling very strongly that we are not being mean girls, and we are culture critics, and this is valid work— this was the one I was the most nervous about.CorinneWell, and you know her.VirginiaI have a lot of respect for Emily. But there have been some weird right turns taken, and I felt it was important to talk about it. So that is all in that episode.CorinneI’m kind of surprised that the Kids Eat In Color episode isn’t on here.The Ballerina Farm of Kid Food InstagramCorinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·March 7, 2024Read full storyVirginiaIf we were only going to do top 5 paywalled episodes, it would have been number five.CorinneOh, gotcha.VirginiaThat is another good one. But since I wanted to make sure to include at least one of the free ones as well, I did some very scientific number crunching… in the 10 minutes before we recorded this episode.CorinneAre there any episodes you’re surprised aren’t in the top five?VirginiaI don’t think so. I mean, I’ve been tracking all the way along that this influencer analysis thing was really taking off. And two divorce things on this list doesn’t surprise me at all, because that’s been a huge driver of engagement.I’m definitely sad for fatphobic roller coasters being the least popular episode. That’s where I think the heart of this work is. And then the more gossipy topics like public figures and divorce—that’s what gets the clicks and the downloads. So the cynical journalist in me is like, well, of course, But we’re not going to stop doing the fat phobic roller coaster episodes.CorinneYeah, I think they’re super important.VirginiaWe really need them. So I encourage everyone: If you love an Emily Oster type episode, please go listen to that one too. Because it’s all part of the work.CorinneIt’s really fun to answer listener questions too.VirginiaYes. I guess the less cynical part of me understands, though—because I think the mailbag question episodes are really fun but they are more random. So if you’re a newer listener, they feel a little inside baseball. It’s you and me hanging out and chatting, and it feels like we’re having a conversation with all the Burnt Toasties, which I love. But I can get why they’re harder to break into. So that’s something we might think about? How to make them more accessible?CorinneI think it’s also harder to write a hooky headline for those episodes. If it’s five different topics, then what do you put up top that will get people to listen?VirginiaThat is always a little bit of an experiment. How to frame it exactly? Maybe we have to make sure to include an influencer question in those, just to get it in the headline. I’m sorry it’s clickbait, but it’s what you all respond to!ButterCorinneLet’s do the the last butter of 2024! No pressure.VirginiaThat does feel like pressure, right? What do you have?CorinneOkay, well, I feel mine is like just a little anti-climactic, because I think I feel like everyone’s already gonna know about this. But I just read the book James by Percival Everett. It really is as good as everyone is saying. I really enjoyed it. I plowed right through it.I mean, as you probably know, it’s a retelling of Huck Finn. So it just has that adventure story and a plot that just kind of carries you right along. But it’s just a good read. So I definitely recommend that if people haven’t read it. I listened to the audiobook, which I thought was really good.VirginiaOh, nice. I’m excited to know that. I tried to make my book club read it, and they shot it down. We did read Colored Television by Danzy Senna who happens to be his wife. It also came out this year. And I did have a moment of like, I’m glad we read that one, because James is the one that really blew up. And Colored Television is also excellent.And it’s probably complicated to be two bestselling authors in a marriage, both releasing big books in the same year! I don’t know. It seems that seems like something! I would love to know more about how that works. But I do want to read James too.CorinneI don’t know why your book group shot it down, but my mom was telling me about it, and I was also resisting it, and then it just like, popped up on Libby, and I was like, Oh, fine. And then I I did really like it.VirginiaWell, I have a knee-jerk reaction to not wanting to read books by and about men, which is something I can look at. I suppose. And I think the whole Huckleberry Finn retelling makes it feel like a school book versus a fun read.CorinneYeah, I could see that. I mean, it is like, about slavery…VirginiaIt’s not an uplifting topic, but it does sound like a really incredible book.CorinneAll right, what’s your Butter?VirginiaI’m also going to do a culture rec, because something else we learned this year is that the culture-based Butters are the ones we stand by, versus when I tell you about something I bought at Target. So I’m not recommending anything from Target.I’m just going to do a Butter for Somebody Somewhere. It is the most delightful, beautiful little show. And I’m sad it’s ending after three seasons, but they are three perfect little jewel box seasons, and if you somehow have not experienced the magic that is Bridget Everett, I don’t know this is what you should do with the rest of your winter break. You should go binge watch it.CorinneAbsolutely. I haven’t watched Season Three yet. I’m also like…I’m not, like, a musical person, so sometimes I’m like, can we move along there?VirginiaBut did you see the reel of her singing Janis Joplin on Jimmy Fallon?[Post-recording note: Virginia knows she talked about this show and shared this reel just last week and SHE DOES NOT CARE.]fallontonightA post shared by @fallontonightCorinneYes, she’s incredible. Like, no hate. At all.VirginiaThey called it a karaoke performance. It was insulting. That was like a stadium arena level performance. I’m in love with her.CorinneShe’s really cool, and the show is incredible. I just sometimes am fast-forwarding through the songs.VirginiaI understand. It is always that thing where, like, you have this really talented actor who’s also an incredible singer. So you write in a plot line where they get to sing a lot, even though it’s maybe not totally in line with the episodes. But I’m like, so here for it, because I just find her so incredible. And the friend group is so great too!CorinneAll the characters are really good.VirginiaWe are gonna miss that one, Bridget. I can’t wait to see what you do next. Iconic fat rep.Oh, and I won’t do spoilers since you haven’t seen Season Three yet, but there was an episode early in season three thatKim Baldwintexted me and was like, “I’m really nervous they’re gonna go in a weight loss plot line direction,” and then they don’t. AndI actually think it’s one of the best episodes I’ve seen about being a fat person at a doctor’s office.CorinneOoh.VirginiaIt’s very understated, because the whole show is very understated. It’s pretty nuanced, but they really show the whole experience of feeling vulnerable, when the gown doesn’t fit, and the way the doctor talks to her and all of that. And it’s so honest and well done. And her weight has never been part of the story, nor should it be. But the fact that they still wove it in as a part of life. It just is exquisitely done.CorinneWow, that’s amazing. Well, that makes me really excited to watch.VirginiaAll right. Well, I just want to say a big thank you to all of our listeners. This has been a really, really great year making the podcast, and I’m excited to see what we do in 2025 How will we top these top five?CorinneOh God, hard to say! I’m like, this means next year is 2 million downloads?VirginiaWell, who knows. It could totally drop off, or it could blow up, and be at 5 million? Dream big, Corinne!CorinneOkay.VirginiaThanks for doing this with me.CorinneYeah, thanks for doing this with me, and thanks to all our listeners.

It’s time for your December Indulgence Gospel. Today’s episode is both holiday and sex-themed, which seems right! We’re getting into:️ How diet culture and anti-fatness show up during the holiday season. Comments from relatives! Fitness equipment as gifts! Matching family PJs! Etc.️ Our NEW Ask Corinne segment, where Corinne answers your fat sex and dating questions, like: What do you do when certain positions just don’t work for your body?To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. If you are already a paid subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Substack. You can also subscribe to Corinne's newsletter, Big Undies, for 20% off using this special link. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Also, don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.---Episode 173 TranscriptVirginiaI’m so excited for Ask Corinne. I’ve manifested this.CorinneI need to get back on the apps so I have some more advice to give.VirginiaFor anyone who missed the fat dating episode we did, I personally found it deeply instructive. I think Corinne gives excellent advice. You have continued to give me excellent advice. And so I just really felt like this needs to be a more official part of the Indulgence Gospel lineup.CorinneI do love telling people what to do.VirginiaAnd you’re really good at it! You’re usually right.OK, but holiday stuff first. We got many variations of this first question, so I’m going to read one big one—but we’re going to try to speak to everybody who has a relative they have to figure out how to talk to at the holidays.:How much is too much confrontation at the holidays? My mother-in-law is constantly almond mom-ing in front of my kids. “I’m just going to be a little piggy and get another serving.” I typically confront most of it and it has actually helped. She’s gotten better. But this year we are going to a cousin’s house. Do I stop correcting her diet culture intrusions because we are not at my house? Do I take on the big stuff but leave the rest? Keep my mouth shut? I want to be a respectful guest to the host, but I also want to support and protect me and my kids. How do you balance this?CorinneThe eternal question! How to deal with your family at the stressful times around stressful topics.Personally, I would let it go. Or I would have a conversation beforehand. I think you could even frame it as, “I’ve really noticed that you’ve been making an effort to talk less about this, and I’m appreciating it. And I hope you’ll continue that, even though we’re going to be at my cousin’s house.”VirginiaI love that. Give some positive feedback on the effort that has been made.I also think you’ve made your point, and she maybe can only get so far. Maybe you’ve gotten what you’re going to get. I always come back to, when it comes to a grandparent saying this stuff or another extended family member saying this stuff in front of your kids— if it feels weird to tackle in the moment, you can debrief with your kids afterwards. You can protect your kids that way by making sure they’re aware of that you don’t agree with these comments, but you don’t necessarily have to be whack-a-mole responding to every instance in the moment.CorinneI also think those moments of tension between you and a family member are usually really unpleasant for someone else to witness, so I would maybe just not. I would save it.VirginiaThe other versions we got of this were things like, “How can I get my mom to stop commenting on my dad’s intake?” and, “Is it worth correcting aging parents on their unnecessary descriptor lingo, comments like ‘larger woman’ or ‘Black nurse?’”Which, like, oh, man. Why do people do that? It’s so, so unnecessary.CorinneThe dad’s intake one is so interesting, too.VirginiaI feel like that’s between your parents? I don’t know that it’s your job to be in the middle of that.CorinneI want to know if it is bothering your dad or not?VirginiaYou could back him up if he wants to say something. But if he’s choosing not to say something, I don’t know that it’s your place to say something.CorinneMaybe ask your dad like, “Hey, does it ever bother you that mom is commenting on your intake?”Virginia“And do you want me to say something? Is it helpful if I say something?”I would really go to your dad for direction there versus taking that on as your own personal project.CorinneBut I could totally understand if it would be triggering to you to hear your mom commenting on someone else’s intake.VirginiaYes. And the unnecessary descriptors. Man, I don’t know. How do we get people to stop doing this?CorinneThe descriptions that they’re mentioning here, like a larger woman or Black nurse, there’s nothing wrong with those things. But it’s sort of like, what’s the subtext?VirginiaIt’s that confusing thing, because we always say, “Don’t be colorblind! Don’t pretend someone’s not fat if they are.” Let’s reclaim these words. Let’s talk about this.But then when you’re inserting race or gender or body size, etc into a conversation where the anecdote you’re about to tell me has nothing to do with those descriptors, you’re just bringing in that detail because you’re excited you saw a fat person. That we don’t need.But how do you explain that nuance? This isn’t you making marginalized groups more visible, this is actually you othering a marginalized person more by needing to identify them in a situation when you wouldn’t say “that thin woman” or “we had this nice white nurse on grandad’s ward.” Or whatever. So that is the difference. But how you start to break that down for someone who’s probably somewhat unconsciously doing this, I don’t know. That’s just going to depend so much on your relationship with that person, and are they open to hearing this kind of feedback?CorinneAlso with with aging parents, it’s such a fine line between: Are they actually going to be able to change this behavior? Or do you need to take care of yourself or build up some tolerance for stuff that probably isn’t going to change at this point? Not that you shouldn’t have a conversation!VirginiaWell, just because they’re older, don’t assume they aren’t still capable of learning and growing. We all are capable of learning and growing forever. But if you’re looking for permission to let it go because it lets you have a better, more connected holiday with your family, then I think there’s an argument for that. And I think there’s an argument for no, I’m going to take it on this time and give it a shot.CorinneIf I was going to take it on, I think I would like ask a question. Like, “Why are you telling me that they’re fat?”VirginiaWhat did you mean by that? What is that one you that great line you have that I always go back to? “It’s so interesting…”CorinneOkay, I will ask the next question.Massage for fat people? Being face down on the massage table with big boobs, with massage therapists who don’t have it in mind how uncomfortable that can be. Not knowing how sturdy the table is or how wide the sheets. Besides proactive self-advocacy on all these fronts, have you had any success with massage being wonderful and not stressful as a person in a larger than typical body in a massage therapist wellness office?VirginiaSo I just recently started getting massages again after probably a seven year hiatus. I had really not done it for a long time, and a big part of why I wasn’t doing it was because of concerns like this. And: Will I feel safe being naked with a stranger who’s going to touch my fat body? That is a real thing.So what I ended up doing was booking someone who several of my friends had had really, really great experiences with. I think word of mouth is super important here. As it happens, my friends are all straight-sized, so they couldn’t weigh in on this part specifically, but they had told me enough about how professional he was and the general dynamic they had with him that I felt pretty confident going in it was going to be okay. And it was.So I think step one is get a recommendation of someone who other people trust and feel safe with. And then I didn’t do this, but assuming you’ve got that recommendation, you should feel no qualms about emailing or texting ahead of time and saying, “I just want to make sure that your massage table can hold a larger person or X amount of weight.” And ask any other questions that you have.CorinneHow was the table?VirginiaI did okay on the massage table, even being face down with big boobs. I can understand why that’s not for everybody, but it was okay. He had some pillow type things. He put one under my shins, which weirdly helped? There are different ways they can adjust you with padding. And I think he had actually done some of that without me even having to ask, which was lovely. That made it a lot more comfortable. So I think just asking those questions up front. If you can’t, if you don’t feel like you can ask those questions up front, then no, this probably is not a person you want touching your naked body is kind of where I land on it.What about you? Are you a massage person?CorinneI’m not a massage person. I’ve had a few massages. I’m super ticklish, so just not always super fun for me. My relevant experience is from getting tattoos, which I do weirdly feel like is sort of similar.VirginiaI get that.CorinneAlso because a lot of tattooers use massage tables to give tattoos. But, if there’s something you’re anxious about, you should ask them up front! Like, how much weight does this table hold? Or, “Have you had fat clients before?”And if you do go forward with it and you’re lying on the massage table, face down with big boobs, feeling super uncomfortable, you should say something!VirginiaWhich is hard! It is a really vulnerable dynamic because you are now naked. And I think we’re so socially conditioned to people please, that it’s really hard in that moment not to want to be like, “it’s fine, it’s fine, everything’s fine.” But the entire point of the massage is for it to be beneficial to you. So if it is uncomfortable and not benefiting you, then you have to say something. Because there’s no reason to be there. That’s the opposite of what that person wants you to get out of that experience!CorinneTotally. I also think you’re right that someone with some experience will know how to adjust so it’s more comfortable for you. You’re probably not going to be the first fat person or person with big boobs that this person has ever worked with.VirginiaAnother tip I had is to look for someone who specializes in perinatal massage. Because the last time I did get massages super regularly was during my first pregnancy, when I was having a lot of migraines. You can’t take any good drugs when you’re pregnant, so I was like, I guess we’ll do massage. That massage therapist had a table with an indent for a pregnant belly to go in, it had boobs and a belly, basically, which would be great for a fat person, too!So that’s something to seek out. They’ve actually thought about how to make it comfortable for bodies that might not be comfortable face down. So that could go a long way towards improving your experience.CorinneTotally. That’s smart.VirginiaOkay, I’m delighted by this next question, although I admit, I don’t know that I understand it, but I’m just going to read it, and we’re going to have thoughts.How do we feel about Santa being gay? Fat icon or fat stereotype?Corinne, is Santa gay? Can you confirm this?CorinneIs this a typo? Was it supposed to be, how did we feel about Santa being fat? Is Santa gay? Like, what is this?VirginiaI’m now Googling, is Santa gay? Okay, well, AI says Santa Claus is a fictional character and doesn’t have a sexual orientation like real people.CorinneSo helpful.VirginiaI do wonder if this person meant to type—but we know Santa’s fat! How do we feel about Santa being fat?CorinneBut gay and fat are like one letter apart on the keyboard?VirginiaOkay, so it’s a typo. We’re fine with Santa being gay, though. This podcast is pro-gay Santa. I just want to say that.CorinneMrs. Claus is a drag queen.VirginiaI mean, delightful.CorinneSanta can definitely be gay, I just wasn’t aware.VirginiaDid you not get the memo?CorinneI didn’t get the memo to the queer community.Virginia“Santa is one of us!” Okay, but yes, I think this person meant to say: How do we feel about Santa being fat, fat icon or fat stereotype? And I would say fat icon!!CorinneI would say fat icon, too. There are actually not a lot of fat stereotypes around Santa. No one is like, “Oh, Santa, he’s so fat and lazy. He eats too much. Santa needs to go on a diet.” You’re supposed to give him cookies.VirginiaI guess that’s a stereotype? But it’s not negative. You give Santa cookies because that’s what he expects and deserves. That’s how you say thank you. So it’s encouraging a fat person to eat, which is counter to a diet culture narrative. I mean, there’s the “he laughs with this big bowl full of jelly” thing? But I think that could just be a neutral slash positive description of a fat person laughing.CorinneAnd he does wear a fur-trimmed red velvet suit. So, icon.VirginiaAnother point in the gay column?CorinneMaybe fat gay icon.VirginiaI think Santa is great fat rep. He’s admired. He’s universally beloved. He’s known to be a hard worker. He’s possibly exploiting the elves, but I don’t think that’s related to his fatness. I mean, there’s certainly a question mark about working conditions.CorinneLet’s assume the elves are unionized.VirginiaOkay, then I feel great about all of it. We’ve got pro-union elves and gay Santa. I love it.CorinneOkay, great. Next question:Do you have any favorite food based gifts to give for the holidays?VirginiaI was thinking about this because I think I want to give some food based gifts this year and I don’t have a go-to. But I do think food based gifts are great because most people don’t want more clutter, and it’s something that gets used up.CorinneYes, I just strongly agree.VirginiaI think a nice olive oil is good. I’m like, five years late to this trend, but I’m very into the Graza olive oils that come in squeezy bottles, and I feel like they would be a great gift.Also, is it just me, or is tinned fish having a moment right now?CorinneMy God. You’re also five years late to that.VirginiaWell, it’s in like five gift guides in my email right now! Everybody is talking about tinned fish, so clearly that is an option. And I feel like I am both five years late to that trend, and I was eating sardines like a decade ago. So I also am an early adopter on that trend, and it’s weird to me that now it’s like a bougie cool thing to give because I felt like I was sort of odd for eating it?CorinneYou’re definitely right. Tinned fish has had a renaissance.VirginiaIt’s having a renaissance. The packaging is so cute.CorinneI really like giving food gifts, because I think people will use them. I have often given Rancho Gordo beans. I feel like that’s a fun one. Popcorn kernels. My mom always really likes to receive chocolate, so I’m usually trying to find some kind of chocolate caramel thing. I also think it can be really fun to give spices, like nicer spices. There’s that Diaspora Spice company, they have really nice packaging and delicious stuff.VirginiaOooh, there’s this spice I put in my pasta sauce that’s kind of my secret ingredient. Like, do I want to say it on the podcast?CorinneYes, I want to know what it is.VirginiaIt’s called African rose rub (similar) and it’s kind of a paprika blend, like a smoky paprika blend. And I just put a little bit in a bolognese or a spicy sausage ragu, along with oregano and your usual stuff. It just adds another little dimension.CorinneThat sounds really good.VirginiaThat would be a great gift for people who like my pasta sauce because I’ve been guarding that secret with my life. Now it’s out.CorinneMy family usually just does stockings now, but I’ll often go to the health food store or Whole Foods or something and buy a bunch of little weird supplements and teeny chocolates, or local jam.VirginiaJam is a good one.CorinneThe kind of stuff that you would buy as a treat, but not as an everyday kind of thing.VirginiaOne year, we got given cookie mix and cookie cutters. And it was delightful, because it wasn’t like I had to make it right away. It was a bagged mix, just like the bagged grocery store mix, but it was a great activity to do with my kids. I saved it till we had a snow day, and it was like what are we going to do to fill some time? And having this on hand as an easy, fun activity was delightful. So especially if you’re thinking of a food gift for families, I think a thing they can bake together could be really, really nice.CorinneMy mom has given my sister baking mixes from King Arthur Flour, there are scones and stuff.VirginiaYeah, that’s so nice to have on hand. Like, you probably wouldn’t buy it yourself, but there is going to be some rainy Sunday when you’re like, oh, let’s make scones.All right, on the food theme as well:Do you have a favorite Christmas morning breakfast?CorinneWe always do really big Christmas morning breakfast with my family. The essentials are, I need there to be some kind of breakfast meat. That makes it feel exciting to me, like bacon. Bacon or sausage, or both. We also usually have some kind of grapefruit. My mom likes to do the broiled grapefruit where you put a little sugar on the grapefruit and then broil it so it has, like, a creme brûlée top. And then we usually do waffles. It is really fun. It’s a production, you know? It takes a while, but it’s fun. And you can do toppings, like fruit, chocolate chips, whatever, syrup, whipped cream, if you want.VirginiaThat sounds really delightful. I struggle with Christmas morning breakfast because I host Christmas dinner and obviously have Santa and presents with the kids in the morning. So there’s a lot going on. Christmas Day has many moving parts. And yet, if I don’t eat breakfast, I’m going to be really grumpy. So often what I do, if I manage to wake up before the kids, which obviously doesn’t always happen, but frequently does because I’m such an early riser, I will still go make my smoothie first. Just because I’m like, I need to have my smoothie. I need to know I got some protein in before this craziness starts.But I have done the tube of cinnamon rolls, like in the can that you pop the can. Because you can stick them in the oven while you’re opening presents, and then they’re ready. Something else I can prep ahead of time and bake that morning is helpful to me. Like, a breakfast casserole type thing, and something you can, bake ahead of time. I mean, in a world where I had way more leisure time than I do, I feel like I would prep breakfast burritos. But then you can just put them in the oven, and that would be really fun. And you could do them Christmas style, that’s very big in New Mexico! The red and green salsa. As I learned that when I visited Corinne.That would be my dream Christmas morning breakfast. I don’t know that it will happen this year, but.CorinneSomeday!Another one about Christmas giving:What do we think about fitness gear as gifts? Is it passive aggressive/offensive/triggering?VirginiaThis is a good question. I will never forget when I was about 12 or 14 or something—I’m going to throw my family under the bus here—my stepdad gave my mom a bike for her birthday, and she did not want a bike. In fact, he didn’t even get the bike. He just put cash in an envelope for a bike. And said, “this is for a bike,” which is also just like, bad form. And she was not pleased. She did not take it as a compliment. She did not take it as like, oh, what a lovely thing we could do together. I think she just fully rejected it.CorinneI mean, good for her.VirginiaI think it was the right call. I don’t think he made that mistake again. So I think without someone actively soliciting fitness gear, I would not make that the gift.CorinneI was also going to say, I feel like it kind of depends on the context. Like, is it the only gift you’re getting them? Like, are you just getting them weights and bike shorts? Are you getting them also chocolate? And I don’t know, I think a lot of that stuff is also so personal that it’s really hard to gift. I wouldn’t trust someone else to pick out gym stuff for me.VirginiaI wouldn’t know what power lifting shoes you like, unless you told us specifically. Even if someone is super into a sport, A. They probably already have a lot of the gear for it. And B. They have very specific opinions about the gear.I mean, this is all just making me think of that Peloton commercial. Do you remember that commercial a few years ago? A guy gives the wife the peloton bike and—Corinneand she’s happy?VirginiaShe’s super happy about it in the commercial, but basically people like me wrote think pieces about how maybe she did not want to be given more labor to do with her holidays. And then people were like, “No, he’s giving her self-care,” and blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, I don’t know, man. I mean, people love their Pelotons, but I don’t think it should be an unsolicited gift.CorinneAgreed. Question for you, Virginia.Gift Ideas for an eight year old. The eight year old loves to read, can’t do most craft kits and has a fine motor delay.VirginiaI have raised two children in that vicinity—also readers who are not the craftiest—and I do have some ideas for you.If this eight year old has not already begun the Wings of Fire series, that would probably be my book rec. It’s that or Warriors. They’re these endless, huge novels. Wings of Fire is about dragons and Warriors is about cat clans. This was the age that my older kid was just powering through these books about warring cats and they’re pretty accessible and fun. And there are graphic novel versions. And I think Warriors has graphic novels, manga, and regular novels. So whatever type of book they’re into, there’s a good entry point. So that would be my book rec.The thing that’s was the big hit at the seventh birthday, so much so that I will be replicating and expanding upon it for Christmas, is a potion making kit. The one I got is from Amazon, I’m sorry. My seven year old was obsessed with it. They made little potions for everybody in our lives. It’s so cute. It comes with little bottles and you put in water and food dye and glitter and charms. We’ve used up everything that came in that first kit so now for Christmas, I’m going to go to Michaels and make my own and get bigger bottles and bigger things of glitter and put together a whole potion situation. It’s going to be very messy, obviously.Glitter—well, you may not know this, Corinne, but glitter is a deeply polarizing topic for parents. Because it will never leave you once you have it in your house. But the glitter ship sailed here a long time ago, so I’m embracing it.And then a board game we’re super into right now is called Goat’s Day Out. I am not the biggest fan of board games with kids, because I don’t like teaching kids to be good losers. I find it annoying how bad they are at losing. It’s just such a learning process to be like, it’s okay that you lost also you’re probably going to lose a lot, because you’re seven and I’m 43. I’m also not going to let you win. But this one is hard enough that we’re pretty evenly matched. The premise is that goats have gotten loose and they’re eating up all the garbage in the streets. So the game is you putting food in your goat’s stomach, and you kind of make a little puzzle. So it’s like light fine motor skills, but not very challenging fine motor skills, but it does work a little bit on that front, if that’s interesting to you. And it’s weirdly charming. The goats are delightful. And it’s funny that they eat hair dryers and stuff. I don’t know, it’s fun.Then my last suggestion would be some kind of either a wobble board or a hover board. The hover board was the big gift when my older kiddo was eight, and it was the hit of Christmas. But there are also the low tech versions that are just like balance boards that kids really love to stand on.Yes, I’m very good at shopping for eight year olds. This person was right to ask me.CorinneI love it. I’m going to ask you the next one, too.Size inclusive family pajamas, particularly with youth plus sizes?VirginiaOkay, before we get into what I found, Corinne, have you ever done the matching family pajama thing? Is this a part of your Christmas life?CorinneI’m going to say no. I feel like as kids, sometimes my mom would make us matching pajamas. And then I feel like there was one occasion as adults where my whole family got the same oversized t-shirt. But no.VirginiaSo are you aware of how this has taken over millennial parenting?CorinneOh, well, maybe not. I’ve always been kind of envious of the matching Hanna Andersson thing, but I guess I didn’t know it was a huge millennial thing now.VirginiaI think Hanna Andersson is definitely the origin story for this. They came out with these family pajama things probably easily 15 years ago or something, and made them really popular. And now it is like kind of a given that you will acquire and assemble your family in matching pajamas. A lot of people give them Christmas Eve, like Santa drops off the pajamas and maybe one present or something, and then that way, you have them to wear that night. Some people give them earlier in the season, which makes more sense, because you can then wear them longer.I sound like I’m critiquing it, but I have totally done this and bought into it for many years. So I’m not judging it. But, it is one of those moments where I just want to say: It’s okay to step back and consider how useful this tradition is to you and your family.Because every year, holiday PJs are a big thing on my to do list that actually is a lot of work. It’s hard to find pajamas that are cute enough, that I think my kids will wear, that come in all the right sizes for whichever of the adults want to participate, etc, etc, etc. It’s a lot of holiday magic-making labor that we know mostly only moms are going to execute. I don’t know a single father who has ever said, “You know what I’m gonna do this Saturday is figure out the family holiday pajamas.” Mostly, the dads are either not participating or begrudgingly participating.So that is my top level rant.CorinneSo are you doing it this year?VirginiaOf course, we are doing it.I suspect this may be our last year, because I do have a middle schooler, and her willingness to participate is a real open question. However, we have a baby niece in the family, and my little baby niece is so cute and I really want a picture of my kids and my niece in matching pajamas. Because I am a product of my culture, and my sister wants it, too. So we figured it out together. It was shared labor between the two moms.We are doing these Primary pajamas. Primary is one of my recs if you have straight-sized kids, but plus size adults. Their adult pajamas are pretty roomy. I usually wear the XL. I’ve bought the XXL and they were very big on me. And they go up to 3X, but it’s a generous 3X. So Primary would be where I would look for plus size parent pajamas.However, they do no plus size kids clothing! And in fact, their kids clothing tends to be cut quite narrow, so it’s a garbage option if that’s what you need for kids. And this was the recurring theme everywhere I looked: There are a lot of good options if you have plus size adults and straight sized kids, and there are shit options for plus size kids. Which just makes me really mad about this trend.CorinneYeah, that’s really sad!VirginiaIt sucks. So some other places I found for good plus size options for adults plus the kids are straight size would be Pajamagram, Target has a ton, Walmart has this brand called PatPat that’s pretty cute. Kohl’s had a whole bunch of big and tall men’s pajamas with coordinating families, which is nice, because I think the plus size men’s options tend to be slimmer.I found literally no brand doing plus size kids holiday pajamas. Even the brands that do plus size kids’ clothing were not doing their holiday pajamas in plus sizes for kids.CorinneThat’s so sad.VirginiaIt’s so fucked up!! So I was texting with my friend who is a mom of plus sized kids, like, what are you doing? And we were going back and forth. Kohl’s has a nightgown. So for kids who like to wear a nightgown—which is, of course, not every child—but for kids who like to wear a nightgown, there is a cute plaid nightgown.And I think a nightgown is maybe a better option, because pants are hard to size up because if the waist fits, the length will be wrong. But this nightgown is knee-length, so you could size it up and it’ll just be a longer nightgown, but it won’t be too long on a plus size kid. So I feel like nightgowns are one option.The other option would be to go for cute holiday pants or leggings, which you could probably get in the regular section and call them pajamas. But this is so much labor. This is so much fucking labor.I’m so upset about it. Why Old Navy? Why Walmart? Why Target? Lands End! All these brands that do plus size kids clothes are not doing their holiday pajamas in inclusive sizes.CorinneI hate that.VirginiaYeah, and like, fucking forget Hanna Andersson. Don’t even bother!Sorry, it’s a depressing answer, I just hate it a lot, but I want it to be better. Or maybe we don’t have to do this anymore! Guys, I’m not doing holiday cards this year. I’m also just saying that.CorinneThat’s awesome. Good for you.VirginiaI’ll ask the next question to pick us up.Advice for getting through the winter doldrums, particularly if you’ve just been depressed trying to do holiday pajamas.CorinneOh, man, this is a tough one. I think the things that actually help me are things that are not always helpful to hear. One thing that always helps me is going to the gym. Sorry.VirginiaI knew you were going to tell us that.CorinneI just, I’m sorry. And I also feel like…Going outside. Even if it’s shitty weather or it’s really cold. Like bundling up, seeing the sky, even if it’s not sunny. Looking at trees, going for a walk. It kind of makes you feel better.It’s the worst advice.VirginiaIts so annoying, but it does work.CorinneI don’t know. I also think leaning into the coziness! Staying inside, eating soup, watching TV. But when that starts to feel really doldrums, I do think going outside and exercise help. Unfortunately.VirginiaIt’s true. They do. I wish it was all lies, but here we are.I realized I am systematically fighting winter doldrums through a variety of lighting sources throughout my day. I have recently gotten a sunrise alarm clock.CorinneYes! I have one.VirginiaIt’s great right? I have to wake up super early on the days my kids go to school and it’s going to be pitch black forever, so having my room be light, not having to reach for the light switch. Such a small thing, but so helpful.CorinneIt makes a huge difference.VirginiaAnd then I’ve talked about them before, but we have these little LED candles that I put on the dining room table, little tapers, and so it just like feels a little sparkly. You’re eating dinner at five and it’s pitch black already, but you can have candlelight. You could use real candles, too, if you didn’t have kids and cats, like I do. I’m really into as many opportunities for sparkly light as possible throughout the day. I also have sparkly lights on some of my plants.CorinneOh, that’s cool.VirginiaI have a tall mass cane tree in the corner that I put sparkly lights on that really helps me. I leave that on all year round, but this time of year, I really appreciate her. And then the other one—this is not useful for everybody—but if you have a fireplace, I really recommend learning to build fires, which I have recently done, and it’s helping my mood quite a lot to be able to build a fire.CorinneYeah, that’s awesome. You could also do outdoor fire pit!VirginiaYes! I now feel like I could maybe build a fire in a fire pit. Now that I’ve mastered my fireplace. What am I, some kind of Girl Scout? I’ve never had these skills. It’s super exciting.So I feel like you just really have to be like an early human and seek out the light source.CorinneThat’s really good advice. I use candles in the winter and have string lights in my kitchen. I also lean into the hot drinks, like have hot cocoa, tea, soup.Ask Corinne!!!VirginiaAll right, it is time for our new Ask Corinne segment! Corinne is our resident dating expert. I now have some dating experience… so I might chime in a little bit if I have useful things to say, but this is a Mostly Corinne segment. Okay, first question!Red flags to look for on profiles that might indicate close mindedness related to fitness or weight? I usually look for how much their profile mentions their own physical fitness, as well as mentioning healthy lifestyle as what they are looking for in a partner. But sometimes it’s hard to know how strict to be on this. Wanting to protect myself while also remaining open. I’m also thinking of whether there are ways to smoke people out prior to the date through asking different questions. My fear is always going on a date and someone being visibly disappointed by my looks and then treating me poorly, which has happened. So I suppose another question is quick exit strategies.A lot going on here, but I think this is, this is very real.CorinneThis is so stressful. Like, dating and meeting new people is hard enough without having to worry about this. The labor of trying to figure out what someone else is thinking is so hard.VirginiaSo hard.CorinneI feel like the one that I often see where I’m like NOPE is “active.” Even though, like, I probably am an active person?VirginiaYou told us to go to the gym and walk outside when we’re sad, so yes. You are active.CorinneBut I would never put that in my dating profile! Because it does feel like it’s code for something else.VirginiaYeah, if you’re leading with “active” to the point that you’re putting it in your dating profile, you’re telling me this is a huge part of your personality. Which feels revealing to me.CorinneIt feels like a dog whistle. It feels like “I’m looking for someone who can keep up with me.”VirginiaI have a strict rule against gym photos on profiles. If I see a gym photo, that’s right up there with the men with fish, I’m swiping past.CorinneI definitely have put gym photos in my thing in the past. But it’s different.VirginiaYou do a very cool, interesting thing at the gym, though. Because you do powerlifting.CorinneIt’s true, it’s not like a mirror selfie.VirginiaNo, I’m talking about the mirror selfie. No one needs to see that. Put that away. That’s just you thought you looked hot.I mean, I get putting photos where you think you look hot, but it’s telling me you want me to think you spend a lot of time at the gym, and that you’re working out in a way that’s making you hotter. And neither of those things are interesting to me.CorinneYeah, I would also say—and I feel like this is just more like my overall general advice. But if you’re wondering or you’re trying to suss it out, I feel like there’s just no harm in asking directly. Like, you could just be like, “Hey, your profile says that you’re interested in a healthy lifestyle. What does that mean to you?” Or, like, “I noticed this and I’m worried that means you’re fatphobic.”VirginiaOh, I love that.CorinneBecause why not? If they say “yeah, I am,” then you’re like, great I just saved myself some time!VirginiaRight? I saved myself 15 minutes of going to ice cream with you and realizing you’re an asshole. For people who don’t know, that’s Corinne’s other rule for first dates, you keep it to 15 minutes.CorinneThat’s not exactly the rule, but okay.VirginiaThey can listen to the episode if they want all the details, but basically, that’s her rule.Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! This month we’re talking about… dating while fat!CorinneI do think that applies to the second part of this question, which is about quick exit strategies. Because I think, better than having an exit strategy is planning for it to be a short date. Then if it is a short date, that’s fine. And then if you’re like, “let’s do something else after this,” then that’s fun.VirginiaI totally agree. One thing I am appreciating about online dating—and I say this as someone who has very limited experience and doesn’t have the trauma stories that a lot of people have of having online dated for years. But I really find a dating app to be an effective tool for filtering. You can just ask things very bluntly, and say very clearly what you need. And if it doesn’t work for the person, then great, they don’t exist to me anymore. Like, there’s something extremely liberating about that.CorinneYeah, and I think it feels less scary to have that confrontation or conversation over text or messaging versus face to face.VirginiaYeah, oh my God. I want to throw up trying to do it in person, but over text, I’m just like, okay, bye! It’s so easy. Why be nervous about talking to a stranger on the Internet? I mean, I guess that’s my whole job, so maybe I’m less nervous about it than other people. But what do you have to lose?CorinneYou’re equally as much looking to find someone who you want to spend time with as who wants to spend time with you. So that kind of person isn’t a good fit anyways!VirginiaYeah, they are not for you, and that is fine. You will find people who are for you.I will say, though, on the exit strategies, one thing I have realized is that it can be tricky to find the words to leave if you’re not having a good time.This person is concerned that you’re gonna get on the date and someone’s going to be visibly disappointed or gross to you. And in that case, I think I’d have fewer reservations about just being like, “Okay, I’m going to leave now. This is not great.” And like, I don’t care about their feelings. But do you have any good go-to lines when you’re like, I need to wrap this up. Maybe they’re not being like a total asshole, but you’re getting the vibe, and you’re like, “This is not going to be good.” How do you how do you extricate?CorinneUm, well, I have some tips, but also, I’m trying to NEVER put myself in that situation, you know? I think it can be really nice to talk on the phone before you go on a date, which I know it’s terrifying. I know it’s so horrible and scary, but I feel like on the phone you can tell sometimes. Like, oh, it’s going to be easy to talk to this person, versus in a way that you can’t tell over text.However, if you do find that yourself in that situation, I think one thing you can do that is a little sneaky maybe would be like, “Um, well, you know, it’s getting late, I’ll let you go,” or something. Making it sound like it’s their idea.VirginiaOh, that’s good.CorinneI also think if it’s really bad, you can just be like, “I want to go home. I’m going to leave.”VirginiaI don’t want to be here with you anymore, so I’m going to go be elsewhere where you are not.CorinneYou’re allowed to say, “I’m tired, I’m going to go home.”VirginiaYou are allowed to say that!CorinneAnd you can say, “I had a really good time, but I’m going to go home.” Like, you can lie. It’s fine to lie. You can also say, “I’m not having a good time I’m going to go home.” I don’t know. I think people come up with stuff like, like, have a friend call you 15 minutes in so if you need an excuse.VirginiaTo check in.CorinneBut just do what you need to do. If you need to leave, just say you need to leave.VirginiaI’ve definitely defaulted to being very nice in order to leave, which, especially for women dating straight men, sometimes feels necessary from a safety perspective. So I’ve definitely been like, “Oh yeah, we’ll definitely do it again! So great. You’re so great. That’s wonderful. Okay, bye.”And then the only thing about that is you have to be ready to use your words in text the next day when they’re following up. And that’s when I’ll be like, “That felt like a one time thing for me, but it was so nice to meet you.” And just don’t engage past that. Honestly, most guys have been like, “Wow, thank you for telling me and not just ghosting.” But I haven’t been able to bring myself to say that in person because it feels too scary.CorinneI think that’s fair. The other thing I think about is, like, if the roles were reversed, if I was on a date with someone who was having a really bad time and just trying to leave, I would so much rather that they just leave. I don’t want to be keeping someone in a place that they don’t want to be. When you’re just getting to know someone, your ego isn’t going to suffer such a huge blow if they’re like, hey, I’m not enjoying this.VirginiaIt’s going to sting a little bit, but it’s going to be okay.CorinneYou can recover.And I think at this age, we’ve all been in enough situations that we don’t want to be in that we’re not trying to put that on someone else.VirginiaFor sure. Just to bring it back to the whole fatness of it all, if you feel like the reason it’s not going well is because someone is not appreciating your body… you just don’t need that. You don’t need that. You don’t need to conform or try to be different for them. You just don’t need that. It’s not worth it. Because there’s no way that’s going to improve.CorinneYeah. You don’t need to convince someone.VirginiaNo, no, absolutely not. That’s enraging to me that you would be put in that position.I’m very curious for your notes on this next one. This is a great question. This person wrote,Sometimes I feel uncomfortable because certain sex positions are uncomfortable or not doable for me due to my belly. I’m wondering how to navigate this and whether there are resources for fat sex.And we also got a related question about fat friendly positioning aids for sex, which I’m assuming might be one strategy you would employ here.CorinneYes. Well, my advice for the sex positions that are uncomfortable or not doable for you due to your belly would be to not do those positions.VirginiaYes, don’t do things that are uncomfortable.CorinneIf you’re doing something that’s uncomfortable, you should definitely say something. And again, I would say, imagine the roles are reversed. If you’re having sex with someone and they’re uncomfortable, you would really want to know! Like, that’s not a good situation for anyone to be put in.VirginiaYeah, agreed.CorinneSo I think you have to speak up.I did just discover there’s a podcast called Fat and Fucked which I have only listened to a tiny bit of, but they have fat people on and talk to them about sex. Marina from Peridot Robes has been on, and so has Caleb Luna, Dr Chairbreaker and I’m assuming that they probably have a lot of good advice. I think one of the episodes talks about positioning aids, but I haven’t listened to enough to really know yet.VirginiaI think what you’re saying about it really coming down to communication with your partner is super smart. And I think too: Don’t silo this off into something that you feel like you can’t speak about. In order to have good sex, you need to have good communication about all of the things. And just I would hope you would feel comfortable being like, “I don’t like doing…” whatever sex act you’re not that into. Or, “I do like this. I hope we do more of that.” I think you can just matter of factly say, “This position is not going to work for me.” Or, “I really like it better when I’m in this position.”Because your partner also should really want you to be having a very good time, like a really great time, and so they would only want to do the things that are going to feel very great for you, and not anything where you’re going to be uncomfortable.CorinneYeah. There are all kinds of reasons that people don’t want to do certain things, and not just because of bellies or whatever. You’re not the only person who has preferences about positions or can’t do certain positions. Everybody has certain preferences. It’s fine.VirginiaYou are entitled to your preferences, and you don’t need to apologize for them, or feel like you need to compensate in some way. Whoever you’re sleeping with is very lucky to be sleeping with you! That’s how I feel.Well, that was pretty fun. Thank you for tackling more sex and dating questions for us.CorinneYeah. Going to have to do some more research.VirginiaSlide into Corinne’s DMs, friends.ButterVirginiaSince we were just doing a spicy conversation, I’m going to recommend a spicy and seasonally appropriate book trilogy, which is the books by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. The first one is called Merry Little Meet Cute. The second one is called Holly Jolly Ever After, and the new one that just came out is called A Jingle Bell Mingle.They are all very spicy, open door romances. And the premise is there’s a town in Vermont called Christmas Notch, where they shoot Hallmark Christmas movies, but a porn company takes over, and there’s various plots where now the porn stars are in the Hallmark movies, or the Hallmark stars are in the porn. There’s porn Hallmark crossover, basically. So most of the characters are porn stars or members of a boy band. It’s a lot. It’s a rich world. It’s very queer friendly. I mean, the primary romances are heterosexual, but the sex is definitely not vanilla, straight person sex. And it’s whimsical and charming, and the Christmas stuff is funny, and their writing is so smart and funny. And I think all three female protagonists are fat.CorinneWow, that’s cool.VirginiaWell, Julie Murphy is going to write fat characters. I mean, that’s what she does. Fat positive, no weight loss, just hot fat people having great Christmas porn sex.CorinneWow, amazing.VirginiaWhy didn’t they ask me for a blurb? Seriously, that was so good.CorinneNew career goal, blurbing fat romance books.VirginiaI wish they would write another one. I think they just finished the trilogy. There are some novellas they did online, too, that I really found that go with that. It’s a whole world.What about you?CorinneI have recently really gotten into quilting. I took a quilting class here with one of my friends, and I just have spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks and quilting.I’m not necessarily recommending that everyone get into quilting, but I think having a craft or hand activity while listening to an audio book is just such a nice way to pass time. I could see puzzling, doing a puzzle while listening to an audiobooks. But the combo of something to do with your hands and something to listen to I really enjoy. I I sped right through the Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses.VirginiaI do it in the summer with gardening. Gardening is a great combination. In the winter with puzzles. I’m not doing any kind of crafty things at the moment, but puzzles, for sure. And I love that you’re quilting. That’s really fun.CorinneIt is really fun.VirginiaI’m going to throw in a little bonus bButter. I just remembered one other thing I wanted to talk about that is not sexy at all, but is helpful to us at this time of year. I am getting over a terrible cold where I lost my voice for five days, because that’s what I do with my children’s germs and my real salvation this cold was the Vick’s Vapo shower tablets.CorinneI’ve always wanted to try those!VirginiaI really recommend them. Really helpful if you are in the terrible coughing fit day, also with the terrible congestion. You just throw it in the shower—I mean, you still need to take all the regular medicine. Don’t get me wrong, this isnt going to replace anything. But it was definitely like, oh, I can breathe for a few minutes. Even a few minutes after the shower. The shower tablets, they’re great.Well, this was a great episode. I feel like this was such a fun holiday romp for us. Burnt Toasties, we are very grateful for you, and this has been a very fun year of making this podcast. So we hope you have amazing holidays of whatever variety you celebrate or don’t.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

Anna Maltby, a health journalist and certified personal trainer, dives deep into the issues surrounding diet culture and fitness norms. She critiques the obsession with visible abs and emphasizes functional core strength instead. The conversation includes insights on pelvic health, the limitations of Kegels, and the importance of personalized approaches to fitness. Anna advocates for a weight-neutral perspective, urging listeners to find joy in movement rather than adhering to societal metrics. Her work in raising funds through Pilates also highlights her commitment to social causes.

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your December Extra Butter! Today, we’re talking about bellies—and how we’ve been taught to dress them. You need this conversation if you have feelings about:SpanxHorizontal stripesThe Millennial structured camisole era + long, flowy topsAlways tucking in your shirt/never tucking in your shirtAnd so much more.If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter. PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 170 TranscriptVirginiaSo people say “dressing for your belly,” but it’s dressing to disappear your belly, really.CorinneTo camouflage it.VirginiaYes. And of all the fat fashion rules that we’re indoctrinated with, the belly-based dressing rules are for sure, the ones that have done the biggest number on me over the years. I don’t know how you feel about it?CorinneProbably true. It is just kind of hard to find clothes that fit right if you have a belly. It feels like most clothes are not designed for that.VirginiaWhat we’re saying is, this is an episode for our apple shapes. Pear-shaped listeners, you’re also welcome. Anyone who doesn’t want to define their body by a fruit shape—thank you women’s magazines—is also welcome. But yeah. Our conversation today is about the persecution of the apple-shaped body specifically, and the ways that women’s fashion, in particular, is not made for that body shape.CorinneHonestly, I think men’s fashion, too.VirginiaWait, are men supposed to have an hourglass? I’m confused.CorinneNo, but I think men are supposed to be wider at the top and narrower down, so if you have a belly a lot of times clothes don’t fit right.VirginiaOhhh, interesting. That makes sense. And then a lot of nonbinary brands tend to cut for a thinner androgynous fit, which is also not this body.CorinneSo across the board, it’s bad.VirginiaYes. So we threw this out to all of you and you told us all of the rules you’ve learned to follow for what you can and cannot wear if you have a visible belly. We’re going to talk through it all and process and, I think, release some of these garbage ideas.Do you have a sense of when these rules entered your brain?CorinneThe strongest memory I have about it is being in high school, because low rise jeans were really in. So I was wearing a lot of low-rise jeans, and not crop tops, but just normal length shirts, but my belly would hang out a little bit. And my mom would always be like, “Oh, your belly is hanging out.” Like, “do you want your belly hanging out?” So I was just becoming aware of my belly “hanging out.”VirginiaI think mine is high school, too. I can remember getting a dress for a homecoming dance that was very, very fitted—what we would call bodycon today. And I was a thin teenager, but I had the rough shape that I have today. And so it was this moment of realizing that on me, that dress was not flat on the front. It wasn’t flat because I had boobs, but it also wasn’t flat because my stomach. And being really self conscious and sort of horrified. I think that was one of my first moments of realizing that. And this is a total thin privilege statement, but it was one of my first moments of realizing that just because a dress looked a certain way on a model, didn’t mean it would achieve that on my body. Like, I hadn’t quite grasped that disconnect before. Tthis doesn’t look on me like the way it’s supposed it’s “supposed” to look, and it’s specifically because of my stomach.CorinneBellies can be kind of a good example of how fatphobia can also be a problem for thin people, because even if you’re thin, wearing straight sizes, but you have a belly, you can still experience some type of faphobia.VirginiaDefinitely. I mean, it dovetails into the whole “mistaken for pregnant” conversation, which we’ve talked about. I think a lot of the anxiety about the visible belly is rooted in that “I will look pregnant when I’m not pregnant” fear. Which when you unpack it—why is that such a terrifying concept? I mean, because of anti-fatness, of course. That feels like this worst case scenario for people, when it’s really just an honest mistake someone might be making about your body because we don’t normalize body diversity enough.CorinneYeah, very true. Do you personally have any sort of belly dressing rules that you are still adhering to, or that still you still think about?VirginiaI mean, I have to say, as we were putting the list together, there were a lot. There are a few of these I am proud to say I have completely divested from. And there are more that I am still a work in progress on. And I’m just going to be real about that.But I think the big one for me is the idea that your belly can be visible through clothes. There is still this thing in my brain that’s like, “I have to somehow erase it!” in the way I get dressed, which leads to a lot of what we’re going to talk about. Not that anything I wear ever erases the fact that I’m a fat woman with a belly. People can see.CorinneIt’s so complicated, too, because sometimes your belly is really visible but it’s because something doesn’t really fit you right! So it’s hard to, like, completely disentangle the the rules from comfort, I think.VirginiaDefinitely. Yes. And I will say I think one evolution I’ve made is that I am no longer willing to be uncomfortable in service of erasing my belly. That is not interesting to me. And that, I think, is a real big moment of growth. I am going to take that win.What about you? Are there things that you do or don’t wear because of this?CorinneI just recently was brushing up against one because the jeans from the Universal Standard Jordan Underwood Collaboration have front patch pockets—you know what I mean?And I usually hate those. There are a few reasons. I just feel like when you’re pulling pants up over your belly and then they have a pocket on top, it looks weird. I also don’t like how it feels. And if they don’t fit exactly right, the lines of the pockets will curve or bend. I almost will never buy pants that have front patch pockets like that.@selfiefay@Universal Standard @Jordan Underwood COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED ABOUT THESE CLOTHES! So cute.VirginiaI get that. Also just because they’re another piece of clothing mental load you don’t need. You know it’s a detail that you’re going to have thoughts about.CorinneThey just don’t look the same when you have a belly. It feels like the pockets should be lower, or I don’t know. But I have been wearing those pants, and I feel fine about them. So, who knows. But I still think most of the time I will not be wearing those.The other one I think will come up later, but I never want to be wearing something that doesn’t go over my belly. Like, I never want to wear pants or a bathing suit bottom that doesn’t cover my belly. And part of me is like, am I hiding? Am I trying to hide my belly? Or is it just more comfortable to me that way?VirginiaYes, I really want to get into this, because this came up a lot. And I have the same thing. I like a high waist so I can feel all tucked in. And it’s really hard to untangle that one because I think some of it is the erasing thing, but some of it is that it feels comfy, cozy. It feels more secure!CorinneI also think if I wore my pants below my belly, my shirts wouldn’t cover my belly most of the time. So it just feels practical.VirginiaYeah, you would be cold. Or, like, you don’t want to share that part of your body with the world.I should say, before we start getting into the nitty gritty of the rules: We are not doing this episode to make anyone feel bad if they’re still clinging to one of these rules. Because I think we do this because they serve us. This is all survival and diet culture stuff. So we’re going to unpack what is anti-fat, what is not useful. Not useful, as in, this actually doesn’t even erase your belly. We’re going to talk about some of the silliness of it, but like—it’s okay.CorinneAnd it’s complicated. It is a combination of things. Not wanting people to see your belly, and also wanting your shirt to cover your pants.VirginiaThis might be a holdover from being pregnant, but I sometimes feel like it like helps my back pain? That’s not quite right, but there’s a support thing you get with a compression waistband, not a super tight one, but there’s a little support you get. I just feel a little sturdier in it.CorinneWhen will people just start designing for this? Can we get clothes that are designed to help us?VirginiaYeah, and not just flatten, but actually support? That would be such a great reframing.On the front patch pockets thing, it reminded me another one I have is button flies.CorinneOh yeah, if it’s open?VirginiaI recently ordered some jeans that I did not realize had a button fly and they went right back. I tried them on for a second, and I was like, NO.CorinneWhere you can see the button fly? But sometimes they cover it.VirginiaBut even if it’s covered, it’s not going to lie flat on a round stomach.CorinneFor me, it’s if the button fly is uncovered and you can see the the denim kind of like pulling around the buttons. I had some jeans like that. And I was like, who did this? But I I don’t mind if it’s covered.VirginiaNothing is going to lie flat because my stomach is not flat, right? But there’s this programming in my brain that says I should be choosing clothes that increase the flatness of my stomach. And so a button fly is “adding bulk.” And it’s going to stick out in a weird way. And not lie smoothly. So why would I take that on? It also doesn’t seem comfortable. I don’t need more things pressing on me. Metal buttons? Like, no, thank you.So we’re all works in progress. And this a safe space to discuss all of this.All right, let’s talk about my favorite rule, which, let me tell you, think at least 50 people named as the number one rule in their brains about dressing for your belly.Even giving you a side view to show how cute horizontal stripes are! Outfit details.1. No horizontal stripes.CorinneYou’ve definitely overcome this.VirginiaI have overcome it! And I want to say to everyone, join me in the Promised Land. It is great. Horizontal stripes are so cute, and you get to wear fun colors and look sort of French. Or just tell yourself that you look French. Why would you not want that? And I just never think about them anymore in relation to my stomach, which is interesting.CorinneYeah, I feel like I’ve always kind of embraced horizontal stripes, but I have had people say to me, “You shouldn’t wear horizontal stripes.”VirginiaJust why?CorinneI don’t know. And I feel like vertical stripes look weird.VirginiaWell, and some people were like, “I’m also told not to wear vertical stripes,” because they’re not going to stay straight on a fat body. Definitely not. You’re going to have a wavy line.CorinneThat’s the patch pockets thing, too, kind of.VirginiaBut who told us that our bodies had to be rulers? Like, what? Even a thin person has dimension. This is so silly. Oh, my God. If you’re going to break no other rules on this list, I really encourage you to get yourself a cute horizontal striped t-shirt and thank me later.I did baby steps into it. I wore them as a base layer at first. So, like I’m wearing one today under a sweatshirt. I would wear it without a sweatshirt now, but so it was like you would see the stripes under a sweatshirt, or under overalls or under a jumpsuit. You can kind of increase your comfort level, and then pretty soon you’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I could just wear horizontal stripes all the time.”CorinneI think the main point here is that the pattern on your clothes isn’t giving people an optical illusion about the size of your body.VirginiaNo. I think you see me as the same size whether or not there are stripes on my shirt. So I think it’s an exposure therapy one. And we can also link to my favorite striped top, which is from Nettle’s Tale, which is a lovely size inclusive brand. (Post-recording: Sorry, it’s sold out right now! But they do have this great stripe.)CorinneThe next rule I feel is kind of similar:2. Don’t wear white.VirginiaThis came from Lauren Leavell, who then wrote, “You know I wear a ton of white.” Because Lauren is like, “I give no fucks.” I don’t think I had ever heard this one.CorinneOh, really?!? I definitely heard light colors make you look bigger and dark colors make you look smaller.VirginiaA lot of people said “wear black.” But I didn’t have this one in my brain ever. I just don’t wear white after Labor Day because I’m from Connecticut, and we have a moral code. But Dacy has worked with me to divest from that a little bit. Not white jeans yet, but I’m getting there.CorinneI definitely heard this one. I think more so in the like, wear dark colors and then people won’t know.VirginiaWell, it feels similar, like you’re actually not fooling anyone. And if you like white or other colors or stripes, just enjoy them.The next one that came up over and over is:3. Wear a long flowy top.The long, flowy top has a real stranglehold on the millennial psyche. I have purchased so many fucking long flowy tops, and I think I’ve finally gotten rid of most of them. I did want to direct us to a reel from Ashley Dorough, who is a plus size fashion influencer. And I really like Ashley’s style, we both really like her style, but she does do a lot of the long flowy tops.CorinneWhen I saw this, I was like, I’ve definitely heard this, and I’m also sort of confused about what a long flowy top is. Because it seems like sometimes it’s just an oversized button down, and sometimes it’s a tunic?VirginiaI think it definitely gets into tunic territory. I feel like the classic example is, do you know that brand Daniel Rainn?A Daniel Rainn top on ThredUpCorinneNo.VirginiaLook up Daniel Rainn tops and you’re going to see what I mean. It’s like a floral chiffon, sort of floaty top no visible waist, very peasant top vibes. And you’re going to wear it with your skinny jeans and ballet flats or ankle booties or whatever. Maybe a long cardigan. I feel like this is peak last 10 years of millennial dressing, especially Millennial Mom dressing.CorinneYeah, this also feels like very Lane Bryant, like the plus size fashion that you’re forced into because it’s all that exists.VirginiaAnd it’s interesting in this reel from Ashley, a lot of the outfits she’s wearing are pretty cute. But to start the reel, she’s wearing a fitted top and jeans that really show her belly. And she kind of gestures to her belly, and then she shows you all these outfits that are very “belly disguising” with these longer sweatshirts. But I actually think the outfit she starts out in is totally cute and she looks great in it! And it’s interesting that it’s not quite a before, but it’s definitely a vibe of “this isn’t how I’d leave the house” or something.CorinneThis is an interesting one, too, with comfort. Are you wearing the longer shirt because you just don’t want to have to worry? Like maybe you’re wearing a long flowy top because if you don’t wear one you’ll be constantly pulling on your shirt.VirginiaI think that’s real. Whenever I do wear something more cropped, I’m very conscious of where it’s situated all day.And I feel like, again, this is one of those “to avoid getting mistaken for pregnant…” tips that has definitely resulted in me being mistaken for pregnant because a lot of these long, flowy tops start to look like maternity wear.CorinneFor sure.VirginiaAnd then it’s aggravating because you’re like, “But I went out of my way to camouflage!” and here I am correctly identified as a fat person but misidentified as a pregnant person? It’s a tricky one. I mean, I definitely get the emotional support of the long flowy top, but I’ve started to veer more towards, like maybe it’s an open cardigan, but I’m going to have a croptop underneath, or a tucked in shirt underneath, or something just to play around with it a little bitMillennial Mom cardigan but visible belly! Outfit details.Okay, the next one really spoke to my soul. This came from Linda, who is @littlewingedpotatoes on Instagram. She wrote:4. “Wear a millennial structured cami under everything.”Oh my God, I wore a camisole under everything for so many fucking years!CorinneThis was huge.VirginiaThe tyranny of the camisole!CorinneYou wore a bra, a cami, and then a shirt.VirginiaSo many clothes. How did we do that? My perimenopausal self could never. I used to wear a sweater that was like a crewneck, a full-body-covering sweater, and I would still wear a camisole underneath that.CorinneAnd some people wore the camisoles that went down.VirginiaAnd they had the lace on the bottom! So you would show the lace on the bottom, like they would be quite long, almost covering your butt, to show that under. And it was a way of advertising, like, “Don’t worry, I have worn the camisole.”CorinneI know. What was that about? What is that camouflaging?VirginiaI think it was like not quite Spanx? I mean, we’re going to get to Spanx. But it was, I’m making an effort towards smoothing it out. I think it was very adjacent to the smooth lines thing. I owned so many of those camisoles, Jesus Christ.Oh, I’m angry about it now. I mean, why did we think we had to do that?CorinneI’m curious if kids are still doing that. Has that come back?VirginiaI’m Googling and I am seeing something about “When Gen Z discovered layering tank tops.” We don’t need to bring this back.CorinneAnd I guess it also could have been a thing where then your belly is not hanging out if you’re wearing low rise jeans.VirginiaYeah, I think it was a way of coping with the low rise jean.CorinneGiving you overlap between the the low rise pants.VirginiaIt was absolutely preventing visible belly and trying to make your belly look flatter somehow, through the magic of whatever material those were made out of. Oh, that’s a really rough one. It’s still with us to some extent. I am wearing a tank top under a sweatshirt right now, I admit. But the sweatshirt ends up low, so I felt like I needed an underneath layer. It’s more about boob coverage, but it’s not visible underneath. Its not hanging out the bottom.CorinneWhatever you say!VirginiaWhatever you need to tell yourself, Virginia!5. Always wear SpanxCorinneThere was so much Spanx trauma. There was a comment in the chat that I really liked where someone was like, “you’re supposed to wear Spanx so the clothes look better on top, but also the clothes would stick to them in weird ways.” And that makes me think of the camisoles too, I feel your shirt would kind of stick to it?VirginiaYep, totally. Unless you were wearing the flowy chiffon top over your camisole, which you definitely needed because also the chiffon flowy tops are all see through. That’s another reason for the camisole. Somebody on Instagram wrote, “Spanx, live on my body and I pay them rent. Can’t kick the habit.” And I was like, oh man, I want you to kick it.This is really about, clothes needing to appear completely smooth on your body. No lumps, no roundness, no “muffin top,” which is a heinous term but certainly a fear that lives in our many of our brains. And again, where did we learn that our bodies need to be mannequin smooth? Like, even if you’re larger, it has to be smooth.CorinneI could never get past how uncomfortable shapewear was.VirginiaSo uncomfortable. I definitely did torture myself with it for a bunch of years for different things. I’m really glad to no longer have that be on my radar. I mean, I think too, it’s related to the fear of visible panty lines, which also is a really weird rule to have. Like, we do all mostly wear underwear. I mean, maybe you don’t, and that’s your choice. That’s fine. But is it the worst thing if people know you’re wearing underwear? Is this actually the breach of the social contract?CorinneI’ve heard people talk about visible belly outline, too.VirginiaThere’s an influencer I want to talk about, Tori Block, who does a lot of “dressing for your belly” content. And I would say about 80 percent of her reels feature, if not shapewear, some kind of body suit. The clothes are very smoothing-focused. Her whole thing is like, “You can have a belly and wear anything you want if you make your body totally smooth.”CorinneIt seems like the formula for a lot of her content is showing her belly and then pulling her clothes up over it.VirginiaWhich is interesting to me, because I honestly think she thinks she’s creating fat positive content in doing that. I think she thinks she’s empowering women to get dressed and enjoy wearing sexy clothes and all of that. But her whole formula is, look how can I erase my belly! I’m going to show you it at the beginning so you know I’m just like you and look at this magic trick. And that isn’t fat positive!CorinneThe headline for this video is “belly confident street wear.” First she’s showing you her belly hanging over her underwear. And then the whole thing is “get black sweatpants and pull them up over your belly.”VirginiaYes, and wear a black bodysuit underneath.CorinneWhich, again, don’t wear white. The first sweatpants are white or gray. And then they have to come up to the smallest part of your body,VirginiaYeah, this no visible belly thing is really tough. I love those Beyond Yoga joggers that I talk about all the time, so I just bought their bootcut leggings, and I love them. I’m wearing them right now, so I’m embracing it, but when I first put them on I did have a moment of, like, oh, right. The cut of this pant versus the joggers does make my belly much more visible. It was interesting, I think, especially because they’re boot cut, and I’m haven’t worn boot cut since the 90s. I was like, “Oh, I don’t know if I’m allowed to wear this anymore?” I had a whole little moment. It’s fine now. But, yeah, the visible belly outline is such an odd fear.CorinneThat kind of gets to our next rule:6. Apron bellies can’t wear leggings.That is definitely one that I have to really think about. Like, why? Because I do kind of feel like I’m not going to go out wearing leggings!VirginiaDon’t you wear them to the gym and stuff?CorinneYeah, I would wear them to the gym, but you wouldn’t wear them to—VirginiaTo go out to lunch or something?CorinneI wouldn’t wear them to go out to lunch, no. I don’t know if it’s the belly, the fatphobia, or I’m just like, “They’re not real pants.” I need to be wearing real pants, you know?VirginiaI mean, I do think our generation really died on the mountain of “leggings aren’t pants” for a long time. And I think it’s okay to let that go. Leggings can be pants! A lot of this, though, it’s not just the belly. It’s also leggings make your butt more visible. Leggings make your crotch more visible.CorinneI do feel kind of naked when I’m wearing them. Like I’m just not wearing enough enough clothing.VirginiaWhich is totally valid and your choice. And, rooted in a culture that tells us that women’s pelvic areas are not okay and should be shied away from. It’s very purity culture feeling.CorinneYeah, although I do feel like the leggings thing probably also applies to men.VirginiaFair point, fair point. I don’t know that a lot of men feel free to wear leggings to lunch. We would not judge. We would support. But we would be like, “That is a bold move, sir. You are making a statement. Do we need to teach you about the long flowy top?”CorinneMen need to start wearing long flowy tops.VirginiaI think that’s how I often wear leggings out in the world, is with a longer shirt, on. Like a button down shirt or something.CorinneI have a thing with leggings. I will wear bike shorts, but I don’t like wearing leggings.Corinne wearing Beyond Yoga Bike Shorts & Old Navy top & BirkenstocksVirginiaBut why? Bike shorts arguably show more of your body.CorinneI know, that’s what I’m saying. I just don’t like how they like look or feel or something. And I probably will wear them to the gym, but I’m still wearing shorts to the gym, so I don’t know.VirginiaInteresting.CorinneWe went through this last year where I was like, “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to wear instead of bike shorts in the cold times.”VirginiaAnd we were all like…leggings? Meanwhile, I’m always like,”How do we wear bike shorts?” And you’re like, “The same way you wear leggings.” We have something with this. This is skinny jeans and Birkenstocks all over again. We can’t explain how we learn some of these things.CorinneI wore leggings for many years of my life, but right now, I’m just not liking leggings.VirginiaDo you want to try a bootcut legging with me?CorinneMaybe I could be more into that.7. Controversial advice around tucking shirts.VirginiaSo people are either told to never tuck in shirts and wear the long flowy top, or they are told they absolutely have to tuck in shirts in order to fake a waist. There’s no middle ground, and yet everyone feels like they’re getting this wrong.CorinneYeah. Maybe that’s why so many people ended up doing the half tuck. The half tuck is the long flowy top plus the showing your waist.VirginiaI did, when the half tuck trend first started, I was like, oh, this is what we do with our long flowy tops. Finally someone made it make sense.I mean, I wrote a whole piece on where this trend originated. Tan France is a big factor here that you need to really reckon with. And there is a lot of inherent fatphobia. There’s fatphobia in both directions, basically. I think maybe especially if you were once in a smaller body, tucking can feel really scary in a bigger body because it is emphasizing that your waist doesn’t actually get magically super small when you tuck. So, I personally find tucking a good fuck you to fatphobic fashion rules because it’s like making me be like, great, I can do this. I am not afraid of how my body looks with a shirt tucked in. (Good God, none of us should be afraid of that.) But I also understand that for people who feel like they always had to tuck in, being able to wear bigger, baggier things is also liberating. It’s a personal journey.We Need to Talk About The Millennial TuckVirginia Sole-Smith·December 5, 2023Read full storyCorinneI feel like I never tuck stuff, but more for annoying clothes reasons, like I find it uncomfortable or bunchy or it just comes untucked.VirginiaDefinitely. To sit at your desk with something half tucked in actually starts to feel deeply impractical after a few minutes.CorinneOr it’s half-tucked in, and then you go to the bathroom, and then I never re-tuck.VirginiaIt’s so weird what we make ourselves do to get dressed and be in the world!Midlife crisis crop top from last summer. (Outfit details.)8. “No crop tops, no visible rolls, keep the belly covered except at the pool, even then high waisted bottoms.”VirginiaI mean, we already said we both kind of buy into this a little bit. This is one we’re struggling with. I did start to experiment with the crop tops last summer.CorinneYeah, yeah. You’ve been wearing a lot of crop tops.VirginiaMy 11-year-old asked if I was having a midlife crisis, so it was clearly a departure from the norm. She was uncomfortable with it. I was more comfortable. But I definitely will say, I’ve been making myself do it. I like it. I like the look of it. I wouldn’t do a crop top with a low rise pant situation. I do crop tops with high waisted things. So it’s like: Am I cropping or am I just putting the fabric in another part of the outfit? Like, I’m only showing like, an inch or two,CorinneI struggle with this one for sure. And I think part of it is I find it uncomfortable.I’ve also definitely thought, if I was going to wear a crop top, like, maybe I should put self-tanner on my belly. My belly is so white. Or I’ve also thought I need to get a tattoo on my belly, just so it’s less wormy.ShareVirginiaI hear that. It’s definitely a trend I’m more comfortable with in the summer where I’m likely to have gotten a little bit of color, although I always wear my sunscreen. I don’t want to discount the fatphobia. But it does feel like with this one, it’s also like deciding how much skin you want to display and who you want to display it for. I think is a sort of core body autonomy thing that we can make space for.Like, I don’t wear a crop top in every setting. There are situations where I feel like a crop top is super appropriate and I feel great in it, and there’s situations where I would definitely not do that. And I think that’s valid.CorinneYeah, that’s totally fair. I can accept that I have a belly, I can show it at the pool in a bathing suit, but I don’t always want to have my belly out at the grocery store. I can accept that I have a round, fat belly, but it’s so white. It’s like day glo. There are some parts that are okay, and there’s some parts I’m still struggling with.VirginiaIt feels like a good point to say, you can aesthetically not be totally on board with an aspect of your body and still be a firm advocate for fat rights. And believe your body has value and should take up space in the world. It’s always useful to put a little space between what do we find beautiful and what do we find valuable. Beauty is actually not what we’re fighting for here. It is great to broaden the definition of beauty and include our bellies, but it’s also okay if you’re like, my body is valuable and should be treated with respect. And I don’t find every part of it aesthetically pleasing at all times.CorinneTotally, yeah. And just because I want to keep my belly covered, I’m not offended if anyone else doesn’t.VirginiaWe support you in your crop tops and low rise jeans if you want to Britney Spears it out in 2024, we’re behind you supporting that.9. “Empire waste with ruching until I die.”That’s a quote from a reader. And I want you to let one of them go. I don’t know that you need to be wearing an empire waist with ruching at all times.CorinneYeah. My question was, is this one thing or two?VirginiaThis is long flowy top on steroids. And again, I have been mistaken for pregnant so many times in an empire waist outfit. I don’t actually know that it is the solution? But it is something that we get told to do.CorinneAlso with this one, empire waist, and ruching, and the long flowy tops—those styles are just not as “in” right now, so I feel like I’m not contending with that as much.VirginiaI agree. But I also think if you have trained yourself to think that you need to wear these styles in order to be socially acceptable, and now they’re not in, that’s its own kind of stress, right?Because if you’re still wearing them, you’re kind of marking yourself as the frumpy fat lady who can’t find trendy clothes or whatever.CorinneThat’s where Lane Bryant comes in, where it’s like, you’re not making us feel cool.VirginiaIf you were like, I don’t care if it’s cool, I love an empire waist, great, that’s amazing. If it’s like, I feel stuck in this empire waist—you can wear a regular waist. You can wear no waist. You could wear low rise jeans.CorinneIf there was a situation in which I had to wear an empire waist, I would be extremely unhappy. I would really not like that.VirginiaI would really complain to the manager. I would have notes.CorinneI hope that style never comes back.VirginiaI think we’re past the age where we get forced into bridesmaids dresses, I feel like that’s the most likely yeah scenario. If you have a friend requiring you to wear an empire waist bridesmaids’ dress, I would look hard at that relationship. And whether you need that person in your life.CorinneThe next one definitely, I definitely have heard.10. Your boobs should stick out more than your belly.I have such a distinct memory of someone telling me this in high school and being like, oh shit, I gotta check that. Do they? I don’t know.VirginiaOh Lord, we’re so mean to ourselves. Not everybody’s boobs stick out more than their belly! Like, that’s bodies. That’s just bodies.I mean, we talked about this in the breast reduction episode. As much as I’m like, oh, I wouldn’t get a breast reduction because I accept my body, it’s also that I wouldn’t get a breast reduction because I feel like having big boobs balances out my body. Like, it’s both things. It’s messy.Is It Diet Culture to Want a Breast Reduction?Corinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·June 27, 2024Read full storyI think it is really interesting that so many of these have this kernel of “intended to make you feel more confident and empowered.” But they actually do the opposite, because they reinforce anti-fatness. That’s what I see in so much of Tori Block’s content and other plus size influencers who do this “dressing for your belly” content. If all the advice is around how to disguise the belly, then how is that actually making us more confident about our bellies?CorinneRight? It’s sort of giving you a threshold. As long as you can fit under this threshold of your belly being smaller than your boobs, or not being able to see your belly when you’re wearing sweatpants, then you’re okay. But if you go past that, then we have a problem.VirginiaYeah, you’re right. The other thing about all of these style rules is there’s a point of fatness in which they no longer matter. Like, to whatever extent they work, they are not going to, work once you’re big enough. So that’s another garbage piece of this.11. Show off your thinnest part.This is classic Apple body advice, because the assumption is you’re round in the middle, but you have skinny legs.And I love a short dress. I’m sorry. I love a short dress. I got nothing,CorinneI’m not wearing dresses, but this is also kind of like the bike shorts thing, where it’s like an oversized top with bike shorts.VirginiaYeah, it is related. I want to challenge it more than I do. And I accept that I am a person in this world.CorinneI think it is also fine to just have a preference for how things look. I don’t know.VirginiaI look cute in short dresses. What can I say? But I can acknowledge that there’s some anti-fatness at work there. Related, if people have cute, short dress links, drop them in the comments. I’m always looking for more. Anyway, moving along.CorinneIt’s winter! No one’s wearing dresses.VirginiaIt’s tights and boots season!Some very adjacent advice to the short dress thing is “accentuate your smallest part, which tends to be your waist or your rib cage just above your belly.” So if you belt, you do it just above your belly, and then the skirt and pants below needs to be really flowy.Again, I feel called out, appropriately.CorinneI don’t like this one because I find it uncomfortable.VirginiaWell, I don’t wear belts. But if a waist on a dress hits at that part of my body that’s so much more comfortable than if it hits lower down on my belly, where my belly does not want a waist.CorinneYeah, I’m thinking about the belts. I also am, wearing high-waisted pants. For a while, I was seeing ads for bras, where the point was to lift your boobs up so you could see the band which is the the smallest part of your body. Which also just sounds so uncomfortable. My boobs would be projecting out two feet. Which, no.VirginiaI don’t need a Jane Austen costume. You know how they used to hike their boobs up?CorinneMy boobs are smashed down over the smallest part of my waist.VirginiaAnd there they will stay. Do not hoist them up.CorinneYeah, so uncomfortable. Like, how are you going about your day?VirginiaHow are you conducting any business with your boobs cinched up and your waist cinched in?I do feel like my big moment of growth is that I won’t sacrifice personal comfort to adhere to any of these rules. I’m not doing the boob hoisting thing. But I do gravitate towards a short dress with not an empire waist, but it’s in that ribcage-y kind of spot.CorinneI mean, what are you going to do? Just wear black, floor length robes?VirginiaI mean, I love a mumu, too. But I’m just naming that it’s complicated and we don’t have to be divesting from every single one of these. I wear horizontal stripes. So I’ve made some progress.12. “No flat front pants or skirts ever.”VirginiaI actually don’t think I adhere to this one. I felt like I more grew up thinking don’t wear pleats because, again, the adding bulk thing.CorinneRight? And this makes me think of the patch pockets, too. I’m like, no, I prefer a flat front.VirginiaBut again, I think it’s like the tucking where I can see the advice going in both directions, and not being helpful in either scenario. So I do kind of get it, but it’s not one that lives in my head. I think I more tend towards flat front. I mean, I do miss maternity jeans a lot of the time. I think anyone should feel free to consider maternity jeans as a great option.CorinneYou mean the ones that have the knit top?VirginiaYeah. I had two pairs I loved. The band where the belt would go had been totally cut off, and it just had kind of a nylon sock attached that pulled up over your belly. So they were super high waisted, they basically went up to my bra, and they were so comfortable. I had another pair that were a higher end brand, maybe Sevens or something, I can’t remember. And they had a regular jeans, like, they had the band and the zipper and everything, but they had elastic in the side pockets. These kind of like patches of elastic on the sides. So they were a lot more comfortable and sort of supportive to your belly. They were great. I am fatter now than I was when I was pregnant, or I’d probably still be wearing them. I think if you’ve been told no flat front pants, I think that’s one you could challenge.13. Only take photos from the front.VirginiaThis last one is something we see all over Instagram. Influencers shoot from the front so you actually can’t tell how big someone’s belly is.CorinneYeah. There’s so much advice out there about how to take photos so you look a certain type of way.VirginiaWe could do a whole other episode about photo advice! It’s a good episode topic.CorinneYeah, and not sitting down. All kinds of stuff.VirginiaBecause everybody looks fatter when they’re sitting down. Which is fine. It’s because your body is folded. It’s normal.CorinneBut yeah, if I’m taking a picture of an outfit, I’m usually taking it head on.VirginiaWell, it also shows the outfit more clearly.CorinneDoes it??VirginiaWell, I guess it doesn’t show the whole outfit, but if I want to see the shirt, I don’t want to see the side of your shirt. I want to see the front of it.CorinneI feel like showing it from the side is just as good. Unless it has a picture on the front. But it’s also like, our eyes are on the front of our heads.VirginiaRight, I’m looking at you right now. I’m not looking at the side of you while we record this podcast. That would be odd.I do appreciate that Dacy always shows a side view. And I will often. I don’t do it as religiously as I could, but I do often try to remember to show a side view if I show an outfit on Instagram. Because I think this is one of those things that small fat folks need to be aware of, because you can fake thinness in a photo or fake more thin privilege than you have. And so if I take the head on photo, and I’m like, oh, I think I think this outfit makes me look thinner from the front. I try to make sure to include the side view. To be like, don’t worry. Still here. Still fat. Just to be more honest.That said, I did appreciate Donnelle from Philly Fat Con, who commented that she doesn’t worry about side views because she thinks how she looks from the side is none of her business. I think that’s pretty valid.CorinneI love that.VirginiaIt’s not for us. Just don’t worry about it, if that’s what’s stressing you out. Just don’t think about that.CorinneTo myself, I am two dimensional.VirginiaI only ever see myself straight on. As far as I know, I have no sides.CorinneYeah, why worry about the people walking behind you see?VirginiaOh, man, I love it. This felt cathartic. You know? It felt good. It felt healing to name all of these absolute trash rules.Is there anything you think you would challenge yourself to try to break now that we like dissected so many?CorinneI am challenging myself to wear these pants with patch pockets.VirginiaI love it.CorinneI would like to feel a little more crop top-comfortable. But I’m also just like, I just don’t know if it’s realistic. You know, I’ve lived almost 39 years and have never been a huge fan.VirginiaIt might not be for you.CorinneI do want to get a belly tattoo, though, and that might change things.VirginiaI do feel like if you get a belly tattoo, you’ll want to wear crop tops. That’s going to be like you in bike shorts.CorinneI do wear a two piece bathing suit. What about you?VirginiaWell, I’ve done horizontal stripes. I’m working on crop tops. I think I need to work on the visible belly outline thing, like wearing these boot cut leggings, like I realized today, I’m wearing them with not a flowy top, but a sweatshirt that sits a little lower and not one of my more cropped tank tops. I feel like I can challenge myself a little bit there.CorinneMaybe you need a bodycon dress.VirginiaOh gosh, okay, that sounds terrifying. So maybe not.CorinneI was just thinking about alternatives to the short dress, like a maxi bodycon.VirginiaI just had a complete fear response? Alright, I’ll explore that. We didn’t even put that on the list, but the bodycon trend I have always felt is not for me. That is not available to the apple shaped person. I’m going to sit with that. I’m excited to hear from listeners which ones of these they’ve broken up with or are working on.CorinneYes, yeah. Rachel in the Substack chat also put in a link to a really cute TikTok from a creator who does these cute videos where she’s hyping up her belly. She calls her belly like “the ginger.” She has an accent, so I don’t want to imitate, but it’s really cute.@kamsendooIt’s the stomach for me! Everything is sitting! #bodypositivity #selflove #sexy #motivationVirginiaI love it. KaMsendoo is the creator. This is adorable. More in belly love. We need it. We definitely need it. I’m here for that.ButterCorinneMy Butter is a snack product which I’ve become completely obsessed with, and also feels somewhat guilty to share, because I find the branding name to be abhorrent. The brand is called Lesser Evil.VirginiaOkay, that’s not a great brand name.CorinneIt’s not great. I think it’s because the snacks are vegan. Still don’t like it. I hate it. I just don’t want to be thinking about foods as evil, lesser evil, whatever. However, they make popcorn and um, balls? Like puff balls? I don’t want to call them cheese puffs, because they don’t have cheese. I guess they’re corn? Corn-based puffs. And they’re so freaking good, I’m addicted. The popcorn they do have a few flavors. There’s a sweet salty one, there’s a cheese one. The one I really like is the flavor is Himalayan Gold. I think it’s just fake butter, like coconut oil butter.VirginiaI think a friend of mine brought this to book club.CorinneIt’s so good. I also really like the fake cheese balls. You can find it online. You can find it at Whole Foods. I also really like making popcorn, but I’ve just become addicted to these bags of Lesser Evil popcorn.VirginiaWell, let’s get them to rebrand.CorinneCan it be Morally Neutral Popcorn. Anyways, if you can get past the branding, I do think it’s really tasty.VirginiaAlright. Well, as a lifetime drinker of Diet Coke, I can get past the branding.CorinneSame, if it tastes good enough, why not?VirginiaIf it tastes good enough we’re here for it.CorinneWhat’s your Butter?VirginiaA little rage organizing is what I want to recommend to people. Now, I know you are not a natural organizer in the same way that I am. And I have written about how organizing is kind of a good/bad thing in my life.Perfectionism and the Performance of OrganizingVirginia Sole-Smith·September 13, 2022Read full storyBut since the election I am very aware that I am feeling out of control in the universe and I need to feel in control of something. And what I am in control of right now is my kitchen countertops. It is all I have.Part of this is because I am still pondering getting an air fryer, as I discussed on a recent podcast episode, and I was really drilling into the whole air fryer discussion with my friend Rachel, who loves her air fryer. And I was like, but where in my kitchen is it going to live?So we started looking around my kitchen, and I really did not have a lot of clear counter space. So I then started investigating, why do 17 bottles of seltzer and children’s water bottles just live on my counter at all times? And I realized it’s because the cabinet where they could live contained two old fire extinguishers and somebody’s sock. It made no sense what was in my cabinets. And I identify as an organized person! But I had these kitchen cabinets that had just become black holes of chaos. And I just, like, on my lunch break the other day, redid it. I just dumped it all out, got everything out of there, moved some stuff, and now my countertops are clean, and those cabinets make more sense. And I don’t even know if I want an air fryer, because I just like how it looks without anything.CorinneWow, that’s so satisfying. I need to do that.VirginiaI am telling you, it is a drug. It is a safe drug. Give yourself a little organization high, a little rage organization. It’s the best. Feels good. It does nothing to help the state of the world.CorinneA few months ago, I got some of those Container Store plastic things for some of my cupboards, and oh my God, I feel joy every time I open my cupboard.VirginiaSo much joy, so much joy. And you know, the performance of femininity and domesticity is a fact. And I get it. Patriarchy makes me love this. And also, now all the children’s water bottles live on a shelf in a cupboard.CorinneYou can actually find stuff.VirginiaI think also what made it so satisfying was that I didn’t try to do the whole kitchen. I didn’t take on a huge project that would be days and hours. It was like, I’m going to deal with these two cupboards, and just do that and be so satisfied that I cleared this three foot area of space on my counter. Like, just do one small little spot and feel great.CorinneWell, I still want to hear if you end up getting an air fryer.VirginiaThis is airing after Black Friday, but it’s possible it will happen, because, I admit, I will be keeping my eye on sale prices. We’ll see! TBD. Stay tuned.But in the meantime, the clean counter space is glorious.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

It’s time for your November Indulgence Gospel. Today, we’re doing an old fashioned mailbag episode for you.We are going to chat about grocery shopping.We’re going to talk about what to do if you are “not fat enough” to be in a fat space.We are going to talk about how to get divorced.We’re going to talk about a mom who wants to stop her adult daughter from getting diabetes.And we’re both going to dig into our phones and face up to…just how much time we spend on them and why.To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. If you are already a paid subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Substack. You can also subscribe to Corinne's newsletter, Big Undies, for 20% off using this special link. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Also, don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.This transcript contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 169 TranscriptVirginiaCorinne, what’s new in your world?CorinneIt finally got cool today. The high today is 72. VirginiaThat’s not cool! CorinneIt’s been like 85-88. I’ve been dying to wear pants, so I’m really excited for the coming week.VirginiaDo you have pants you’re excited about, or are you just revisiting old pants right now?CorinneI think I’m coming to terms with the fact that I need to do a pants assessment. I need to pull out all the pants, see what I like, see what fits, see what I need.Since this is the first cool, fall-feeling week we’ve had in Albuquerque, I took all my shorts off their shelf to stash away for the winter. Which means that I also pulled out all my pants to evaluate…VirginiaI feel like I am missing a category of pants, but I don’t know what it is? I’m very happy with my joggers. I have a pair of skinny jeans for when I go back into being that person. And I do still like the Universal Standard jeans that we both love from last year. They still fit. So I don’t know my heart wants something else, and I don’t know what it wants. Do I want a barrel pants? Do I want a boot cut? I had a thought about boot cut jeans. We swore we’d never go back there, but I saw someone on Instagram wearing boot cut jeans, and I was like, do I love boot cut jeans? I don’t know what’s happening. CorinneI’m excited for you to try them. VirginiaI don’t know. That’s my pants news. Should we do some questions?CorinneYes, I’ll read the first one.I loved the episode where you described your work week. Now that the newsletter comes out on Friday, what does your new work week look like? I would also love to learn more about Corinne’s work week now that she is doing such a great job withBig Undies.VirginiaCorinne is doing such a great job withBig UndiesThank you for noticing. You should be reading it.Don’t forget,you get a 20 percent discount when you subscribe, so you should.If you’re not, you’re missing out! This is what I would first like to say. I also love this question, because I thought for sure we were boring everybody by talking about our work process, like that feels like such a boring question. And yet I love these details of how do people spend their work week!So yeah, if you are like, “That is a boring question, why did you answer this first?” feel free to skip ahead to where we get to more juicy stuff. But we’re going to talk about process. Do you want to talk about what working on Big Undies and Burnt Toast is feeling like?CorinneYes, I’m just still wrapping my head around it. It’s going good. Because Big Undies posts come out on Monday and Wednesday, usually I’m trying to have the Monday post done by Friday. And sometimes working on it on the weekend.VirginiaWork in progress, that’s alright. CorinneYes. And usually doing the Wednesday post on Monday, and then you usually do your Tuesday post, which is now the open thread?VirginiaIs it a thread? Is it an essay? Is it a link roundup? Tuesday is finding itself. Tuesday’s on a journey right now. It was Friday Thread, but now Substack is pushing to replace threads with Chat, so we’re doing more in Chat. Which is great, I actually love Chat!Join Virginia Sole-Smith’s subscriber chatAvailable in the Substack app and on webBut it means now I’m feeling like the Tuesday piece is more of a little short essay plus some links, or sometimes just links, or, I don’t know. I would love feedback on what people want to see on Tuesdays!The way my week goes is Monday is my long work day, because the kids are always with their dad until at least through dinner time on Mondays. So that is my big writing day, where I try to now write the essay that will run that Friday of that week. The other thing that happens on Monday is Corinne and I have our weekly editorial meeting, which Corinne instituted as self defense measure against the thousands of texts I otherwise send. And that was smart.CorinneFor listeners: That is not how I would describe what happened. Just so we’re clear. VirginiaI think it was reasonable. I think it’s a really good solution to the number of times I would text you, “What was that thing I texted you that I should write about that I don’t remember?”CorinneI think the problem with texting is we would text stuff and be like, “Yes, great idea!” and then no one would remember it.VirginiaIt would not get written down anywhere useful.CorinneIt maybe speaks more to perimenopause or something. VirginiaAnyway. Now we have the Monday meetings, and we go over both of our lineups for a Big Undies and Burnt Toast, and we’re just so efficient. So I write on Mondays. I meet with Corinne on Mondays. And if I’m recording a podcast episode on Tuesday or Wednesday, I get prepped for that. Then Tuesdays, I am usually finishing up the Friday essay to get Corinne a draft. That’s thing one. Thing Two is editing Big Undies for Corinne when she’s ready for me. Thing Three is maybe recording a podcast episode, or starting to work on the following week’s essay if there’s reporting that needs to happen for the following week’s essay. I’m trying to get that going.Then Wednesday, Big Undies comes out, and Corinne has gotten me the transcript for the podcast, and Tommy, our audio engineer, is always working behind the scenes getting us podcast edits. So Wednesday is when I do the final pass on that week’s podcast episode. And now it’s also when Corinne and I record. We are coming to you from a Wednesday in real time. So, we record or I record with a guest, and then Thursday the podcast comes out, I finish up the Friday essay and schedule it. And for the following Tuesday, I write whatever that’s going to be. And usually I’ve been dropping links in a draft all week, so then it’s just putting that together. Then Fridays are kind of my catch up on everything day, and maybe I don’t have to work if I was really on top of my shit, but otherwise, I do whatever needs to get done.The new Friday essay thing is really helping my brain and I can’t quite explain why it feels better. But I think before I used to have my big writing day be Thursday, and my bandwidth for the week was already draining, so then I would almost always end up having to write a bunch on Friday and be really tapped out. So that’s been nice, but we’re always tinkering with it. And, I feel like doing the two newsletters together, we’re still finding the rhythm, but I think it’s going pretty well. CorinneYeah, I think it’s going good.VirginiaI like it. Everyone readBig Undies!Aright, this next question is mortifying. Prepare to be mortified on our behalf. This reader would like to know what is our weekly screen time.CorinneWe are looking this up in real time because neither of us knew. I’m not even sure I know how to look. You go first.VirginiaOkay, my daily average so far for this week is… 8 hours and 10 minutes.CorinneOkay. Wait, mine just changed? Okay, mine just updated from 8 hours 15 minutes to 7 hours 30 minutes, and it says down 20% from last week. VirginiaI’m down 14% from last week!CorinneWhat was happening last week? Well we’re in the same ballpark of about eight hours.VirginiaEight hours a day looking at our phone. Jesus Christ, I am so upset about that. Let’s just stop. CorinneWhat’s your most used app?VirginiaMine is Messages.CorinneMine is TikTok. VirginiaWell, we knew it was going to be TikTok. But that’s research. You’re doing work! My most used category is texting. It looks like today I’ve texted for an hour and 46 minutes. How am I getting my job done?CorinneThat’s a great question honestly. How are you? Mine is—I’m looking at the weekly but it’s telling me 8 hours and 45 minutes for TikTok. That’s like an entire day. What the hell?VirginiaOh my God, this question is so upsetting. CorinneAnd then I have 5.5 hours on Instagram and 5.5 hours on Messages. How am I getting anything done? VirginiaMy daily average for Messages is… 3 hours and 41 minutes.CorinneWow.VirginiaI guess I’m not allowed to say I’m too busy. I’m just chatting away with people.CorinneMy daily average for messages is 22 minutes, just for the record. VirginiaOkay. Well. I don’t have TikTok. CorinneI am way less popular than you.VirginiaI’m going to blameSara Petersen. I love you, Sara, but you’re a power texter as well, and we are bad for each other. We are enabling. I’m also going to blameAmy PalanjianandMelinda Wenner Moyer. And… I’m not going to comment on who else I’m texting with. But it takes up a lot of my time, is what I’ll say.Ok but I am on Instagram much less than I used to be, and that was deliberate, so I am proud to see that’s working. I stopped making reels, which was a huge time suck—it really got in the way of my texting! And I did put a one hour limit on Instagram, and my daily average is 1 hour 9 minutes. So that feels pretty good, I’m not wildly exceeding it. Because you can obviously override all the limits. But I think I’ve done what I need to do on Instagram. That’s plenty.CorinneI need to put a limit on TikTok.VirginiaI mean, it’s something to look at? It’s something to reflect on, I guess.I’m not putting a limit on texting, though. I need to be in communication with my people. Apparently I spent 14 hours and 44 minutes texting last week. CorinneWhat are we supposed to do with this information? I don’t know. VirginiaWhy were we asked that? Why did we have to know? CorinneI’m curious if our numbers are high or low.VirginiaI think we are very online people by dint of our professions. So I think it’s high compared to less online people, for sure. And I also feel okay about like, being in touch with loved ones. And you should feel okay about watching JewelryTok. We all have the things we need. We’re not here to shame anyone’s screen time. We would obviously be in no position to do that. CorinneLet’s move on!Talk to me about grocery shopping. My five year old would like nothing but Pringles and mac and cheese. My two year old, bananas and gummies. I feel like I still need to provide them some sort of structure with nutrition available. We also need to stick to some sort of budget. How do I shop? Right now, I take suggestions and put them on a list and refuse to go to more than one store a week. But is there a better way?VirginiaFirst I’ll say that Pringles, mac and cheese, bananas, and gummies are all foods that provide nutrition and also pleasure, so I don’t think they are foods you need to restrict. Also, I’m trying to avoid giving people advice specifically on how to feed their children now, but we can link back to some other stuff we’ve done about this in the past. I think kids can understand that you’re on a budget, and so you only buy however many boxes of these things you buy per week. They can understand that once they’re gone for the week, we’ll buy more next week. I think the key with these kinds of preferred foods is that you are offering them often, so kids don’t have a scarcity mindset about them. But what “often” means can vary. It’s just about maintaining some predictability, so the kids know those foods will be in rotation and they can count on them. That’s the key to not having them be overly fixated on them.Sticking to a grocery budget is not a talent of mine, I will say. I have done it in the past. I am in a season of life where I’m leaning into ease and therefore not doing great with grocery budgeting. It’s really, really hard, and also food is crazy expensive right now. What are your thoughts, Corinne?CorinneI’m always interested in how people are grocery shopping, because it’s one of those things that your parents did it, and then you have to figure out how to do it for yourself and it’s always changing. Stuff exists now that didn’t exist then. VirginiaYeah, I talked about in the newsletter about how I’m leaning into Instacart as one of my single parenting strategies. And I did have the thought the other day that it means my kids have not been to a grocery store in a really long time. I think sometimes they go with their dad. But I think he often grocery shops before they get to his house. And I was like, when will they learn that skill? It’s not at age seven, because we’re not doing it right now. CorinneIt is a real skill. I can really easily fall prey to DoorDash or GrubHub if I don’t have readily available food. I grocery shop once a week, or sometimes less frequently, like every 10 days or something. I have a well-stocked pantry. I pretty much always have like pasta and sauce on hand and something from Trader Joe’s in the freezer,. Sometimes I would go to the farmers market or something, but I’ll try to pick out one or two things I’m going to make, and put that stuff on my my grocery list, and then make a note in my phone of what the stuff is. VirginiaOh, that’s smart. CorinneBecause I feel like it’s so hard. Shopping and cooking, it’s all so hard. It’s so much work. I just sometimes can buy stuff and forget. So that’s what I’m trying to do now. But having ingredients on hand to be able to make a few things, and also always having backup stuff, like cans of soup, freezer stuff, whatever, Trader Joe’s.VirginiaYeah. I do a big Instacart order weekly, on Fridays usually. I love their “buy it again” feature, because we go through a certain amount of oat milk each week, a certain amount of regular milk, a certain amount of strawberries. So I just reorder all of that. Then when I have my shit together and I meal plan a few meals, I would add on things to go with those meals. But a lot of times lately I’m doing less meal planning and more, like, “I know I will always make pesto pasta on Tuesdays.” There are certain meals I make every week that I just know I need to have the ingredients on hand for. Then there are certain snacks we go through every week that I just restock. I often, due to lack of efficiency, end up having to do a Monday or a Tuesday second order, because I miscalculated. I mean, the thing with kids, too, is they’ll go through a phase of not really eating a thing, and then they’ll eat all of it in one day. Like, wait, I actually need eight more frozen burritos to make it through the week. So there’s often this second grocery shop.So I’m useless. I have no good ideas. But I like what this mom is saying about taking suggestions and putting them on the list. I think it’s fine to say you’re only going to one store a week, and I think you’re both hearing them and putting some structure around it. I think that’s pretty good. CorinneYeah, I agree. VirginiaAll right. I’ll read the next one, because I really want to hear your answer.Can I show up in fat spaces if I’m not “fat enough?” I consider myself small fat, but also benefit from some level of thin privilege. I love the idea of fat community, fat swim, etc, but I wonder if I am fat enough to participate. Last summer, I attended a vintage sale for plus size people. The invitation said my size was welcome. There was a minimum threshold listed, but when I was there, almost everyone was larger than me, and many were much larger than me. Nothing happened to make me feel unwelcome, but my own social anxiety made me feel like I was infringing on someone else’s space. So I guess my question is, if I still experience some thin privilege, can I show up in fat spaces, or do I sit those opportunities out?CorinneThis is such a complicated question. VirginiaYeah, it is.CorinneBut I feel like my answer would be: If you are small fat, then you are fat and you are welcome in those spaces.VirginiaI mean, as a small fat person whose life work is about fatness, I agree! But I’m glad to hear you say it. CorinneI’ve run into this a little bit when I’ve hosted that fat swim event, where people are like, “am I allowed to go?” Or, you know, like, “I’m an ally.” And, body size is something that changes. So, there are people who used to be fat, or there are people who used to be thin. And the fatness scale exists. So you can look at and say, like, “I’m on this,” or “I’m not.” Though I will say, about the fatness scale (which I did not create): The smallest sizes on there, I would hesitate to call fat. I think it’s like a women’s size 10 or something. VirginiaYeah, I’d hesitate to call that fat. CorinneThat’s like a Torrid 00 or whatever. But I do think there is a line that has been established by other people that you can use as a guide.VirginiaI think, too, anti-fatness harms everyone. And thin privilege benefits almost everyone in different ways. Do you know what I mean? Like, you can be pretty fat and still have certain contexts where you are going to have more privilege than someone fatter than you. So I think what matters to me more is that we’re doing what we can to make space for folks with less privilege to be centered in whatever conversations or spaces we’re in. It is also true that there’s a problem with small fat people dominating fat spaces at times. We see this in online contexts like chat groups, that kind of thing. Certainly in the way fatness is portrayed on social media, we see smaller fat creators getting way more attention and influence than fatter creators. So I think those of us on the smaller end have a real responsibility to be looking closely at this and navigating how we are moving in these spaces. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be in the room at all, I guess is where I land. CorinneYeah, I agree. I think you should be in the room. You can be in the room and you have some amount of responsibility to advocate for other people. VirginiaI think where it can sometimes go badly is when a small fat person is overly fixated on the specific context where they feel the fattest and are the fattest. So, for example: In Los Angeles, in New York City, in women’s magazines, a size 10 is a fat person. But that does not mean that a size 10 experiences anti-fatness the way a size 26 or a size 32 does. I think sometimes people overly focus on the context where they feel the most marginalized, and it stops them from thinking bigger than that.One example of this is when I’ll talk to friends who are small fat or mid-size, and we’ll talk a lot about clothing access, clothing access, clothing access—which is real and a barrier we face, and yet, they won’t know that chairs have weight limits. Or they won’t have thought about airplanes at all. Or doctor’s offices. So there are other ways in which their privilege is is not making them aware of different pieces of this. Kate Mannehas been writingsome really thoughtful stuffabout this. Kate is someone who has been fatter, is currently in a small fat, mid-sized body, and has been navigating buying a formal dress, which is a nightmare for everybody. She wrote really thoughtfully about who can claim fatness? What does this mean? I think one layer of my thin privilege is having grown up as a thin kid, so I’ve had to get used to being a fat adult, but I don’t have the childhood trauma associated with fatness being weaponized against me. Whereas someone like Kate, who’s thinner than I am now, grew up in a bigger body and experienced horrific bullying. Kate has a claim to fatness that I don’t have, even though I’m fatter than her right now. Does that make sense? CorinneTotally. VirginiaSo it is really, really nuanced. CorinneI also always think about the way height plays into it. Short people who are technically mid-sized, are sometimes still perceived as fat, and really tall people who are fat look less fat. Think about plus size models who are six feet tall and a size 12 or a size 16. There’s just a lot that goes into it.VirginiaThere definitely is. And I think just the fact this person’s thinking about it suggests to me that they’re probably doing okay, but yeah, keep thinking about it.CorinneHere’s the next question:I’m curious how you feel about others buying you clothes. My mom keeps buying me stuff, even after I’ve politely asked her to stop. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m still figuring out my style at age 44 and how clothes fit my body. She seems to just buy a 2X or 3X and think it will fit without actually looking at the item and seeing if it seems like the appropriate size for me. She’s formerly small fat and now in a straight sized body and lives with us. I’m experiencing a similar difficulty with my mom buying clothes for my almost nine year old, as I’ve shared on here before. She’s in a slightly larger body and developing before some of her peers. Grandma buying her and her six year old very thin little sister clothes is causing a lot of problems around here. Completely innocent intentions, of course, but nonetheless.VirginiaI don’t think anyone in my life buys me clothes. I think maybe you can say to your mom, “I would love it if you bought me plants.” Give her something else to do because maybe just telling her to stop buying clothes left her too at sea. For the kids, say “I’d love if we could give you their wish lists.” I think removing this variable seems fine, it’s well intentioned but it’s going to constantly create stress for you and your kids, which is not the intention of a gift. I think it’s okay to say, “This is so lovely but I’m just really hard to shop for and I’m so particular, and I already buy the clothes I want.” And you know, “The kids are getting more particular about what they want to wear. It would just be great if we could shift off clothes” I don’t know how that would work, but that’s my starting point.CorinneI think that’s good advice. It kind of sounds like the grandma isn’t going to stop buying clothes, because she’s already been asked. So I don’t know. I was wondering about being like, “Could we all go shopping together somewhere, so we could avoid the buying and returning and just figure out what we like, especially with the kids. Like, why don’t you take them all to Target or something?VirginiaThis came in through the Substack Chat, and a couple of folks suggested giving the mom measurements for everybody so that she can really check that the sizing is going to work. And I think that’s really good advice.It might be worth trying to give your mom some more information about why plus size clothes fit so badly and irregularly. Like, send her the podcast interview we did with a plus size fashion designer talking about how bad the sizing is. Maybe give her a little more information, because the fact that she’s seeking out plus sizes for you and buying the 2X and 3X tells me she’s half aware of the problem. But is just like, hoping, oh, I found a cute thing in 2x this will work. She doesn’t understand why 2X is not the same everywhere. I mean number one, when she realizes how hard it is, she might just be like, “Fine, I’ll buy plants. This is too hard.” And not want to do it. But also, if she does genuinely want to do it, if this really gives her joy, maybe you can be more straightforward about this is the legwork I do. And maybe it’s even just talking about modeling when you’re shopping for a clothing item for yourself, bring her into it and be like, oh, I’m trying to read these size charts to figure out what size jeans I am now. And show her that labor a little. Okay, we’ve got another family one here, this person writes,My mother in law and brother in law are both fat and often are on diets. Weight Watchers. Noom, you get the picture. We don’t live near them, but we’ll see them a lot during the holidays. I am straight sized. I never know what to say when they are talking about their diets being good or bad this week, how much they lost last week, how many points they have left, etc. It breaks my heart how much energy they put into trying to make themselves smaller, and I think they both look great just as they are, but it’s not my body, and I am not fat, so I never say anything. I don’t want my young kids internalizing that there is anything inherently wrong with their grandmother and uncle. Any advice on how to be a loving ally here?CorinneI can totally understand wanting to say something. And I also kind of think, like, it’s probably not going to have an effect. VirginiaI’m loving all the ally energy today! Everyone wanting to show up for fat people. We love that.I think you can reflect to them when they share stuff like that, you you can just say you always look great to me, or I’m glad you’re feeling good in your body. If they’re talking about being good or something. I think you can just find ways to validate that from your perspective, their body is not a problem.And maybe also making sure when you see them, like, have you looked at your dining room chairs? Have you made sure that your space is welcoming for them?Not that you would say to them, “I just purchased some higher weight limit chairs for you.” Like, don’t perform it. But can you make sure that your home, if you’re hosting them, is a space where their body feels comfortable? It’s just little things that we can all be doing, and it might go a long way. I mean, I don’t know if this is what’s happening, but sometimes I think that folks feel like they have to perform weight loss as part of being the good fattie. It’s possible if your home feels more welcoming in this front, they will feel less like they have to perform that for you.CorinneI think you could also just say, “It breaks my heart how much energy you are putting into trying to make yourself smaller.” But yeah, it might be a hard thing to slip into a conversation.VirginiaAs for the kids, I wouldn’t stress about that so much. If they’re talking about the stuff in front of your kids, you can later say, “We love grandma so much. This world is really tough for fat folks, and it’s hard to hear her talking about her body that way. But we don’t expect that for you.”You want to read the next one? CorinneYes.My daughter is extremely overweight. Her grandmother was a needle carrying diabetic, and it runs in the family. I love my daughter with all my heart, but what should I encourage her to do to avoid becoming diabetic?VirginiaNothing. You should say nothing. Nobody asked you!You don’t need to encourage her to avoid becoming diabetic. That’s not your job.What do you want to add?CorinneI think you could encourage her to not have an eating disorder.VirginiaI would stop using phrases like “extremely overweight” and “needle carrying diabetic.” That is such stigmatizing language.It also sounds like you have really framed diabetes in your mind as something that people choose to opt into or opt out of, because you want to encourage her to avoid becoming one, as if that’s a train she can take off the tracks. This is not something she has as much control over as you think. But even if it was, it’s not your job to police her eating habits, her body size, her workout choices, any of that. It’s not your job.CorinneYeah, leave her alone.VirginiaI’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you sent in a question, but please stop. She doesn’t need this from you. She needs you to love her and support her. And if she does get diabetes, she needs your support and not any of that energy. We don’t need this energy. Okay, that is enough family drama questions. Those were some heavy family drama questions. Now we will return to judging our media consumption. This person would like to know,what piece of media do you consume, even though it’s problematic?CorinneI mean, hard to limit myself to one!VirginiaCorinne only consumes problematic media.CorinneAlmost everything could be problematic. The one that has been coming up for me a lot recently is—I have watched most seasons of Love Is Blind. And I just increasingly feel like reality television is almost unethical, because they are borderline torturing people. Like putting them in a weird space and then filming them, using that footage to create narratives. Especially with the alcohol stuff. I was just noticing on this recent season, just the drinking. Like, I would not be drinking in that context. And I have wondered if they turn away people who are sober.VirginiaOh, interesting. If they’ll even cast them.CorinneYeah, that’s what I mean.VirginiaAre they casting with an eye towards “you seem to have a complicated relationship with booze, come on and drink with us!”CorinneRight. And I’m a little bit older, you know? I’m 38 but I feel like I know so many people who don’t drink, and I’ve never seen a person not drink on one of these shows. I don’t know, it feels very problematic to me.VirginiaAnd yet you’re watching. CorinneAnd yet I watch. VirginiaNo judgment. I was trying to think. A lot of my TV viewing happens with my 11-year-old. We watch shows together in the evening, and we revisit a lot of shows that I have already watched, which often means they’re problematic. Like right now we’re rewatching Parks & Recreation. Her first watch, my re-watch, and it’s full of anti-fatness. The way they talk about diabetes on that show is horrific. There’s also a lot of homophobia, and it’s very much a product of its time. And, Leslie Knope is an iconic, great character. And there’s lots of really funny, great stuff. But, like, Aziz Ansari is on it, and I forgot Louis CK has a part in one season. There’s one episode where it was like, Aziz and Louis CK, and I was like, “This is a lot of problematic men in a sitcom for me!” I pause frequently, and say, let’s talk about that! And she’s like, I know, I know, I know. Please stop. The other night, she said to me, “eEvery show you make me watch has so much anti-fatness.” I was like, “Fair, fair. That’s true.” So, yeah, old sitcoms are a big one, but at least we’re using it as a jumping off point to discuss things.Also, we were just talking about in the Substack Chat today about the new Netflix show Nobody Wants This, which I did really love and think is problematic. There are some really not great portrayals of Jewish women on that show, and that was upsetting to me. And, Adam Brody is so hot, so it was hard to not keep watching because of his hotness. That was hard for me. I obviously chose to watch it all, and will probably watch season two. But yeah, it sucks. Media is problematic. CorinneIt is. The next question is for you.Any advice on how to make the legal divorce process easier?VirginiaI’m just like, can I be helpful? I am not qualified to weigh in on anyone else’s divorce, because every divorce is so different and so much depends on the financial impact of divorce on your life. It varies tremendously and tends to be awful for everyone, but like, different flavors of awful. The degree to which finances will be up for negotiation and the degree to which whoever you’re divorcing is just baseline not an asshole. Those two things really determine whether the divorce process is easy or not. The legal system is not set up to work well for anybody. It doesn’t advocate well for anyone. So the best case scenario is to bypass the legal system as much as possible and do mediation or collaborative divorce, which is what we did. Collaborative divorce is where you do each have a lawyer. And there’s no mediator. But your lawyers have all agreed ahead of time that they will not represent you if it goes to litigation. They are committed to a collaborative process. So if you were to decide you couldn’t work it out directly, you’d have to hire a whole new lawyer to go to court. These lawyers will not go to court with you. So it’s kind of like mediation, but you do have a little more personal support in terms of the lawyer, and then there’s also a neutral financial advisor and a neutral parenting plan person who you work with. And it was great. Our divorce was very streamlined. But it was streamlined through a fuck ton of privilege. So I cannot say, definitely do that, because if your ex is abusive or emotionally toxic, that may not be a safe way for you to go. But if it is a situation where you’re like, “We should not be married but we don’t outright hate each other, and I am safe and I’m not experiencing abuse of any kind,” then I would suggest mediation or collaborative divorce will get you through it faster and cheaper. Mediation is cheaper than collaborative divorce, just because there are fewer people to hire, and it can be great. Also it’s still so much paperwork. I’m never going to convince the electrical company that a single woman can have a utility in her own name, It’s just never going to happen. So just sending solidarity, it’s a lot of paperwork and annoying phone calls on top of all of the other not fun parts.Let’s talk about food. Bring it up with some food. CorinneThank God. VirginiaFavorite Thanksgiving / fall dish?CorinneWow. I mean, hard to single out just one! VirginiaInteresting. I don’t love a lot of Thanksgiving food. Does that make me a weirdo?CorinneWhat about fall? VirginiaI guess I like fall?CorinneThis probably does make you a weirdo.VirginiaI feel like a lot of Thanksgiving food is kind of bland and mushy. It’s just not a spicy holiday. CorinneNo, it’s not. It’s not. VirginiaI like a spicier holiday.CorinneOkay? Well, the one that’s coming up for me right now is chicken pot pie. VirginiaOkay, yeah, that’s good. CorinneYou’re like, meh. I feel like it’s really good with leftover turkey. And as discussed, I’m like starting to get cooler weather, so I can’t freaking wait to be eating soup and biscuits and chicken pot pie and lasagna and pumpkin bread.VirginiaYou are all in on the fall food. I do like pumpkin bread. I do like pumpkin flavored things. I used to think I didn’t, but I do like some pumpkin and apple crisp. I really enjoy a really good apple crisp.CorinneAnything apple. VirginiaI like the pie options and the crisp options. CorinnePumpkin pie?VirginiaYeah, it’s fine? I’m not, like, getting out of bed jazzed for it, but it’s fine. But in general, I like spicier cuisine than a lot of standard American fall cooking tends to be. So Thanksgiving is just not my favorite food holiday. I’m sorry.[Post-recording note from Virginia: I am validated, Samin Nosrat agrees with me!!!]CorinneMaybe you need to make a spicy relish or something. VirginiaThe thing I do bring to Thanksgiving every year is a very good fresh cranberry relish that is quite delicious. That peps it up for me a little bit. (This recipe is close, but mine also contains a little canned pineapple, chopped apple, and pecans.)Do you want to read the next one?CorinneYes.I’m fighting a cold and grumpy that my smart watch is judging me for not working out this week.VirginiaI mean, fuck your smart watch! Put that bitch in a drawer! You don’t need it. CorinneYeah. Seems like a good week to take the smart watch off.VirginiaYour phone has a clock. I don’t wear a watch at all. It’s fine. As discussed, I do look at my phone far too often, but that’s neither here nor there. You don’t need this in your life. CorinneYeah, I have been a smart watch wearer sometimes, or like a Fitbit wearer, and if it was bothering me, I would definitely just take it off.VirginiaI’ve never done it because I know my brain and that kind of tracking—this is why I don’t look at my screen time. I don’t need to know these numbers. They’re not going to be helpful for me. They’re just going to make me feel bad. ShareOkay, these last two are kind of wacky, but I think they’re going to be fun. So the first one is, If you had the power to conjure a perfect item of clothing for yourself, what would it be and what would it feature? For example, a green leather jacket with fringe and a giant back patch of your favorite band; a rainbow brite costume that turned you into cartoons maybe; a neon wig with enough room in it that could function as a purse; a gold lame quilted fannypack. I mean, this person gave such amazing answers. I don’t know that we can top this.Those are all so good. My answer is jeans that always fit. Jeans that don’t stretch out after two wearings and always fit. I depressingly think that’s what mine would be.CorinneI have so many thoughts. This is bringing back the $700 denim jacket for me, because I’m like, well, and how much would it cost?Big UndiesWould You Spend $700 on a Shirt?A couple of weeks ago I saw this post about the brand Toteme on Harriet Hadfield’s Substack and was immediately captivated by the denim shirt (coat? shacket?) in the collage image. A simple collar, nice pockets, snaps, good drape—it looked perfect. When I scrolled down to read about it, I learned that the midsize Harriet is wearing an XXS—meaning it runs…Read morea year ago · 159 likes · 83 comments · Corinne FayVirginiaYeah, fair question. I think if we’re conjuring the item, we can assume it’s on sale. CorinneAnd I feel like it’s also hard not to get into, like, superpowers, like what about a jetpack?VirginiaA coat that’s also a jet.CorinneOr an invisibility cloak.VirginiaThat’s the obvious place to go is invisibility clothing.CorinneThe other thing that I was thinking was, like, I don’t want to invent it. I want to be surprised by what someone else comes up with!VirginiaYou’re like, the perfect item of clothing is something that requires no mental load from me, thank you. CorinneYeah, I feel like it’s something I see on some website that only comes in size small, and I’m like, oh, I want that. But I didn’t come up with it. I want it because it’s cool and different. VirginiaMaybe what you want is the power to be able to resize any item to be size inclusive. That would be really awesome. So everything can fit you. CorinneYeah, perfect. Thats all I want. VirginiaI mean, I’m also into the neon wig that can function as a purse. I’m not ruling it out, but I think our needs are more humble. We just want clothes that fit.CorinneI mean, I love the idea of a green leather jacket with fringe. I can’t see myself wearing it, but you never know.VirginiaNo, I agree, but I’m here for it.And this last ridiculous question is,If you could have a different liquid shoot out of each of your fingers like a soda gun, what liquids would you choose? CorinneSo we’re talking five liquids? VirginiaYeah, I don’t think we have to do all 10. We can assume both hands are the same.CorinneOne of mine would be ice water. Or, if we’re really making this a magical situation, water with like crushed ice in it, like pebble ice. VirginiaI love that your answer could be any liquid and you’re like, just water. CorinneWell, do you know how frustrating it would be to be walking around with soda coming out of your fingers and you just wanted water? VirginiaThat’s a fair point, and you you’re still having to refill your Stanley Cup to have enough water in the day. This way it’s like your finger is an unlimited Stanley Cup.CorinneAnd I really love crushed ice. If I could just have crushed ice shooting out of a finger, I would take it.VirginiaOkay, so that’s one. What else?CorinneMine are going to be so boring. VirginiaI’m waiting for electrolytes. CorinneOkay, Sure. Gatorade. I also want to say, like, iced tea or something. I feel like it would be water, Gatorade, iced tea, lemonade. And what’s the last one I feel like I need something more fun?VirginiaA mocktail?CorinneChampagne.VirginiaThe pinky finger is champagne. Why not?CorinneJust for special occasions.VirginiaAlright, I think mine would be—I mean, now you sold me on water because it does seem very practical. Obviously Diet Coke, obviously, also my mandarin orange aspartame seltzer that I’m obsessed with. I mean, coffee. Are we allowed to have different temperatures? Can I have a latte finger?CorinneOooh, a latte finger.VirginiaWill it foam the milk properly? I think so. And then I was thinking, I think my last one might be hand sanitizer because that just seems practical, right? Yeah, then you’re never caught off guard. CorinneAnd you could drink it to get drunk.VirginiaNo, I’ll wait for you to fill up my champagne. Even though I can’t drink champagne, it gives me a migraine. I think I have no alcohol in my fingers for now, anyway. We’ll see. Well, that was delightful, and absolutely absurd.CorinneI hope everyone puts their answers in the comments. VirginiaWe want to know what clothing item you’re inventing. We want to know what’s in your fingers. We want to know your screen time so we feel less ashamed. CorinneYes, please.VirginiaI feel so good ours was the same. I really was worried I was going to be like double you or something.CorinneOh, I thought I was going to be double you! You have children, you have to at least look up sometimes.VirginiaLets not talk about how I’m looking at my phone too much around my kids. Now you made it worse again!CorinneOh God.VirginiaBut I feel like, okay, we’re in the same boat of too much phone.ButterCorinneI’m realizing that I think my last Butter was also a salad, which is just makes me sound like a different kind of person than I am. But I want to recommend this salad that I’ve been eating fromJulia Turshen’snew cookbook, and it’s just called “my usual chopped salad.” It has a really nice mustardy dressing, and then it’s chopped romaine and red cabbage, roasted almonds and grated carrots, chickpeas, feta and raisins. And it’s a really good combo. It’s very delicious.And it’s also one of those things where, I usually have all that stuff on hand, and you can kind of tweak it based on what you do have on hand. So that has been a really good lunch for me the past couple of weeks. VirginiaI really need to make that one, that seems great. CorinneYeah, it’s delicious. It’s sweet, salty. It’s really good. VirginiaOkay, you’re inspiring me to make a salad at some point soon. I love that for me as a goal. CorinneYeah, it’s good. What’s your Butter? VirginiaMy Butter is my new heavy weights that I’m lifting. I’m not on Corinne’s power lifting train yet, or probably ever, because you have to go to the gym for that and I don’t like gyms. But I did recently upgrade my weights.Mass Moves MassCorinne Fay·February 21, 2023Read full storyAnd I’m going to use numbers, so content warning, if the numbers are not good for you. I don’t know how to talk about this without numbers. Do I need to use numbers? Maybe I don’t. CorinneI think you can use numbers. VirginiaOkay. When I first started strength training, I was using two pounds and five pounds, and then after a few months, I upgraded to ten. I mean, not upgraded. I still used the fives, but I added in some tens. And then after, like, a year and a half of that, I finally worked up my nerve to say to Lauren Leavell (whose videos I do every week): “Should I have heavier weights than 10?” And she was basically like, Dear God, yes. You can do more at this point.And so I added in some eights that have mostly replaced what I was doing with the fives. And then I got 15s and 20s. And, man, it is hard, but fun! It’s so much more fun to lift hard weights. It’s weird!CorinneUm yeah. Lifting heavy weights is fun.VirginiaIt’s very fun. And I was really surprised I didn’t die! Like, I lifted three times last week, and I was fine. I didn’t throw out my back. I was sore the next day, but not like what-did-I-do sore. Just like, oh I used muscles sore. It was super satisfying. I know there’s so many strength trainers and power lifters in the audience, and you’re all just like, “Welcome, Virginia. Thank you for realizing the obvious.”But I just want to say: Physical strength didn’t feel available to me for most of my life. I think especially if you’ve had like back issues, there are ways in which we can start to ascribe to a narrative that our bodies are fragile. And it’s interesting to realize that this isn’t for everyone. All bodies are good bodies, but for me, pushing myself to do something harder has actually not only made me feel stronger, but actually made my body feel sturdier, if that makes sense.CorinneMakes complete sense. VirginiaSo it’s really wild. I mean, I’m very new into it, but we’ll see how it keeps going. But yeah, I mean, I am a pretty injury prone person, so I am a little anxious, but I’m going to keep going. I think it’s good. CorinneThat’s awesome, yeah. VirginiaSo if that anyone else is out there with your five pound and your ten pounds or whatever, you could probably do more than you think, and that’s a cool feeling. And also, no moral obligation to ever do any of it. It’s fine. You don’t have to like it.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your November Extra Butter! This month we’re talking about Emily Oster—and her evolving views on kids, weight and health.We recorded this before the election. But as we all continue to grapple with how America slid to the right, the story of a public health advocate and scholar who is now aligned with conservative media feels especially timely. That said, we also want to hold space for how much Emily’s work has meant to so many of us (including Virginia!).If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon. To get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter.PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!---Episode 168 TranscriptVirginiaI’m just going to say up front, I am nervous about doing this episode. It is a complicated one. People have very strong feelings about Emily Oster. But we are in our Extra Butter safe space, and I am trusting that.So Corinne. You are coming in somewhat cold to this topic, because you don’t have kids, and Emily is primarily a parenting expert. What do you know about Emily Oster and her work?CorinneI know two things about Emily Oster. One is that she wrote a book about parenting or maybe pregnancy? And my main takeaway about that book is that it’s okay for you to drink a small amount of alcohol when you are pregnant. VirginiaYes. This is a gift that Emily has given to the world. Unquestionably.CorinneAnd I basically just know about that from having friends who are pregnant. Then the other thing I know is that she was involved in some COVID controversies. VirginiaUh huh. CorinneThe book came out before COVID, and then during COVID she started to become a controversial figure.VirginiaShe actually had two books come out before COVID, Expecting Better, about pregnancy, and then Crib Sheet, which is a parenting book. Expecting Better actually came out in 2013, the same year my first child was born. So it’s 11 years old. She’s been around for a long time!CorinneDid you use those books as a pregnant and child-having person?VirginiaWell, Expecting Better was published on August 20, 2013 and Violet was born on August 18. So I did not use it for that pregnancy. But I did later read a lot of Emily’s work, and in particular the work she was doing around breastfeeding not being the most essential you-have-to-do-it-or-you’re-a-terrible-mother thing. She did a lot of really great research breaking down some of those myths and showing that the benefits of breastfeeding over formula are not as extreme as we’ve been told. All of that was super helpful to me during my own breastfeeding situations. So yes, she’s definitely been a parenting voice on my radar for a long time. Emily is also actually from New Haven, Connecticut, as am I. We are around the same age, but I don’t think we knew each other as kids. But we are both ladies from Connecticut. Emily has a PhD in economics from Harvard. She then went on to pursue research in health economics and is a professor of economics at Brown University. She is a mother of two, and her official bio says, “Emily was inspired by her own pregnancy and lack of clear information to guide her decisions. She decided to use her expertise in reviewing and analyzing data to help other parents navigate those topics. She’s a New York Times best-selling author.”So we are both 40-something moms, originally from Connecticut. I think the other place our work has overlapped is that we both do some of this work of, “here is this mainstream thing you’ve been told that’s actually quite punitive towards mothers, and what if we looked at the data and flipped some of that on its head.” The work she did on pregnancy and breastfeeding was super helpful to me. It’s been super helpful to so many of my friends. My younger sister just had her first baby this summer, and she was reading Expecting Better. So I just want to go into this conversation saying I really think all of that work is valuable. Then more recently, as you noted, Emily launched ParentData, which started as a Substack newsletter that she sent out during COVID. Now it is its own standalone website. And during COVID she started sending out these newsletters that I think a lot of us, as parents, were living and dying by, because she was helping us calculate the risks. And then she started to push for schools to reopen before a lot of people were ready for schools to reopen. There was a lot of controversy around her takes at that point and how she was calculating risks. And in particular, I think, how she was calculating risks for kids from more marginalized backgrounds. It often started to sound more like she was just thinking about, “I want my kids back in school.” It was messy. I’m not going to talk a lot about her COVID stuff today, because we have a whole other issue to work through. But I do want to acknowledge that COVID is when a lot of folks started to feel very divisive about Emily. I also want to acknowledge right off the top that Emily blurbed Fat Talk and was a big supporter of Fat Talk and of my work. She’s interviewed me on ParentData twice, once before Fat Talk came out, once after. A lot of the early Burnt Toast community came from Emily’s community. So this is all the more reason why we should have this conversation. There are a lot of Emily Oster fans in our community. There are a lot of Emily Oster critics. We’re gonna talk about all of it. CorinneI feel like we should say the reason that people have been asking us to do this episode is because she has recently joined forces with conservative journalist Bari Weiss and they are doing a podcast together. And there was an episode about childhood obesity? Feeding kids? Which a bunch of people have written to you, with questions about. VirginiaThe new podcast is called Raising Parents with Emily Oster. It is produced in partnership with The Free Press, which is Bari Weiss’s publishing empire.Do you want to talk to us a little bit about what The Free Press is, and that whole piece of things before we talk about this episode?CorinneSure, yes. The Free Press is a website started by Bari Weiss. Bari Weiss is a journalist. She was hired by The New York Times after Trump was elected in 2016, in an effort to platform conservative voices at The New York Times. VirginiaThey were trying to both sides it.CorinneYes. And she notoriously quit with a manifesto-y letter, claiming that she was bullied or not really taken seriously. And then I think after that, she started this website, The Free Press. She’s someone who started out as somewhat moderate, and has become more of a conservative person. She’s very “anti woke,” I guess is what I would say. She’s very pro-free speech and anti-identity politics, that kind of thing.VirginiaYeah. I think Emily’s involvement with The Free Press is surprising and not surprising. I think what’s interesting about Emily Oster, kind of all the way along, is that she’s an incredibly smart person. I think her work really connects with a certain kind of smart, data conscious parent or person—especially moms. And I think she would say her personal values or political beliefs should not be in the mix at all, that what she’s doing is not political. And yet, of course, it is political. Health is political. If you’re going to talk about COVID, if you’re going to talk about breastfeeding, if you’re going to talk about—as we’re going to talk about—kids’ weight, it’s going to get political very quickly. It’s been interesting to watch this evolution. I think this sort of smart, data driven mom—which I certainly identify as. A lot of those types of moms who would identify as feminist were like, “yes, let me drink during pregnancy.” “Yes, tell me I don’t have to breastfeed.” That felt really resonant to us. And then there was this move in this other direction that’s been subtle, and sort of confusing at times. But I think aligning yourself with The Free Press is not subtle or confusing. So yes, we’ve got the new podcast, “Raising Parents with Emily Oster.” And episode three of the new season is called, Are We Feeding Kids The Wrong Foods? And this is the episode that a ton of you have been in my DMs and my email being like, what is happening here? So Corinne, do you want to read this quote from the top of the episode? This is from Emily, and it lays out the premise that she took into this projectCorinneYes.While BMI is just a number and doesn’t magically determine health, it is the case that BMI in this higher range is associated with a substantially elevated risk of many metabolic or other chronic illnesses. The United States ranks 12th worldwide on obesity prevalence. The question is, why? And why haven’t we been able to reduce childhood obesity rates?VirginiaSo what’s your thought about just that quick summary?CorinneIt seems like she’s both saying that BMI is a bad marker of health, and using it to determine that there is a problem.VirginiaShe’s saying the question is, “why do we have high rates of obesity in the United States?” She’s not saying, why should we care? Is that even the question? Is that even the problem? CorinneShe’s saying BMI is just a number. And also, let’s use that number to say that we have a problem. VirginiaThere’s some both/and-ing here that’s uncomfortable to me. And, a refusal to question the basic premise. If we have elevated risks and metabolic and other chronic illnesses, why are we not talking about those illnesses? Why are we focusing the conversation squarely on BMI, which we just acknowledged is not a useful measurement? So that’s the starting point for the whole episode.I’m not going spend a lot of time explaining why BMI is a bad measurement. I’m assuming a lot of us have that working knowledge, but we can link in the transcript to some background if you are new and are like, but wait a second, I thought BMI was great, and what is the problem? I will also link to a really great analysis that Christy Harrison wrote about this episode that we’re going to refer to a few times during this conversation. Because she did dig more into what is really just bad, lazy science that Emily is doing here. So I have a little snippet if you want to read. This isChristy Harrison, MPH, RDnow talking about what has kind of gone wrong at face value here:CorinneIn her previous work, Oster has always harped on how correlation, aka Association, is not causation, and how there are many other confounding variables that can explain these sorts of relationships. Yet in this episode, she takes at face value that the link between BMI and the risk of some diseases automatically means higher weight is unhealthy. In fact, there are many confounding variables to challenge and complicate that narrative.VirginiaAnd then Christy links to a whole bunch of other resources that we can include as well. Rethinking WellnessWhy Is Emily Oster Suddenly Pro–Diet Culture?Welcome to another installment of the Rethinking Wellness link roundup! Every other week, I’m offering a small collection of links from around the internet that are relevant to the conversations we have here, along with some quick takes and occasional deeper dives for paid subscribers…Read morea year ago · 40 likes · 21 comments · Christy Harrison, MPH, RDSo right off the bat, I was just struck by, Wait a second, Emily. My understanding of your work is that you are data driven. You analyze this so carefully, and yet, these basic tenets of good data analysis—correlation, not causation, and understanding the confounding variables—you are suddenly willing to throw out the window in order to do a whole episode about how do we get kids’ BMIs down. And then immediately after setting up the problem, she’s like, “We’ve tried all these things, to fight childhood obesity, and none of them have worked.” And she specifically starts to talk about, Let’s Move, which was Michelle Obama’s big initiative in 2008 where she danced with Big Bird and overhauled school lunches and was really focused on, we are going to get the childhood obesity rate down by 5 percent. And instead, that did not happen. Child obesity rates went up. So, you know, by its own metrics, Let’s Move was a pretty big failure. Then Emily also talks about Cookie Monster, who was part of the whole Michelle Obama stuff. There’s a famous Cookie Monster bit where he’s debating whether to eat cookies or broccoli. Then she says, “Cookies are very tempting. At the core of concerns about children’s weight is the fact that kids are eating an inordinate amount of unhealthy food.”CorinneYikes. VirginiaI’m just already frustrated because we’re leapfrogging wildly. To be fair, the title of the episode is, “Are we feeding kids the wrong foods?” She wanted to do an episode about food. But then why do we need to frame it in weight?CorinneSo her rise to popularity was for questioning these correlations we have between babies’ health and breastfeeding, or pregnancy and alcohol, but now that it’s about weight…she’s just buying into it. VirginiaIt’s a really strange pivot. The next chunk of the episode is where Emily starts getting upset about food advertising and talking about how much advertising kids get, which, like, I don’t disagree. Food advertising to children is shady. She quotes a mom from Ohio who talks about her kids getting influenced by Mr. Beast to want to drink some sugary energy drink. But then she also starts to blame parents, and in particular, she talks about how the average parent now only cooks four meals per week, as if this is like a major fail.CorinneYikes. I mean, who has time? I might only cook four meals a week.VirginiaI mean, that’s actually a lot of meals. Like, that’s most weeknights. You figure Friday and Saturday you might do something more fun and you probably need a break some other night. Why I Hate Cooking Right NowVirginia Sole-Smith·October 25, 2024Read full storyCorinneEspecially if you’re working 40 hours a week or more than that. VirginiaOr work a job that has you out of the house at dinner time.There are a million reasons why the average parent only cooks four meals a week. What I’m also noticing is this subtle, parent-blaming thread starting to come through. Which, again, feels so at odds with her earlier work, which was so grounded in the data. You can make your own choices about whether to drink. You can make your own choices about breastfeeding. Let’s give people the information and let them make their own choices. This is not that.CorinneIt also seems like even if you were kind of following her logic up until this point, you could reach a different conclusion. Even if you’re saying, okay, yes, certain chronic diseases are on the rise, maybe part of the problem is the food system. Then leaping to blame parents for not cooking enough is just… tough. VirginiaWell, and it’s a very conservative approach, right? To use that angle, as opposed to looking at what are the larger systemic reasons. If we really need all American parents to be cooking dinner, what support do American parents need to be cooking dinner? You need to let people go home from their jobs at four o’clock. There needs to be an entire culture or shift that we have not made, and have made no steps towards. CorinneYeah, I’m thinking the problem might be capitalism, white supremacy culture, perfectionism. Lack of community care and involvement in raising children. VirginiaYes, yes, yes. Who’s watching your kids while you’re cooking dinner? So many reasons why. Like, relying on American parents—and let’s be honest, we’re saying American mothers to cook dinner, to fight the childhood obesity epidemic? This cannot be the answer, guys. This is some Michael Pollan retrograde bullshit that I can’t believe I’m still having to talk about. CorinneAnd that’s not even the end.VirginiaOh we are nowhere near the end. So the episode then pivots into a weird clip which is not credited, and I could not tell who it was, but it was some body positive influencer talking about the evils of diet culture. It’s a little sound bite she throws in and then Emily responds to the sound bite. So, Corinne, can you read this next block?CorinneThere is today less stigma about weight, which is good. It’s really good. When I was growing up, I remember how cruel people were to overweight kids, and I know from being a mom that that kind of bullying still sometimes happens. What I think has changed is that such behavior is now considered wrong and despicable, and there is a growing stigma against people who bully in that way, rather than towards the overweight person. But the other thing that’s happened, perhaps inadvertently, is that people, including health experts, have stopped speaking out loud about the real health risks of obesity.VirginiaCorinne, how do you feel about that the weight stigma is gone now?CorinneI mean. Said like a true thin person. Like, how the heck would she know?VirginiaWell, she just knows. As a mother, she knows? CorinneI really haven’t heard about anyone being stigmatized for bullying fat people. VirginiaNo, that is new to me.CorinneIs there any evidence to back this up? Or is this just pure Emily Oster speculation?VirginiaJust her musings, I think. I do think that, much like you were saying about the whole Bari Weiss, anti-woke culture, there is a certain group that complains, like, “you can’t even make fat jokes anymore.” In kind of the same vein as, “men can’t even harass their secretaries anymore!” I think it is hard that now we have standards for not being an asshole to people. But I actually don’t think that standard is that rigorous around weight. In a lot of social settings, fat jokes are still pretty accepted. I don’t think that we have made this much progress!CorinneThis kind of reminds me of the whole #MeToo thing and how people were like, “But Louis CK’s career is ruined!”  VirginiaHow will these white frat boys get to a good law firm after Stanford?CorinneObviously this is speculation on my part, but is she saying this because…you wrote a book? VirginiaI fixed it. Did you not know that? Did you not know that my book fixed it? CorinneIs this your fault actually??VirginiaYou’re welcome.CorinneYou wrote a book about fat stigma, and it stopped existing, and so this is your fault.VirginiaI erased it, so now you can go back to being mean about fatness, because we have to make everyone thin. That was actually the master plan all along. I mean, this was a real heartbreak moment for me, because again, Emily has been personally lovely about my work and supportive of it in many ways in the past.But I think that a lot of folks who work on “obesity prevention” have started to really grasp that it is important that they name the existence of weight stigma or anti-fatness. Anytime I interview someone who does mainstream obesity research now, they are fully willing to acknowledge that that is a terrible thing. Whereas five years ago, 10 years ago, when I was reporting on these issues, they were not willing to acknowledge stigma was real. They were framing weight as a personal responsibility problem. And now the party line is absolutely, weight is not a matter of personal responsibility. It’s biology—and that’s why we made these drugs. So we can fix it for you. That’s where they’ve gone. But that is not the same as saying that there is no stigma.Their rhetoric against weight stigma is being used to sell more weight loss, which perpetuates the stigma. CorinneYeah. I mean, it’s obvious to me that weight stigma still exists.VirginiaBecause you fly on airplanes and buy clothes and move through the world.CorinneBecause I live in the world. Is there a way to measure weight stigma? VirginiaWell, actually, yes. We can link to the interview I did with Jeff Hunger. Jeff Hunger is a weight stigma researcher who I think would be quite surprised to hear that weight stigma no longer exists. Can We Conquer Anti-Fat Bias?Virginia Sole-Smith·December 1, 2022Read full storyCorinneYeah, I recall him saying in that episode that there was a lot of proof that becoming aware of stigma and doing implicit bias training didn’t actually get rid of stigma.VirginiaYes. They don’t really know yet what works to reduce the stigma from a data perspective, because the traditional things have not been working. Because the stigma has not been going down. Then there is a study that came out of Harvard in 2019 which found that while some forms of bias are decreasing—like we are making some progress towards less homophobia, less anti-Black racism, there’s some shift towards neutrality there, not to say those biases aren’t still huge problems because they absolutely are. [Post-recording note: Again, this was recorded before the election!] But we were seeing tiny drops. We are not seeing that drop when it comes to anti-fat bias, and that was the bias in the study that was actually increasing the most. CorinneOh.VirginiaOkay, so it’s going to get even worse. Well, I don’t know if worse is the right word? But it’s definitely going to get really weird and super, super retrograde. Something I kept thinking throughout this whole episode was: Did you make this podcast in 2009 because so much of the conversation just feels like, how are we still having this conversation? The thing that happens next is Emily brings on Sam Kass, who is the Obama’s former private chef. He made them dinner every night when they were in the White House. And he also partnered with Michelle Obama on Let’s Move. He was kind of like her chef consultant. So I want to be clear that Sam Kass is not a nutritionist. He is not a public health researcher. He is not a doctor. He is a private chef who has a lot of opinions about food. He’s also now on the board of Plezi Nutrition, which is Michelle Obama’s fruit juice brand, which I wrote about last year.Michelle Obama Is Not Coming To Save UsVirginia Sole-Smith·May 23, 2023Read full storyI don’t consider him a thought leader on the question of our children’s health, because he has no medical or scientific qualifications to be a thought leader on children’s health. But Emily brings him on the podcast and he starts to explain to Emily that his plan was to get into the White House, and the big thing that he and Michelle originally wanted to do was to get rid of the crop subsidies for corn and sugar that have made the American diet so unhealthy. Which, I don’t know how much you followed that story, especially back in the mid 2000s.CorinneI remember that being a big Michael Pollan thing. VirginiaTotally, totally. And I think that there’s a lot of logic towards changing the way the crop subsidy situation works, and not giving industry so much incentive to grow so much corn.However, the Obamas were not able to achieve that in Washington. They made zero progress on crop subsidies. And so, as Sam Kass explains to Emily, that actually wasn’t ever the solution. That wasn’t the right thing that they should have done in the first place. So, why don’t you read the Sam Kass quote here?CorinneI came running into the White House ready to go, like we’re empowered now we can fix this. It’s not the subsidies that are producing our food environment, it’s our culture. And it’s our culture that has been influenced and shaped by the industry who has pumped billions, probably trillions of dollars, over the last 40 to 50 years to shape our attitudes, norms and behaviors, but fundamentally, our culture is supporting what we choose. I think we have a culture that has separated the connection between what we put in our bodies and the impact it has on our health.VirginiaSo again, this is another way of saying, “it’s our fault.”But what is culture? That is a vague entity.CorinneIt kind of feels like they were like, “Actually, you know what? It’s too hard to fight back against the billions of dollars that the industry is using to lobby our government, and instead we’re going to blame individual personal behavior.”VirginiaWhich, again, is a weird conservative pivot. And there are lots of food activists and child health activists who have been critical of Let’s Move because of this, because they didn’t get this done. And clearly he has decided that it didn’t matter that they didn’t get it done, because if American moms would just fucking cook dinner, then we wouldn’t have this problem. Okay, so that was a lot. But then Emily brings on Pamela Druckerman. So Corinne, do you know who Pamela Druckerman is?CorinneI do not.VirginiaOkay. Pamela Druckerman, is best known for writing a book called Bringing Up Bebe. She is a journalist who lives in France and writes about French culture. Bringing Up Bebe —which came out in 2011 so it’s almost 15 years old— is a book all about how the way French children are brought up leads them to be gourmet eaters and the way American kids are brought up leads them to be terrible eaters.My main memory of her—the book came out before I was a parent, but I remember her appearing on The Today Show wearing a beret. And again, she’s American. But she was living in France and deciding to write about how amazing French children are and how amazing the whole French parenting system is. So it is a book about how to parent like a French person, and how to feed your child like a French person.CorinneYou know what else I hear is really amazing about France?VirginiaWhat’s that?CorinneThe healthcare and postpartum care and stuff. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.VirginiaThe government-funded free preschool is probably also a pretty amazing thing. But Pamela Druckerman says no, specifically it’s the way French kids eat. Because, according to her, French kids from the age of like three are capable of sitting through a multi course dinner. They are capable of having dinner later at night. This is somehow super important, I guess, because it makes you cooler if you don’t eat dinner at 5pm? They can behave in restaurants. They don’t need to bring iPads into restaurants. They don’t eat Goldfish. They don’t need sippy cups, they are eating like tiny gourmet adults at all times.CorinneThis also reminds me of the French Women Don’t Get Fat thing. VirginiaCorrect, correct. CorinneIt’s also just like, what? So the solution is just we all moved to France? Or…?VirginiaYes, yes, that is one solution on the table.CorinneOr we get government-funded childcare? VirginiaThat would probably do so much more. That never gets suggested in this episode. Emily never suggests that the government should fund child care. But she does talk to Pamela for a long time about how the French people get their kids to like food.Pamela explains that you can make kids like vegetables, if you just tell them they are delicious and serve them sitting down at a table.So that’s some really useful advice for all of us. CorinneYeah, it notoriously works great to just tell someone they like something they don’t.Virginia“Carrots are delicious!” I can just imagine my children staring at me in absolute disgust. So Emily responds to Pamela talking about the carrot thing by saying, “I can hear all the American parents now, but what about my picky eater? In their defense, there’s pretty clear data that between the ages of two and six, children get pickier, but France has a fix for that!”And then Pamela explains what the fix is. This is a really long quote, but do you want to read this?CorinnePartly, what happens in France is that kids don’t eat between meals. So when they come to the table, they’re hungry. You kind of learn from an early age to tolerate not starvation level hungriness, but like having a slight pit in your stomach where you want to eat, and that pit has not been satisfied. So you get to the table and you’re more apt to eat what’s put in front of you because you’re hungry for it. You haven’t been snacking. You know, your mom didn’t give you a banana 20 minutes ago, because you were whining, she said, We’re going to eat in 20 minutes. Go play and come back, and then the first thing that’s served in this moment in the meal is a vegetable. It’s not rocket science, any of this.VirginiaI want Pamela to come to my house and talk to my children 20 minutes before dinner. I just am so annoyed about this! I don’t know. Tell me what you’re thinking.CorinneIt just sounds like if your kids are hungry enough, they’ll eat vegetables.VirginiaYes, and that they should be accustomed to walking around with a pit in their stomach all the time because you don’t let them have snacks.CorinneHungry children are annoying. VirginiaThey are!  CorinneI mean, even just speaking for myself, I am not the nicest, funnest, smartest person when I’m hungry.VirginiaNope, nope. I find this really insidious, this idea that we should teach kids to tolerate hunger is a really creepy notion to me. because I think any girl who came of age in the 90s has a lot of experience with learning to, quote, tolerate hunger. And it didn’t work out great for us. This is not the goal. This is a dieting behavior. CorinneIsn’t the whole thing that when you feel really hungry, that often backfires and ends up with like bingeing or overeating?VirginiaIt just seems like you’re teaching kids to live with this experience of deprivation, which some kids bodies might do totally fine with, right? People get hungry at different rates. There are people who can eat only three times a day, and that works really well for them, and that’s awesome. But that doesn’t mean that’s going to work really well for everybody. And little kids in particular have small stomachs that empty fast. They don’t want to go six hours without eating. That is going to be meltdown city.CorinneIt’s also like, when does this start? Because I don’t think anyone’s telling breastfeeding mothers, “Wait until your baby is starving and has a pit in their stomach to feed them.” You know?ShareVirginiaI think as soon as they’re off, breast milk is when it starts. Because she talks about being at the playground at 10am with the toddlers, and nobody’s carrying around little bags of Cheerios because the kids don’t expect to have snacks at the playground. Because they know they’re going to wait till they go home and eat lunch. I drive around in my Subaru at all times with a box in the back of my car filled with snacks. And we don’t always need them. It’s fine. But I don’t want to get caught somewhere with a hungry, grumpy child. If I’m sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office and it’s taking 40 minutes when I thought it was going to take 15, I’m really glad to have that bag of Goldfish. She’s equating snacking with sloth and excess when it’s just like parenting your child, responding to their needs, recognizing that they are getting hungry, and maybe you are too, and everyone will feel better with a snack.CorinneYeah, it feels like a confusing solution.VirginiaAnd again, just not very replicable. She describes the way the French schools serve lunch and how it’s this very elaborate presentation, and they get three year olds to sit around a table and use silverware. Nobody is trying that in the United States. Even if there are lessons we can learn from that, nobody is attempting to replicate that here. So any individual parent trying to replicate that at home is just making their lives really complicated.CorinneThis is where we get into the systemic versus personal stuff again, too. Maybe it works in France because they have a totally different system. Maybe parents have more energy to tolerate kids screaming when they’re hungry because they’re not working 60 hours a week. Maybe kids are less hungry when they get home from school because they have a nice five course meal at school. You can’t take one part of the system and and bring it over here and just blame parents for not doing enough. VirginiaExactly.So then Emily decides she needs to find an American mother who is doing this so we can all learn from her. She brings in a woman named Ellie, who I think we would affectionately call an almond mom. Ellie never lets her kids buy the school lunch. She cooks from scratch at home. They are a vegetarian household. She doesn’t shop the middle of the grocery store. She only shops the perimeter, and she doesn’t let her kids have fast food or really, any processed food. Do you want to read this quote? CorinneWait, I need more information. Is Ellie, like a friend of Emily’s? Who the f is Ellie?VirginiaNo. She’s just a mom. Sprinkled throughout this episode, she just brings in regular moms to share their stories of feeding their kids. Her producers probably cast around to find people.CorinneUm, does she also share Ellie’s income?VirginiaShe does not.  CorinneOkay. Anyways, Ellie says about her children. They say, can we have Cheetos and mac and cheese? And we’re like, there’s nothing in that that nourishes you. Every single element of that meal is chemicals. So we might look at the box or something and talk about the difference between the way chemicals make things taste good and just the taste of food.VirginiaSo to be clear, this quote is presented with zero context or follow up, even though it contains wildly inaccurate statements. First of all, all food is chemicals, water is a chemical, air is a chemical. Christy Harrison broke this down really clearly about why Emily should have called out the chemical thing as just being blatantly wrong. You cannot say that mac and cheese contains more chemicals than homemade pasta. They are all foods. So Emily is bringing in this woman’s story and holding her up as an example, even though the woman’s position is “no processed foods, no matter what.” But Emily has already written about the fact that the processed foods debate is overblown and the health risks have not been proven by the data.CorinneYeah, it’s also like, what is the proof that this parent is doing something better? That her kids aren’t fat?VirginiaYeah, that’s a great point. We never hear actually any details about her kids. But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess they aren’t fat just because I don’t think Emily would have brought in the mom of a fat kid and held her up as an example.CorinneBut also, just because the kids aren’t fat now doesn’t mean that they won’t be fat someday.VirginiaIt also doesn’t mean they’re not freaking losing their minds and eating all the Cheetos when they go to their friend’s house.CorinneYeah, they go to your house and eat nine Oreos. VirginiaYou don’t let them buy school lunch and you control the food in your house, but your kids are growing up and going out into the world where all of this food is—and you have been telling them that it’s poison and they shouldn’t want it, and yet they know it tastes good.And Emily really celebrates that this mom says, “we have a dialogue about it. And we always explain why something is bad and they can’t have it.” And that is held up as if, that’s good communication between the parent and child. But it reminds me a lot more of the protein mom weighing her food and explaining to her daughter why she’s weighing her food. Just because you’re giving your child a lot of information about your food decisions does not mean you are teaching them to have a healthy relationship with food. Protein Moms and the "Eating Enough" MythVirginia Sole-Smith·October 18, 2024Read full storyThe other reason I know Ellie’s kids are not fat is then because Emily does want to hear from the mom of a kid in a bigger body. So she brings on Karen, and Karen has a six year old in a bigger body who she’s really worried about in terms of feeding her child. And Karen’s story in this episode really breaks my heart, because she’s the only person in this whole episode who has directly experienced any anti-fat bias. She talks about having experienced herself growing up, and then how it’s kind of doubled since she had a child who’s in a bigger body. She’s constantly made to feel like she’s doing something wrong, that it’s a moral failing that her daughter is in a bigger body. She also talks a lot about her guilt that she had to formula feed her daughter as a baby, and how she was constantly wondering if she was overfeeding her or if formula is the reason why she’s bigger.She says the constant thought in the back of her mind was, “Are you giving your baby too much food?”CorinneOh, that’s so sad.VirginiaIt’s so sad. I’ve heard that story a lot, that that is the message, especially parents of bigger babies get around formula. And it’s just, I mean, to your point earlier, no one would say to a breastfeeding mom, are you feeding them too much? Like it’s such hypocrisy.This clip, I think, was Emily’s attempt to throw a bone towards the importance of combating anti-fatness, because Karen does sound like she’s really trying to push back against that pressure. She wants to raise her daughter to feel good about her body. She tells a story of a kid at a birthday party called her daughter fat, and her daughter was just like, we don’t talk about people’s bodies. And good for that kid, for handling that so well. So she sounds conflicted, but like she’s trying to not raise her daughter to feel ashamed about all of this. But then Emily just kind of drops that story and gives no support for that perspective. And she makes this really odd speech. So another long one for you to read, Corinne.CorinneKaren’s experience with her daughter brings up the bigger question, how much of obesity and overweight is in our control and how much is just biological? Shaming people for being overweight is unequivocally wrong, but sometimes, especially in recent years, the goal of trying not to offend people has led to a shift in the conversation and a lot of confusion about the very real effects of obesity on health.You might hear it’s possible to be healthy at Every Size. While yes, it’s absolutely possible to be healthy at a range of weights and sizes. And no, not everyone needs to be a size two to be healthy. And in fact, for some people, a size two would mean they are not healthy. But it’s also true that, on average, many diseases and health complications and health outcomes are more likely for people who are obese.VirginiaSo again, it’s like, “Don’t shame people. Shaming people is so bad. Also, people are so unhealthy if they’re fat.”CorinneShe’s saying people have become scared to say that the problem is being fat or something. VirginiaYes, yes. They’re being silenced. And again, I think every fat person who’s been to the doctor really feels like that message isn’t getting out to us.CorinneRight? And again, the correlation versus causation thing, she’s implying that all of these diseases, health complications, and health outcomes are the cause of obesity, when we really don’t know that.VirginiaJust to break down correlation causation further: When we say these diseases are more likely for people with high BMI, we don’t know that the high BMI is what causes the increased risk for thes diseases. We know that these two things happen together in some cases, but we don’t understand the relationship. So it could be that the diseases cause the weight increase. It could be that the weight increase sometimes causes the diseases. It could be that they are two unrelated things, but they have a shared root cause.And in every one of those scenarios, the concern should be the disease, not the body size. What can you do for the disease? And if that changes body size, fine. But if it doesn’t change body size, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed if you can make improvements on the disease.I feel like I have been making a version of that speech for 10 years now, and yet this episode is still out there, so that’s fine. I’m tired. CorinneIt just sucks because it felt like Emily Oster was someone who could wrap her head around that.VirginiaI did think that.But part of why I think she is not wrapping her head around that anymore—at least in this episode,—is because she then brings in another expert, this guy, Robert Davis, PhD, who is the author of The Healthy Skeptic. He is a health journalist with a public health PhD, but again, he’s not a doctor or a researcher. He writes mainstream, commercial books. But if you didn’t understand his background, you would interpret him in this episode as being the voice of medicine and science. He is brought in as a very credentialed expert who we are going to take seriously as having the final word on this topic. And this is what Robert Davis has to say about Health at Every Size:CorinneThe pendulum has swung too far when it comes to the idea of body positivity and HAES. The effort to fight those ideas from diet culture is a good thing. But if we then say, well, let’s just forget about promoting weight loss or promoting a healthy weight and let’s just say people should be able to sort of eat what they feel like and eat dessert at dinner and go with intuitive eating and what they feel like eating. I think that’s a big mistake, because, again, we know that these foods that we’re talking about are designed to trick our brains and make us want more of them.VirginiaSo, it’s great to fight back against diet culture, but don’t go so far as to eat dessert at dinner. That’s a bridge too far for Robert Davis.CorinneFighting diet culture is good, but we shouldn’t go far as to say that weight loss isn’t good.VirginiaIt’s unclear what he wants to fight from diet culture, because he really wants to keep quite a lot of diet culture. And I should also say Robert Davis just published an article on The Free Press, with the headline, “Diets are Bad. Ignoring Childhood Obesity is Even Worse.” The subhead is “Activists tell parents not to fat shame an overweight child, or make them go on a diet, but parents who refuse to tackle the issue are putting their kids’ lives at risk.”And by activists, he means me, because he calls me out in the article as a “prominent ‘fat activist,’” who he thinks is getting everything wrong about this. So obviously, Robert and I are not going to, like, go to dinner and hang. CorinneEven if we agreed that child obesity was a problem, there’s still not a solution. Dieting or putting your kid on a diet isn’t going to solve it. So it’s just very confusing to be like, “parents aren’t fighting back against this thing.”What does Robert want us to do? VirginiaI’m glad you asked. Let’s go to his article, because he does have a lot of a lot of specific ideas that I will try to read with a straight face. So he says: “Avoid restrictive diets. They don’t work and they can make the problem even worse. Instead, children should be encouraged to eat mainly whole foods, including colorful fruits, veggies, beets, beans, nuts, seeds, fish, lean poultry and whole grains.”Children, famously fans of seeds.CorinneAnd fish. VirginiaThat’s an easy sell. Virginia“Involving kids in grocery shopping and cooking their own food gives them a sense of agency and will get them excited about eating well and using cookie cutters to slice fruits and vegetables into fun shapes like hearts and stars, where serving veggies with dips can make these foods more enticing.”CorinneThis is really reminding me of Kids Eat In Color.The Ballerina Farm of Kid Food InstagramCorinne Fay and Virginia Sole-Smith·March 7, 2024Read full storyVirginiaYes, yes, it is. CorinneAnd once again, I feel like the problem is capitalism. Like, sure, I will cut celery into stars if I don’t have to have a job.VirginiaI cannot listen to a white man tell women to cut their kids fucking vegetables into hearts and stars. I cannot do it.I am incandescent with rage about this. I am sorry.  Mothers have enough to do. We do not need your guilt trip. I do not need to hear that I need to stop using Instacart and take my kids to the grocery store, an experience that will make all of us cranky and tired.CorinneDo we think that Robert J. Davis has children? VirginiaHe probably does? But does he have a wife who does all of this? Also probably yes.This advice is so simplistic. It is so ignorant of the context of family’s lives.If you have a kid who is picky, I mean, genuinely picky and rigid around food choices.If you have a neurodivergent kid who’s reliant on a lot of processed foods as the safe foods.If you are on a tight budget.There are one thousand reasons that you cannot eat like this.He does go on to say, “How about we also get rid of screen time?” So that’s another helpful suggestion. “Have a regular game day on weekends where the entire family enjoys a fun physical activity out of the house, like hiking or bike riding.”CorinneMy God. I just really feel like these people don’t live in the real world.VirginiaLike, my kid’s dad takes them hiking every weekend. They may still end up in bigger bodies. If it’s something you all enjoy, that’s wonderful. This may not move the needle on body size, because body size is not determined solely by lifestyle habits. And if you’re telling people that they have to do all of these things to control body size, and it doesn’t work, that’s going to backfire and cause bigger problems.So I’m just very tired. I’m very tired of all of this. CorinneI am determined to find out if this guy has kids, and just for the record, he’s not wearing a wedding ring in his videos. I just feel like there’s no way this guy is speaking from personal experience, you know? Like he’s just spouting bullshit that he read somewhere. VirginiaHe talks about having been in a bigger body himself and his mom putting him on diets as a child. And I have all the empathy in the world for that. But please do not think you are helping anybody by telling us to cut fruit into a fucking heart shape. I will take my cookie cutters and melt them down. My child would not eat a kiwi if it was shaped like a star if I paid her. It’s not gonna happen.  So, I think it’s pretty clear where we land on all of this, but Emily does have one final speech in the episode which sums up where she is landing on this. And we can read that and then have feelings. CorinneWhat will it take to get more vegetables and fruits into the hands of kids and families? That, in my view, is the core question. But the cultural problem is just as pernicious. As we learned from Pamela in France, Carrots are just delicious, objectively. In America, that’s not a fact. I’d say here, Doritos are objectively delicious, and therein lies the problem.What would it take to have more parents like Ellie who simply refuses to give her kids fast food, who prioritizes fruits and vegetables for them because she knows and has told her children that that’s what’s good for bodies. She’s setting them up for a much better chance at good health.VirginiaShe’s also setting them up for a much higher risk of an eating disorder. I mean, the fact that we’re ending the episode by saying Ellie—who is the most restrictive parent in the episode—is doing it right, really says a lot to me about where Emily is landing on these issues now. And, just how useful this whole conversation could be to any parent, if the takeaway is you need to be rigorously cooking from scratch, getting your kids to like fruits and vegetables at any cost.None of this is new advice. None of this has worked before. This is the Let’s Move playbook, which Emily herself acknowledges did not do anything to move the needle on childhood obesity. CorinneYeah, and this whole thing about it being like a cultural problem is so mind boggling to me, because when I hear “but it’s a cultural problem,” I’m like, yes, it’s a systemic problem. How is Ellie telling her kids that carrots are delicious solving a cultural problem? That’s just one person? VirginiaYou’re defining culture as social systems and structures, and she’s defining culture as personal preferences. And that is not accurate. This whole pivot into personal responsibility, again, I feel like, is really at odds with her earlier work. And it’s just very aligned with The Free Press and with being in a more conservative media outlet, which is what’s happening here. And I’m sorry to see it.Again, I do think Emily is fundamentally a smart person. I’ve had a lot of respect for her work over the years, and it’s hard to see this transition. The last thing I’ll say is on a personal note: Emily, if you listen to this episode, I hope you’re still letting your kids eat their Halloween candy. Because one thing I did achieve a few years ago was persuading her not to count out her kids Halloween candy anymore. And I just hope you haven’t changed on that one, because I really want your kids to enjoy their candy. All right, well, I’m excited to hear what everyone thinks about all of this. I’m sure there will be many diverse opinions. We welcomeThis section contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!ButterCorinneFor my Butter, I want to shout out this new collaboration between Universal Standard and Jordan Underwood. They did send me a pair of pants and a tank top for free, So little caveat there. And I will say that I tried them on and then ordered some more stuff, so…VirginiaThey sent it for free and and were effective in getting you to buy more of it! CorinneYeah, it definitely worked. It’s a little capsule collection of some clothes that I think Jordan had something to do with designing, and they’re more androgynous pieces. There’s a pair of cargo pants and a cropped tank and a flannel and some sweats. But they’re really cool, and I think people should check them out.VirginiaI am obsessed with the crop tank. I think I need it.CorinneYeah, it’s really nice because it’s both high neck, which I feel like can be kind of hard to find in a tank, and it hits right at your pants waistline. VirginiaIt’s like, the perfect amount of crop. It’s not belly-baring, which would be fine, but we’re getting into colder weather here. It’s just the right fit. CorinneAlso seems like it would be really great to wear under stuff, because sometimes you don’t want a long tank under a shorter shirt.VirginiaI’m very excited to check out the collaboration. CorinneWhat’s your Butter?VirginiaMy Butter is something I have talked about many times, but it is not in the official library of Butter, which seems important to remedy. So my Butter is Meredith Dairy Marinated Sheep and Goat Cheese, which is the world’s best cheese. I will die on this mountain forever. I thanked this cheese in the acknowledgements of my book, CorinneOh my gosh. VirginiaI thanked other people, too, Corinne. I thanked you! But you know, I did shout out the cheese. And when I updated the paperback edition, I continued to shout out the cheese. Stand by that forever.It is a really good creamy goat slash sheep cheese, and it comes in this really delicious oil. Again, I’ve talked about it so many times. I feel like people are gonna be like, yeah, yeah, we know the cheese. But I just need it to be officially in the records as the best cheese. CorinneI have never tried it, so I am going to search this out. VirginiaI know Costco sells it. It’s not a super hard to find thing anymore. A lot of grocery stores are carrying it. I know at Costco you can even get a bigger jar. I get it from a local grocery store, but I’ve definitely seen it more and more places. Because whenever I talk about it, people around the country tell me how much they love this cheese. So I know people in Wisconsin are having it, people in Oregon are having it.It is a great cheese, and you can eat it straight. You can put it on toast with some jam of some sort. It’s very delicious. I also like to as when the jar is almost empty, save the like final bit of cheese in the oil and use that in pasta or salad dressing, and it’s life changing and delicious. CorinneThat sounds really good. VirginiaYep, I’m just glad to have it officially in the record of butter. That was something I needed to remedy, so thank you.Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Mara Gordon, a family physician and advocate for size-inclusive medicine, dives deep into the shortcomings of the healthcare system regarding fatphobia. She discusses how traditional practices often neglect the needs of individuals in larger bodies and emphasizes the importance of patient-centered care. Mara also highlights the launch of an initiative for weight-inclusive medicine and navigates the complexities of prediabetes, arguing for a more personalized healthcare approach. The conversation is both enlightening and a call to action for better advocacy in medical spaces.