Today Virginia is chatting with Chrissy King. Chrissy's new book, The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom is out this week. It’s an incredible mix of memoir and cultural analysis and an exploration of the intersection of racism and diet culture.

And remember, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off if you also preorder (or have already preordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)

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And don't forget to preorder! Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture comes out April 25, 2023 from Henry Holt. You can preorder your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. And! You can now preorder the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.

Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.

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3 amazing Black dietitians to follow: Jessica Jones and Wendy Lopez and Jessica Wilson

The Body Is Not an Apology

Fearing the Black Body

the AAP guidelines

Chrissy's pottery TikToks

Souper Cubes

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

Episode 85 Transcript

Chrissy

My name is Chrissy King, I'm originally from the Midwest. I'm from Wisconsin and I've been in Brooklyn for the past three years. I worked a corporate job for a very long time and then became a fitness professional, worked in the fitness industry. During the course of that, I started writing, and talking, about the need for more diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism work in the wellness industry. And talking a lot about my own body image journey, which has led me to the work that I'm doing now. So, now I'm primarily a writer, I'm an educator, and I still do a lot of my work within the wellness industry.

Virginia

And we are here to celebrate your new book, The Body Liberation Project, which I just got to read. The book is so smart and thoughtful. I loved how you weave your personal story together with all the larger issues that you're grappling with. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write this and how you decided to use your personal story in the larger context?

Chrissy

Thank you for the kind words about the book. I'm so excited for it. I went to college for social welfare and justice, so social justice and issues around race and white supremacy have always been at the core of whatever work I was doing in whatever capacity.

When I got into fitness, I saw that so many of those issues were unaddressed in the fitness industry. Especially prior to George Floyd—I always say that's the mark at which people in the wellness industry started talking about these issues.

Virginia

To folks outside of this world, those two issues—George Floyd and the fitness industry—feel so disconnected. I wonder if you could connect the dots a little more there and talk about why that particular event?

Chrissy

I think about George Floyd and that moment in history, that moment in time, a lot. Because prior to George Floyd, I was reading articles about anti-racism and DEI and the need for that in wellness. I was talking about the impact of racism on the health of black folks in particular, and why in the wellness industry—where the goal is to help people be well—we have to be talking about all these other issues, right? Prior to George Floyd, people just weren't as interested in the conversation. They didn't understand the importance of talking about these issues as they related to wellness. I mean, some people did. But generally speaking, the larger population in the wellness and fitness industry did not see why that was necessary and didn't even really want to address it.

When George Floyd happened, it was a very interesting turning point. I still don't know, when I think through it, what was so different about that event in time. Because George Floyd was just one of many situations that have occurred over the years. So I don't know if it was because it was also in the height of the pandemic and people were largely at home and less distracted by life. Obviously, the video went viral and was shown all over the globe, actually. So I don't know why that situation changed things. But I felt like people in the wellness space were like, “OH, racism is a real issue that's affecting people, that is also having an impact on people's health. And it's something that we should be talking about,” in ways that people just weren't interested in having the conversations before.

In a lot of ways it was a good thing because it opened up a lot of discussion. Now we're nearly three years after that and I don't know how much of an impact it had in actual practice. It was a weird time because it was like, wow, I'm glad that people are really willing to have this conversation now. And on the flip side, like, this is really disheartening that we had to have something of this extent happen for people to start acknowledging that it was important.

Virginia

It should not have taken that for people to reckon with this. And there was a lot of very performative awareness. I remember at the time watching folks like you and Jessica Jones and Wendy Lopez and Jessica Wilson. You all were inundated with interview requests, article requests. Like, “please talk to us about this.” I just remember thinking, This is not the way. This is not a fair ask of these women who had been doing this work for so long, who should be honored for that, and are now being asked, in this time of grief, to be saving us all. There was a weird energy, I just want to name that.

Chrissy

It was a weird energy. Because, on one hand, I'm like, great! I'm happy people are willing to have these conversations. But there was a lot of collective grief and trauma, right? You're right. It was like, I'm being inundated with all of these requests and very much a sense of urgency from people, right? Like, “we need this right now.”

Virginia

“Right now. We have to have this conversation that is 200 years overdue.”

Chrissy

It's so strange. But prior to that, I was doing a lot of this work because no one was having those conversations.

Thinking about my own journey with body image, I struggled with body image and yo-yo dieting since I was 10 or 11 years old. I've always been really obsessed about my weight. Growing up in the Midwest and going to a school where I was the only like Black girl in my class—there were only two other black kids in the school, my brother and sister—I always felt like I was trying to reach the standards of beauty that I couldn't actually reach. One of the ways that I could aspire to be what I thought was beautiful is I could be thinner, I could be smaller.

When I was working with clients as a trainer, most of the clients I worked with were women. And I would say every single client I had was struggling with body image issues and were coming to the gym with a desire to lose weight, with the belief that that would fix their issues with their body. And I did the same thing and what I realized through weight loss is that I still had the same body image issues I started with—and in a lot of ways they were worse. It wasn't the weight that was the problem. It was the system, the standards of beauty that have been created that we are trying to aspire to. White supremacy, actually. That's the culprit. Our bodies are not the problem.

That's what inspired me to write this book. Because, unfortunately, so many of us are spending so many years of our lives, focused on shrinking and obsessing about our weight. I think that all of us have very specific magic to do in the world and it doesn't have anything to do with what we look like. The sooner we can work to repair that relationship with our bodies, I think the easier it is for us to live lives that feel nourishing and full, that aren't focused on trying to be smaller.

Virginia

Yes! So you come from a social justice background in terms of your college and early work, and then there's kind of a pivot into fitness, which you talk about in the book. When you were studying social justice and in that place, were you connecting the dots between that and fitness culture?

Chrissy

No, I was definitely not connecting any dots back then. Especially when I was in college, I was very much in diet culture as a participant, right? I was making no connections to the similarities and the ways in that which white supremacy wreaks havoc in all areas, basically, in very similar ways.

It wasn't until I had been a trainer for a few years. I had been competing in powerlifting. I was the leanest I've ever been, I was the strongest I’ve ever been. And I had this moment, I call it my rock bottom moment. I just realized I was still so so miserable in my body. All the things I thought [getting lean was] gonna fix, that didn't change any of it. It actually made it worse in a lot of ways.

And it was then when I really started to think about body image and think about why I was struggling so much. I started to explore my relationship with body image and I read The Body Is Not an Apology. That book was transformational for me in a lot of ways. And that's when I first started thinking about the intersection or the connections between social justice and body image and that so many of the same themes apply in the same way.

Then I started to think back to when I was younger, when I was 9 or 10, and looking at pictures of people that were touted as the most beautiful people in the world. They were thin and blond and blue eyed, and they didn't look anything like me. And starting to realize that's a big piece of why I was struggling, because I was trying to reach these standards of beauty and I didn't see myself represented in them.

That's when I started to really put things together in my mind. And then I read Fearing the Black Body by Dr. Sabrina Strings, and I started to understand the origin of fatphobia going back to slavery, its very roots are in racism and white supremacy. That's when I started making the connections between social justice and fatphobia, body image, the fitness industry, the wellness industry in general.

Virginia

I'm thinking about this in the context of the news about the AAP guidelines and who's championing those guidelines. So many of the people who are saying, “No, this is what we need to do, we need to be prescribing diets and surgery and drugs for kids,” would identify themselves as liberal, as progressive, as social justice-oriented, would have posted something about George Floyd, and are not connecting the dots between, “oh, I think racism is bad,” and “Actually, I am perpetuating it in this work.”

Chrissy

It's one of the things that I think is so important about doing the work of anti-racism, really like taking the time to really understand it and sit with how it really shows up in our lives. Because what you're saying is true. It's the same people who are maybe championing these things would be the same people to say like racism is bad or post a black square or talk about George Floyd but not understanding the way that white supremacy is seeping into every area of our lives and how it's really informing our decisions in ways that are inherently racist, right? That's the difficult work, to not just read the books and take the courses, but to really sit with and understand how it's informing all the decisions that we're making.

Virginia

A problem you tackle very head on in the book is the way white feminism in particular, as an arm of white supremacy, has erased the original intentions and the original advocates for the body positivity movement. This is so important. And yet, body positivity, the way it is currently portrayed on social media, still remains this important entry point for lots of folks. So I'm just wondering if you can talk a little about why staying in that entry point isn't taking the work far enough?

Chrissy

Unfortunately, as body positivity has become more mainstream and more commercialized, it has definitely been co-opted by thinner bodies, straight size even, a lot of white women. It has definitely centered people that weren't supposed to be centered in the movement and in a lot of ways erased the creators of the movement, and that's very harmful.

And: I think body positivity is still a good point of entry for people to start thinking about their bodies differently. It offers people a way to even just consider that there's other options to think about their bodies and diet culture. So it still serves its purpose in a lot of ways. And, there's also still problems with that. I think both things can be true.

Unfortunately, as it's become more commercialized, it has also been hyper focused on this idea of “self love” as the answer, right? It’s a lot of affirmations about loving your body. When you look under the hashtag on Instagram, you see, a lot of people showing rolls or dimples or stretch marks and saying, but I still love myself. And it's like, that's great. I'm happy for you.

I also want to be clear that although the movement was created and founded by fat, Black and brown women, it does not mean—in my opinion, at least—other people can't participate. But I think it's really important to be mindful that the focus should be on the most marginalized identities among us, right? And I think that what also happens with the body positivity spaces, people conflate having body image issues on a personal level—most of us do have personal body image issues, right? But not liking your stretch marks or not liking jiggle on your thighs is very different than living in a body that is systemically oppressed.

I think that people fail to realize that distinction, sometimes, when we start having this conversation about the problems within this space. And it's like, no, we're not saying everybody can't participate. We're saying, though, it's really important to understand that distinction. And to make sure you're not taking up too much space in something that wasn't created for someone like you to be at the center of the movement.

Virginia

It's a balance I struggle with in my own work, obviously, as a fat creator, but also a white woman. This balance between working on your personal issues and understanding the larger narrative, I think, is a really tricky one to find because people's pain is real. And it's worth dealing with, of course. And, the work can’t end there.

So another thing I really admire about your book is that you're giving readers lots of tools. There are journal questions, you're sharing your own story. There are lots of ways to do the work while reading Chrissy’s book. And you make it so clear that this isn't the endpoint, that you're going to keep going. And you give tools for thinking about, acknowledging the harm you've caused, and reckoning with all of that in such important ways.

Chrissy

To your point, we are all getting it wrong, no matter who we are. And I think that's such an important piece to acknowledge. Because, for me, the goal is not that we always get it right, because that's not possible. The goal is that when we get it wrong, we can acknowledge the harm that we may have caused and work to be better going forward. That is the work.

Virginia

That was a very white lady way for me to put it, like, “I'm trying to get it right.” That’s the perfectionism and that bullshit coming up. So, yes!

Chrissy

I just brought that back because I think we all do that, though, in some way, right? When white folks get it wrong, sometimes it can feel like “But I tried to do the right thing!” And it's like, “No, no, keep trying do the right thing,” and recognize that this work is messy. You're going to get it wrong and more important than getting it wrong is how do you rectify and do better going forward. Getting it wrong is literally part of the process.

So when I talk in the book about personal liberation and collective liberation, it's like, I do believe that we have to work initially on our personal liberation, because when you're in the depths of diet culture and self hate and body shame, it's not possible for you to help anyone. You barely can keep yourself afloat. As you start to work through these things, you free up that energy, then you start to say, okay, how are we working to collectively dismantle systems, collectively dismantle oppression, so that people, all identities and all backgrounds can also feel freedom in their bodies and feel freedom and to exist in the world? Because we recognize that we are all interconnected. And truly, none of us are free unless all of us are free. And then that goes to the point of always working towards dismantling white supremacy in our lives, because at the core, white supremacy is at the root of all the issues.

I think with white supremacy, it's really important to remember that although some of us are affected more than others by white supremacy, of course, ultimately all of us are affected by it. And so when the most marginalized among us are free, we are all free here to exist.

Virginia

I've personally found it helpful, as I was doing the work on my own stuff, to understand that larger context. That is a motivation that speaks to me, when sometimes just doing it for yourself isn't enough. Does that make sense? If I’m causing harm to others, then of course I need to get my shit in order in a way that maybe I couldn't give myself permission to just get my shit in order for myself. Which is something I can unpack with my therapist later.

Chrissy

Writing this book was also therapeutic for me in ways that I didn't even expect. It's like, when you're a child and you're having these experiences, you feel othered. And you don't have this larger understanding or context. So the ways that the world works, or how white supremacy works and operates, it feels very much like something is wrong with me personally, when you're having that experience. And now, being older and wiser and having done a lot of this work, I can understand that there was never something wrong with me, there's something wrong with the system, right?

Virginia

With your friend’s dad making the horrible comments.

Chrissy

Like, that had nothing to do with me. He was the problem not me, right?

Virginia

He was definitely the problem.

Chrissy

But when you're 8 or 9, you're like, oh, no, something's wrong with being Black. You can't really understand how to process that as a child. Now I can look back and be like, okay, I was never the problem. And I also think that that's why it's so helpful to do this work for ourselves in terms of body image and body liberation because we can realize that.

And that's one of the things, too. Going back to body positivity, sometimes it makes it feel like you just have to learn to love yourself, right? And when we look at it as an individual problem, the onus is on us as a person. Like, I am personally failing to be able to love my body. I am personally failing to feel comfortable in my skin. And when we can look at the bigger picture and say, Oh, no, there's this all these systems in place that are really the problem. It's not a personal issue.

That's the problem with not being able to see that the systems are the problem. Whether it's about our bodies or whether it's about economics or whether it's about the criminal justice system, it puts the onus on the individual. The individual is the problem, when in actuality, when we look at it, it's the systems that are creating the problems that we are experiencing. It's not a personal failing. So learning these things really helped me to release a lot of the trauma that I had around circumstances growing up and socialization in general.

And in the book, I even talk about how in hindsight, I feel like I'm still processing 2020. A lot happened that year, right? But one of the things I will say about 2020 is I made the most money I've ever made professionally in my life during that time. I felt like people were throwing money at trying to fix racism.

Virginia

Oh yes.

Chrissy

I think that, unfortunately, it was a lot of performative allyship and performative activism happening. And a lot of knee-jerk reactions with people realizing, “Oh, we have to do something. Let's just get this person in here. Let's ask this person to do this training, let's donate money!” And I talked about this in the book: People I didn't even know were just sending me Venmos. I think that people just were scrambling. The harmful part about that, too, is when you approach something as a white person saying I need to unlearn racism or white supremacy, and then you just go into overdrive, what happens is you burn out really quickly, you know? Because it is uncomfortable to to start doing that work.

I think people were really excited and then burned out really fast. And, you know, we’re talking about anti-racism. It's not warm and fuzzy and it's not self-improvement work, right? It can be really jarring in a lot of ways. I think people got really excited about doing the work and they burned out really quickly. And also realizing that when we're talking about doing the work on a day to day, it takes real action and it takes making difficult decisions. It takes having hard conversations. And I think that people, some people, unfortunately weren't really ready to commit to what it takes to dismantle something like white supremacy.

Virginia

I mean, it's diet culture all over again, right? They wanted the crash diet approach to ending racism.

Chrissy

Yes, exactly!

Virginia

They wanted to jump in there and sweat it out for 30 days.

Chrissy

And then be like, “Okay, we did it!”

Virginia

We can’t actually boot camp this one.

Chrissy

Yes. That's the best analogy I've heard. It was like a crash diet. Yes, exactly.

Virginia

I mean, it kind of makes sense the wellness industry in particular responded that way since that's the model, right?

Chrissy

That's kind of how it operates.

Virginia

Another chapter I wanted to talk about is the chapter on grief and mourning our bodies. This was just really beautifully written. Why do you think making space for this mourning process is so important? And and how does that contribute to the larger goal of body liberation for all?

Chrissy

Thank you. I really love that chapter, too. I think it's so important because when you break up with diet culture and you're leaning into body liberation and repairing your relationship with your body image, the one thing I think we don't talk about enough is that we live in a world in which thin privilege exists. People do treat you differently based in the way your body looks. That's just the truth. When I had been used to living in a thinner body for a long time, I grew accustomed to people responding to me based on the way I looked, right? I grew accustomed to people complimenting me on my looks or asking me what type of workouts I did, or asking me all these questions that gave me the external validation that I was seeking. So when you inevitably decide to reckon with diet culture and you decide to, for me anyways, I decided to stop obsessively counting my macros. I decided to stop working out every day of the week or multiple hours. And naturally, what happens is your body changes, and that's just the truth. That means that people respond to your body differently. That's when the rubber meets the road. You have to really be like, Okay, where am I deriving my worth from? And I think it's also easy to look back at old pictures of yourself and be like, Oh, I loved when I looked like that.

Virginia

And you forget that you were actually hungry or you were actually hurting your body.

Chrissy

Yes, I was starving! Right.

Virginia

Yes, we forget those details.

Chrissy

It's so important, when you have those moments, to maybe remember where was I mentally, emotionally, physically, what space was I in, and then I just remember, I was in a terrible, terrible place, right? None of that was really worth it. But I do think it's important to give your self the time and the space to grieve that. And also, on top of that, other people will even comment that your body is changing. So it's like, besides you trying to grieve it yourself, then you have this impact of like, what other people may be commenting. I think it's just important to acknowledge that, it’s not the case for everyone. But for some of us, we will feel like we lost something in some way, or we changed in ways that maybe we weren't anticipating. When we're talking about breaking up with diet culture, the benefits are always more than what you lose, but there is a sense of loss sometimes. And I just think it's important to be honest about that.

Virginia

When we're naming it in this larger context, too, it's important to be honest that you're losing privilege, that you're losing power, that you're gaining other things. It's better, but also, like, you had this privilege

Chrissy

And now you don't have it. That's why it's also so important for all of us as we're going through our own journey to really hold ourselves with compassion. And I say this again, especially for people with more marginalized identities, when you feel like maybe being thin is one of the only privileges that you have it feels even harder to let go of that, right? When you're feeling like that's the one place where I feel like I have some power or some proximity to privilege or proximity to whiteness. And now I'm supposed to let go of that, too. I think that's why it’s like holding so much compassion and kindness and grace for ourselves for all of the emotions, because it's very nuanced. And there's lots of layers to it.

Virginia

I also really loved—on a slightly lighter note, I guess, from mourning—the chapter on love and dating and body liberation was just fantastic.

Chrissy

Yes, so I got married very young. I got married when I was 22. And we were together until I was 33. We went to high school together. So we already knew each other from high school. We started dating right after high school. So I was basically with this person from like 19 to 33. So that was pretty much you know, my entire formative years were spent with the same person. So then when we divorced, I was like, “Oh, no now I have to date.” And so I think it's already scary dating when you haven't literally dated pretty much as an adult ever. I just haven't dated at all.

Virginia

When the last date was prom.

Chrissy

Right, I haven't had a first date since prom. So that's a long time. So that's already scary.

Virginia

Completely relate, I've been with my partner since high school as well.

Chrissy

Okay. So you get it!

Virginia

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chrissy

So just imagine next week, you have to start dating. You don't want to think about it, right? And I'm heterosexual so I date men and it's even scarier. And then I'm in a different body than I was. It's one thing to be comfortable in your own body—of course, I feel great myself. But then, I realize I live in a world in which fatphobia exists. People have feelings about bodies that are the same as mine and it can be really triggering. I think that it really made my body image issues bubble to the surface in a way that I wasn't expecting because I feel so comfortable with myself. Suddenly I'm like, Oh, what if someone thinks this? Or what if they think that? Thank goodness for therapists, right?

Ultimately, for me, what it comes down to is: This is the body that I reside in. And I am not interested in someone who has an issue with it. More importantly, I am not interested in someone who is with me because of the way I look. Because as we know, bodies change, and they are always going to be changing. This is the iteration of the body I have today, next year might be different. I don't want to be tied romantically to someone who is with me because of the way I look. Because bodies change. That is one thing that I can guarantee will happen.

Remembering that for me, my looks are the least interesting thing about me. That's my personal belief system. The right person will understand and align with my values. And if they don't, then then they're not the right person. I'm not even saying that's an easy practice, because it's not, but it's the reality. When it comes to dating and love and relationships, I am not willing to bend my boundaries on that at all. Because I will just end up miserable and I'm not willing to do that. I'm so at peace with myself, and I'm so at peace with who I am that I would not allow anybody in my life that is not going to allow me to maintain that same level of peace and self love and, like really cherishing the person that I am.

Virginia

I love that. To know that that is not a place you're ever going to compromise again feels like such a gift of doing this work.

Chrissy

Yeah. Dating is just hard.

Virginia

I mean, I can imagine having that as the bottom line feels like it narrows the pool a little bit.

Chrissy

It does.

Virginia

Because a lot of folks, especially when you date straight men, are not going to share that bottom line. And the whole app culture that we're in now is so counter to that.

Chrissy

Oh my gosh, yes. It definitely narrows the pool. But I saw this really great commentary, and it's something I've really embraced in my life. This person explained it’s like having multiple streams of joy, right? Like dating and relationships is one stream, but there are so many streams of joy. I've created and always continue to cultivate a life that feels really full and joyous. And if I meet a person who understands my boundaries, and fits into that and can add more joy, then awesome. But if not, I have so many streams of joy that I feel so nourished by on a day to day basis. I'm just working to create and cultivate more of that in my life.

Virginia

Oh, my gosh, I could not love that more. Thank you for sharing that.

Butter

Virginia

Well, speaking of joy, Chrissy, I would love to know what Butter you have for us today!

Chrissy

Oh my gosh. So, speaking of things cultivating joy, I wanted to cultivate more creative joy in my life. So I started taking pottery classes and I'm loving it.

Virginia

I’ve seen your TikToks! Yes, tell us about this. It looks so fun.

Chrissy

It's so fun, I'm not good yet. I've only been to four classes, but I love it. It's been just so much fun like to work with clay and to have this thing where you're going week after week and just trying to improve your skills a little bit better. It's been so fun. And I ended up taking a class that was for people of color, and it ended up being all women and it's been so fun. It's just been such a fun class. And I'm like super enjoying it. I'm going tonight. So it's something that I want to keep going and speaking of TikTok, I'm now following all these people that are really good. And I'm watching their videos and just imagining how much of a master I'm going to be in the future and it's been so great. I'm loving it so much.

Virginia

That sounds like the greatest use of TikTok I could imagine, to follow potters and watch their talents. That's incredible. And I love the idea of regular class and cultivating that community space. So powerful. That's really really cool.

My Butter this week is a little more mundane, but it is giving me a lot of joy. I have just gotten on the Souper Cubes trend.

Chrissy

Okay, you have to tell me more.

Virginia

These have been very popular on like food Instagram for a while and I was very suspicious of them. They look like giant ice cube trays. Each cube holds two cups of something. So it's like four big cubes. And it's about size of an ice cube tray.

And the idea is like when you're making soups, or pasta sauce, which I make a lot, or chicken stock, you can freeze them in these individual cubes. It is reducing this hassle I didn't realize was such a hassle in my life. Because normally especially in the winter, once a week, I make a big batch of pasta sauce and I often make stock. Like if we roasted chicken, I'll make a stock. And I'm always like scrounging around for containers that will survive in the freezer. You know, you're using the old deli containers, but the lids are all snapped. Or I tried to freeze things in ziplock bags, and then the bag burst. It's just a hassle. It's not a trauma. There are worse problems in the world. But it becomes this annoyance and I want my cooking routine to be more pleasure based than that.

So I finally was like, you know what, I'm gonna buy some of these and see if there's great as everyone says. And they're better, which is a little annoying, because it’s a very trendy Instagram item that I normally would not want to get behind. But it's great having a dedicated thing for freezing stuff so then you're not using up your good tupperware. You know, it's annoying when your good Tupperware is in freezer for a month. This is something I did not realize how much brain space I had devoted to until I solved this problem. I was like, wow, this was actually really stressing me out.

So having the dedicated containers and then when you want to use what's in them, you can just pop them out because the silicone is stretchy. There are two cup blocks of pasta sauce. And you can just defrost it right in a bowl or just defrost it right in the pan and you're good to go. It's very clever. So I feel like it's a very like pro-capitalism recommendation, but sometimes they have some good ideas. And this was one of them.

I guess also my recommendation is that the things that cause mild annoyance, but like on a weekly basis, it is actually worth taking a minute to solve for yourself because now that doesn't stress me out anymore. And that's nice.

Chrissy

I don't cook much, but if I did, you would have sold me because that does sound awesome. It sounds like exactly what you need.

Virginia

It’s a really good problem solver.

Chrissy

I don't always love an Instagram ad, but sometimes they're right.

Virginia

I mean the algorithm is freaky that way.

So, Souper Cubes, for anyone who wants to join that Instagram bandwagon with me. Of course, not sponsored! Have spent my own dollars on them.

Chrissy, thank you so much for being here. Tell listeners where we can follow you and what can we do to support your work?

Chrissy

Awesome. Thank you for having me. This was such a great conversation. You can follow me on Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitter. It's all the same: @IamChrissyKing. My website is Chrissyking.com.

And of course, you can support me by ordering the book. It is out now and it's available anywhere books are sold.

Virginia

Amazing. Congratulations again. And thank you for doing this. Thank you. Awesome.

Thanks so much for listening to Burnt Toast. Once again, if you'd like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and tell a friend about this episode.

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