The Burnt Toast Podcast

You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and today we're talking about PEPTIDES. This new diet trend is the cursed love child of the protein bros and the RFK stans, and it's supposed to make you thin, tan, and maybe horny. What could go wrong?!We're getting into:⭐️ What the heck is a peptide? Why would one stack them?⭐️ Clavicular, the 20-year-old looksmaxxer extraordinaire.⭐️ Why Bro Science is exhausting and deliberately hard to fact-check. ⭐️ Why are so many peptide fans... also anti-vax?We also have a new Indulgence Gospel for you, with a few unfiltered life updates plus a rundown of what we've been reading!To hear that bonus segment, read the transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.ButterVirginia: toe spreaders, Petra FisherCorinne: Instant Glow SerumEPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today my conversation is with Emma Copley Eisenberg.Emma is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Housemates and the story collection Fat Swim. Her essays, literary criticism and reporting have appeared in The New Republic, Granta, and Esquire among others, and she writes the Substack newsletter Frump Feelings. She lives in Philadelphia.Emma joined me to chat about her new short story collection Fat Swim, fat characters in fiction, what thin authors get wrong, why we’re over Jonathan Franzen and so much more.And become a paid subscriber to get Indulgence Gospel — our new bonus segment, running after every episode!Corinne is going to hop on to debrief this interview with me. We're talking about fat kids in fiction, our Default Outfits and MORE! Paid subscribers all get commenting privileges and a full episode transcript. JOIN US HERE. Photo by Kenzi CrashEPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

In the original episode, we asked, "Is Mel Robbins a Diet?"Plot Twist (or is it?): Mel is now selling nutritional supplements. Protein shots, to be exact—so we decided to give them a try.Paid subscribers can listen or WATCH Corinne try Mel Robbins' Pure Genius protein shot and give us her honest review. 👀Free list: You won't want to miss this! Subscribe here. EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer:  Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! 

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your April Just Toast episode!This is a special episode because we recorded in person! I traveled to New Mexico to see Corinne, have new Burnt Toast headshots taken and visit Meow Wolf with my kiddo and my boyfriend. It was a glorious trip and I'm excited to share some of the behind the scenes with you today.In this episode we're talking about: ⭐️ Why it's so hard to have your photo taken.⭐️ Thin friends not putting their fat friends on the grid.⭐️ The art of a good selfie.One audio note: our Airbnb in Santa Fe was an acoustical odyssey, so please bear with us on the sound quality. You need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month! Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Sign up for just $5!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 241 TranscriptVirginiaWe're recording in person from an Airbnb in Santa Fe, New Mexico. If the audio is not perfect today, it's not Tommy's fault. It's that we're doing it in an adobe room and that creates some echoes.CorinneWe have covered the floors with soft things, but it's still very echo-y.VirginiaSo bear with us. This is only our second ever in person episode, so it's going to be a really fun one.This is a Just Toast episode. As we explained on our previous Extra Butter episode, we're no longer calling it the Indulgence Gospel, although we always will in my heart.We're trying to make it clear what kind of episode you're listening to. So if you are listening to this whole episode right now, you are a Just Toast subscriber, which means you are a regular paid subscriber tier. There's also our premium tier, Extra Butter, for a little more money where you can get behind every single paywall. Whichever tier you are, we're very happy you're here.CorinneWe're going to talk about something we did yesterday.VirginiaCorinne and I did something together for the first time.CorinneIf you're a longtime listener subscriber, you may have noticed that we have no photos together.VirginiaExcept one we took in a hot tub two years in Hot Springs.CorinneYesterday, while Virginia is here in New Mexico, we got some photos taken by a photographer named Molly Haley.VirginiaWho is an old friend of yours.CorinneWe went to middle school and high school together.VirginiaSince we were doing a photo shoot, we thought, well, we've got to talk about photos on the podcast because it's a whole thing.CorinnePhotos can be hard!VirginiaI would amend that sentence and say photos are hard.CorinneAlthough your child would disagree.VirginiaMy 8-year-old keeps telling us that that's a silly thing to think and photos are great and they love having their photo taken.CorinneThey're not wrong.VirginiaNo, it's a lot of stuff. A lot of diet culture noise. It's a lot of being seen, I think. Being perceived.CorinneWould you say that you've struggled with photos?

You are listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole Smith. Today my conversation is with Keri Harvey. Keri is an NASM certified personal trainer and a pain-free performance specialist specializing in beginner strength. She's a part owner of Form Fitness Brooklyn and has recently gotten into powerlifting. She just competed in her first sanctioned meet and won first place in her weight class. Keri began her career in personal training after her own fitness journey transformed from aesthetic focused to working on feeling strong and capable in everyday life, a very Burnt Toast trajectory. Her training style involves feeling less focused on the number on the scale and more on how people feel. She's a firm believer in setting performance-related goals, such as feeling less winded after the dreaded subway station steps. Keri was featured as one of Self magazine’s Everyday Athletes and collaborated as a fitness expert in Shape, Self, Livestrong, and Women’s Health magazines. Her ultimate goal is to help cultivate an inclusive and welcoming environment in the gym, and for all of her clients to leave each session feeling strong and powerful. Keri is hosting a pop-up strength class called Strong on Purpose in Houston, Texas on April 11th.Keri joined me to chat about her relationship to fitness and movement, getting stitched by toxic gym bros on TikTok, misconceptions about fat personal trainers and so much more. We've also got answers to some of your listener questions. This is a great episode. I think you're going to get so much out of it.Here is Keri.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 240 TranscriptVirginia We are really big fans of yours here at Burnt Toast. For anyone who doesn't already follow you on Instagram or TikTok, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your work and your relationship with fitness and movement?Keri I am a certified personal trainer. I currently am a part owner at a gym called Form Fitness Brooklyn, which is a personal training studio. The reason that I'm here and the reason that I exist in this field is because there's not a lot of body diversity in the fitness industry. I wanted to be a part of helping other people feel seen.I live in a larger body and I show up every day in this body and do a lot of really cool things with it because I want to and because I want other people to feel like they can, as well. My relationship with fitness is one of exploration, being curious about what I can do and trying to approach it from a viewpoint of being balanced in acknowledging the fact that no one is ever at one hundred percent. I'm trying to make sure that I don't stress myself out too much trying to be perfect and just focusing on showing up as me and seeing what I can do. It has done wonders for my mental health and my physical health, because I'm showing up consistently.Virginia I love that. I was just watching a reel you did about working out with a migraine, which as a fellow migraine girlie, I found deeply relatable. That feeling of, This isn't going to be the best, but it's probably going to make me feel a little bit better. And I'm annoyed about it, but I'm here anyway.Immediately, I'm like, Why don't I live in Brooklyn so I can come to your gym? We need more body diversity. We need more of this whole ethos in the fitness space, for sure.Keri Absolutely.Virginia If I remember correctly, you went viral on TikTok. Some gym bro ... Oh, the gym bros of TikTok. I could do a whole podcast just on that, but we'll move on. A gym bro stitched you as an example of who not to hire as a fitness trainer - sorry, I can't even say that without laughing - then another less gym bro stitched him and schooled him on anti-fat bias. Then you made a response video. Am I remembering that narrative correctly?Keri That's absolutely how it went.Virginia How did you feel about all of that? Did you feel supported in that moment by the other guy's response?Keri That's such a loaded question. I did feel supported, and at the same time, it is a little strange having people stitch your videos, whether it's to be positive or negative, and not reach out and tell you that they're doing it.Virginia That feels like an etiquette breach, for sure.Keri It feels like people are talking about you behind your back, whether it's positive or negative. So that was a little bit weird. However, I did feel supported in knowing that there are people in this industry who are not poisoned by the idea that the way someone's body looks tells you about them as a person, or that there is something wrong with the way that someone's body looks.One person who stitched my video and had positive things to say, his statement really stuck with me. He said that 'The world is really big and there are people with all kinds of goals. And so Keri may be right for someone, even if she's not right for you.' I've really taken that with me because that's the truth.Everyone has different goals fitness-wise, and you should have your own personal goals. But the world is very big and just because one trainer is not right for you doesn't mean they're not right for someone else and vice versa.Virginia I've been on the receiving end of some gym bro critiques. I always think, Sir, I'm not for you. You are not for me. Why are you spending your time on this? How much am I bugging you just by existing that you needed to spend this time to make this video?I'm not going to lie, there's something a little satisfying about the idea that I'm not thinking about him at all, but he is so annoyed he has to make a video about us. That feels like a little bit of a win maybe.Keri Absolutely. I always think about like the fact that they're raising their blood pressure arguing with their phone because I'm not wasting my time arguing back.Virginia And you know they're so careful with their macros and everything, and yet to risk it.Keri Don't risk it. You're going to pass out. You should calm down.Virginia We love your content. You make really great videos. I used to do a lot of video making. I took a long break from it. Getting back in the game is not easy. There is a lot of work that goes into making Instagram content and TikTok content. I don't think people understand that.I wonder how you think about the importance of showing yourself working out in a gym because that representation, like you were saying, matters so much.Keri I am very, I think the word that I want to use here is purposeful, about the way I show up in the gym and the way I show myself on social media inside of a gym. Because I have Form Fitness, I don't have to go to a big box gym and workout. However, I do - one, because I like to get out of the space. And two, because I want to know what it's like for my client who's like, 'Listen, I'm really nervous about walking into this gym because I don't know what that's like if I'm just in this small room where I know that everyone views fitness and bodies the way that I do.' I walk into spaces that make me uncomfortable so that I can feel what my clients feel. Then when I'm filming content, I'm also really not worried about "Can you see my belly outline?" "Is my arm fat hanging out of the bra behind me?" Because that's just bodies. They move and jiggle because you are moving. That's how that works. I really try to make sure that when I'm posting online, I'm showing you that too because not a single person stops me in the gym and says, "Hey, your belly." No one would ever do that, and I want you to know that.Virginia It's a lot like going to a public swimming pool in the summer and being like, Oh wait, it's just bodies. Everything we see online about getting in a swimsuit is actually bullshit because everyone's here just to cool off.Keri The more that I have found freedom in that, the more I realize bodies are so beautiful because they're different. That's what makes them so beautiful. Why would I be worried about looking like someone else? There's so much beauty in my body.The other thing that I was going to say about filming at the gym is my consistent showing up there has helped me make friends with people who don't look anything like me and have different goals than me. I posted a video about that a little while after the internet trolls started coming, about the fact that the people on the internet are not the same people who are inside the gym. The ones who are doing the work, who are showing up every day - they don't think anything like those trolls on the internet. I have a lot of really cool relationships with people who look nothing like me and have different goals than me, but we're there and we're working hard. You can work on your stuff. I'm going to work on my stuff and no one is rude or nasty in any way. The gym can be a safe place and I want people to see that.VirginiaI really need to hear this. I am a longtime home weightlifter and I definitely am getting to the point where the amount of weights I would need to buy at home is like, you know, the math is starting to not math. As a fat woman, I have a lot of gym fear. As a formerly very un-athletic child, all my physical education trauma kicks in. It's so real. I have had some not great experiences in gyms, although as we're talking about this, I'm realizing I've had those experiences fat and I've had them thin. Some of it is just being a woman in a male-dominated space. Anyone listening who feels similarly terrified of the gym, I really get it. It's so real. What you're saying is really helpful.Keri I'm glad. At the end of the day, just walking outside, unfortunately we encounter some characters, but I think that when you feel comfortable in a space because you know that you belong there, you're able to focus on you. For the most part, that's what everybody else in the gym is doing, too.If they're not, then that's a huge issue that has absolutely nothing to do with you. But if you are able to show up enough times to start feeling a little more comfortable there, then you won't be as worried about what other people around you are thinking, because nine times out of 10, they're only thinking, 'How many reps did I just do?' and 'Is my form right?'Virginia 'When do I have to leave to pick up my kid?' It's so true.It is the deep irony of fatphobia that all the trolls are like, 'We're so concerned for your health, we're so concerned for your health.' And yet also fat people are made to feel uncomfortable in health-promoting spaces. Which is it guys?Keri I had that happen literally today. I opened my Instagram and someone had commented on a video, "You're saying this is your favorite workout, but you're still fat." Yes. This is the body I live in. And yes this is my favorite workout. You literally just repeated what I said to you.But that's the thing, right? You're complaining that I'm not moving my body, and yet I'm showing you that I am.Virginia Literally right in front of you. It's just a reminder yet again that you'll never get anywhere with internet trolls, and that's not who we do any of this for.Keri Absolutely. That's right.Virginia On a related note to just all the things you are doing in the gym, I think thin people don't always realize, but fat people are very strong. I feel like often people would look at me and not realize how strong I am, but I can carry the 20 pound bag of cat litter down the stairs to the basement. I can carry my third grader up to bed, which is a real accomplishment at this point. What other misconceptions do you find people have about what fat people can and can't do, especially in fitness spaces?KeriIn general, there's a lot of people with the idea that fat people just aren't athletic, don't have the ability to be athletic. I'm in the same boat as you. I did not grow up as an athletic kid. I did whatever I could to avoid P.E.When we look at sports, and even the Olympics, when we see all of these bodies, some are fat bodies, some are smaller bodies, and they're all able to do all these amazing things. It's a reminder that the size of someone's body has nothing to do with their abilities. I think there are a lot of people who still don't realize that.Virginia I think gracefulness is another one. People don't think fat people can be graceful in the same way or coordinated in the same way. Something I've really appreciated about your content is I think you move really gracefully. I think it's a narrative that we're sometimes in our heads about, especially forms of fitness that require faster movements or things along those lines.Keri I'm thinking about jumping right now. That's a big one.Virginia People have a lot of fear of jumping.Keri Absolutely. And, you know, there are people in all sizes of bodies who experience joint pain. That's a thing that no one is exempt from. However, I think that when you learn what things your body likes and what things it doesn't, that's great because there are some forms of movement that you may choose to not participate in. I never want anyone to just assume that they can't do certain things. You don't know until you try. When you try, you also need to be able to learn how to scale up, scale back and figure out what feels right.Virginia You have a great reel about making child's pose work in a bigger body. Sometimes this assumption of, 'I can't do this type of movement.' It's like, 'Well, maybe that's because you've only seen a thin body do it.' Actually, you totally can. It just looks different for your body.Keri I love being the first person to show someone that a squat can be wider if you need some room for your belly because it's always such a light bulb moment. I'm sure it was the same for me when I first was starting out, but then when I actually widened my stance and was able to sit into it, it was like, Ah. It was amazing.Virginia It feels so good.Keri The realization that there's nothing wrong with your body. You just need to adjust.Virginia On the flip side, what you were just saying about joint pain is making me think how sometimes we assume body size is the reason we won't be good at something. It's actually nothing to do with the body size. You're stiff, but thin people are also stiff. There are other examples of that too, right?KeriAbsolutely. A lot of us are sitting at a desk all day long. We're hunched over a computer, hunched over our phone. All of these things create stiffness. All of these things result in maybe a little bit of joint pain for some people. There's also the genetic side of things and medications. This has nothing to do with the size of your body. It's depends on the person type of situation.VirginiaThat's really helpful for people to keep in mind. We're going to get into some listener questions, but before we do, I want to make sure we talk a little bit about rest, both literally and figuratively. Obviously, your body needs rest in between workouts, but in the world, especially right now, our hearts need rest, like we need rest. What is your relationship to rest like right now?Keri I do not play about my rest. As someone in a field where I'm constantly people-facing and every hour that I spend with my clients is one where I want to know what's going on with you, I want to be there for you both in the workout and also just in life in general, so I feel like I'm giving a lot. I'm happy to do it, but I also need a moment to refill the cup.I don't play about my sleep. I am asleep at about the same time every night. If there are times when I feel like I need to take more time for myself, I need a slower morning or I need to cancel some plans with a friend because I really need to be by myself, I do those things. I honor those things because I know that if my body is saying it, it probably means that it's been feeling that way for a little while, and now here's the little alert.Virginia It's so important to listen to those alerts and give ourselves permission. I have a 7th grader and we're getting to those years in school where the schedule is getting really busy with play rehearsal and activities. She came home yesterday after a super long day. I know she'd had a test she wasn't quite ready for, she'd had rehearsal and I just looked at her and asked, "Do you want dinner on a tray in your room in your bed so you don't have to talk to anyone right now?" And she was like, "Oh my God, yes." And I was like, yeah, you need like no people time. You need total chill time for an hour and we'll see you in a bit. Not that like my parents wouldn't have done that for me, but I just thought I like that I'm showing her, You pushed hard today. You didn't feel like going to school in the morning. You got there, you did the test, you did the stuff, but then you come home and you get to really prioritize rest as well.Keri I want to circle back to what we were talking about at the very beginning when you mentioned that post where I went to workout, even though I had a migraine. I'm definitely learning how to honor when my body needs rest. I think that rest is just as important as movement. There are some days where I have migraines and I decide I need to stay in bed. I need to put my headache cap on and no lights, everything's turned off. Then there are some days where I don't feel great, but I know that if I just go and I move slowly and I pay attention to what feels doable today and what doesn't, I feel a little better. I'm learning to not count the day where I don't go to workout as a failure.That's something that's tough for me, but I'm learning it because I'm honoring the fact that if I don't slow down now, I'm going to burn-out at the end.Virginia Recovering perfectionists unite on that one.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Listener QuestionsVirginia Let's do a couple of listener questions. A few folks in the Burnt Toast Chat had some fitness-related questions and we thought you will have great expert advice. First up, Sarah says:I have started and stopped a mobility exercise program 3 times since November. I get into a groove and I find it really makes my life in my body easier (putting shoes on, easing aches and pains) and then (typically when my PMDD kicks in 😔) I have no energy or drive to do it. It's only 15 minutes 4x a week, purposefully not too taxing a commitment. I have had a poor history with exercise and totally stopped about 10 years ago. But as I approach 50 I feel stiff and sore and everything feels hard. I have a million reasons to keep going but I'm not. Any thoughts on how to stay consistent or weather the ups and downs of motivation? I also notice that when I'm doing it, I'm more aware of my body and thoughts of body dissatisfaction creep in, when otherwise I have become pretty comfortable with my size.So, a lot going on there, but it definitely relates to this conversation we're having about rest and movement and when you need what.Keri I want to talk about the motivation piece for a moment because what we know about motivation is that it comes in waves. I've found there's that initial motivation when I've decided I want to do this thing, I want to move my body more, and then it starts to wane a bit. Then maybe it picks back up when you see the payoff.The payoff in this case being increased mobility. In that moment where you're not motivated anymore, it's really important to signal to our brains that we should still get the thing done. However, you should give yourself permission to scale it back. I think that four times a week for 15 minutes is amazing, but maybe you allow yourself to go for two to three times that week that you're feeling a little bit less motivation. It's important to do the thing because we see that it's making you feel better. However, maybe you're asking for too much in that moment where you're struggling.Virginia I think even if you are like, 'Well, it's only four times a week. It's only 15 minutes. That feels so doable.' Bottom line is it's not feeling doable. Three times, two times, even one time is better than zero times.Keri Absolutely. That's right.Virginia That all or nothing mentality is such a killer with this kind of thing. What are your thoughts about the piece where she says that moving your body more can make you more aware of your body and bring up some of those negative thoughts? I do think a lot of us, as we're working on body neutrality, whatever you want to call it, sometimes the easiest path through is a little bit of disconnection from your body because reconnecting can be painful when you're still working through some of that stuff.Keri What has been helpful for me and several of my clients is to focus on performance-related things. Maybe that means there's a goal you set for yourself, even in the mobility area. Maybe it's "Can I do an extra rep of something?" "Can I work towards doing an extra rep?" "Can I work towards feeling a little less winded after I do a certain exercise?"Paying attention to the progress you're making can be helpful. Sometimes we're only focused on 'This was so tough today,' or 'This was way easier two months ago than it is now, or two years ago than it is now.'I would really encourage Sarah to find ways to pay attention to what her body can do and not what it's not doing.Virginia When the shoes start to be easier to put on, that's a win. Celebrate that win.I'm also rereading your question Sarah and I just want to say that you said you've started and stopped the program three times since November. It's March, so that means for about six months, you've actually been doing more than you're giving yourself credit for. Maybe you took some weeks off, but the fact that you've done it three times since November seems good. It's not nothing.Keri Exactly. I work four days a week and usually those are the days that I work out. However, there are definitely days where the workout doesn't get done and that's just life. When that happens, when you know you've got to take care of the kids, or when work is just so stressful and you run out of time, that's not a failure. That's just life. We show up again the next day. It's never going to be perfect. But I agree with you. I don't want you to discredit yourself and think that you haven't been doing a lot because sounds like you've been working.Virginia Frame it less as quitting and like, this wasn't the week for it and now I'm back to it.Keri We're pausing.Virginia The next question is from Allison, who writes:I'm really struggling in my relationship with movement right now. I feel better when I move. I have more energy and less back pain. I know intellectually that moving my body regularly in some way is beneficial to me and yet I am just really struggling to do it. I started PT in September for my back pain and it went away so quickly once I was regularly moving. Now my PT is winding down and because my work-outs are less frequent, the back pain is back. I am so sick of this discomfort and yet even that physical pain is not enough to motivate me to even go for a walk around the block. I'm a sedentary person. I am content with that, but I also want the longer term benefits of being a person who moves regularly. I really don't know how to just make it happen. Any advice is welcome. What worked? What clicked? Or is this like cooking dinner for my family every night where I have to just do it even though some days I'd rather just walk into the woods and not come back.Very relatable about cooking dinner. I'll say that.Keri What has worked for me has been finding forms of movement that I've enjoyed. I also want to give Allison credit for reaching out to a PT. That's something a lot of people don't think about, but when there is something like back pain and it's affecting your daily life, that is super important.So kudos to you for doing that. I would see if you can explore some other forms of movement that you actually enjoy. Maybe it's dancing, maybe it's swimming, maybe it's yoga. Whatever it is, just finding something that is enjoyable, that really helped me to keep showing up.Then, even when I wasn't motivated, I was still just slightly curious enough about like, What else can my body do? That kept me showing up. We said it a little bit in the last question, but it is annoying and good at the same time that when you start moving your body and learning how to listen to it, it talks to you a lot.It starts speaking to you and emphasizing that we need rest and we need movement almost all the time. But like the whole cooking dinner for your family every night type of situation, every once in a while you're rewarded with the family sitting at the table and the meal's really good and the shoulders are bouncing as you're eating. That happens with our workouts, too. It's not every workout, but every once in a while you have a really good one where every once in a while you're kind of excited to go do it, and that is really what kind of has to tide us over until the next time we have a workout like that.Virginia It's so interesting how, I think maybe because of social media or different narratives we get, we expect every workout to be like a Rocky montage of huge accomplishment and triumph. It's like, no, it's just Tuesday morning. Like, I'm just doing this and then I've got to get on a work call.Keri Which is why it is important to try to find what you enjoy doing because most of them are definitely like, Let me just get this thing over with. I'm huffing and puffing and breathing hard.Virginia I was going to also add that I think PT is amazing, and I think it's very normal to get bored with it because they are very repetitive exercises. Trying something really different might be fun and invigorating. If you can combine it with being with a friend. For some of us, joy in the movement itself is difficult, but you can pair movement with something joyful, if that makes sense. That can be super helpful. I have a standing weekly walk date with a friend of mine and even if I don't really feel like moving, I want to see her. I'm going to show up.Keri I love that.Virginia It is a tricky thing. I think both these questions really underscore this idea we have that once you figure out fitness, you're going to do that fitness forever. There should be a set it and forget it option, and that just really isn't the case with bodies.Keri Not at all. Bodies require different things at different times. Also, our brains want different stimulation. It's ok to move around and find new things you enjoy. It's ok to be a beginner at said thing. It's ok to be bad at it, because as long as you are trying, that's really all that matters.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterVirginia We end every episode of Burnt Toast with Butter, which is what I call our recommendation segment. I would love to know, Keri, what is your Butter right now?Keri It's women's sports. That's my Butter right now, in every form of it. I feel like we're seeing a lot more of women's sports being supported, which is so beautiful and it's so important, especially for young ones. I feel like if I had seen more women's sports being supported and spoken about when I was a kid, and seen all of the different body types playing all of these sports, I would've felt like I might've had a better relationship with fitness at that age, and also, more comfortable in my body at that age. It's so important to be seeing this right now.Virginia Who's your favorite athlete?Keri I love Ilona Maher. I'm also a huge basketball fan, so I'm loving everything women's basketball.Virginia You and my mom. My mom's hardcore. I like it too, but she's all in, except she can't watch games live. She's a Huskies fan and she gets too worried, so she checks the score and then she watches it later, if they win by enough.Keri I love that. I love that she knows herself.Virginia It's too much pressure. She can only watch if she knows they're up by 50 points.Keri Which is not hard for them.Virginia Exactly. Huskies, they're doing fine.My Butter, since we talked quite a bit about migraines, and you reminded me, I don't think I've talked about my migraine cap on this podcast yet. I have this - it's the dorkiest thing, but it's so great. It's this like black, thick, neoprene kind of fabric and it somehow stays cold, so you put it over your head and it covers your eyes. It stays cold and feels so good.Keri It's so amazing.Virginia They're game changing. They really are. I've had migraines since the '90s and I just got one of these last year, and I'm like, Where has this been all my life?Keri A client of mine gifted me one, and it does look so funny. It is a very funny looking thing, but I put it on, I put on an audiobook and I was just knocked out and it was wonderful.Virginia I often am like woken up by bad headaches, like early morning and I still want to get back to sleep, so I put that on and then I can like get another hour of sleep. It's good stuff.Keri, thank you so much. This was such a delight. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support your work, even if we're not in Brooklyn, although I might need to make a field trip.Keri I think you should visit. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at kharveyfit. You can also find me on the Form Fitness Brooklyn app, which we just launched a couple months ago. It's a strength training app that has workouts for three times a week. It's body diverse, so you get to see all of us doing the exercises that we're asking you to do, which is really cool.Virginia I'm downloading it immediately.Thank you so much for doing this. This was great.Keri Thank you. I appreciate it.Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at BurntToastPodcast.com.Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these.The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram and Threads at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies.This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Our video editor is Elizabeth Ayiku, who also runs the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders. Learn more and donate at melittlemefoundation.org.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for your April Extra Butter episode!This normally where we would say "Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark, " but today we're saying, "Welcome to Extra Butter." Longtime listeners know that we used to call the Virginia and Corinne episodes "Indulgence Gospel" in honor of a troll comment. We still love the name and are having a hard time letting it go, but we wanted to make it easier to know what kind of episode you're listening to when you listen to Burnt Toast.Burnt Toast has three membership tiers:Burnt Toast free member 💛 (Free!)Just Toast member 🍞 ($5/month or $50 annually)Extra Butter member 🧈 ($10/month or $100 annually)And Today we have an Extra Butter Episode! If you're listening to this episode, you're part of the premium tier, which means you're one of our favorite Burnt Toasties. You can get behind every paywall! Your support makes all our work possible and keeps Burnt Toast and ad and sponsor free space. Today we are talking about:⭐️ Fat fashion. Is it getting harder to shop?⭐️ Virginia's bad boyfriend (J. Crew).⭐️ How the oversized fashion trend leaves out fat people.We're also answering listener questions about:⭐️ Skinny jeans, yay or nay?⭐️ Managing a wardrobe to fit weight fluctuations.⭐️ How are we wearing layers during perimenopause?To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Who doesn't want extra butter on their toast?Join Extra Butter!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 239 TranscriptCorinne: Today we have a very exciting (for me) topic, which is we're going to talk about fat fashion, spring edition.Virginia: Is it getting harder to shop?Corinne: I mean, quick answer: yes.Virginia: Absolutely. It's terrible out there. Is it the state of the world, is it retail, or is it both? We're going to get into how it's feeling like there are fewer plus-size options, and we're going to get into some of your practical questions.

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your March Just Toast episode!Today we are talking about:⭐️ The new, skinny American Girl dolls⭐️ Does taking a GLP-1 make you a better parent?We're also answering listener questions about:⭐️ The diet culture voice in your head⭐️ Colonoscopy prep and the feelings it brings up⭐️ Virginia's review of the Heated Rivalry booksYou need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month! Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Sign up for just $5!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 238 TranscriptVirginiaToday we are catching up on some things we are mad about in March.CorinneSome people have been annoying us.VirginiaWe have a list, and you may or may not be on the list. First up is ...

You're listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today is the second part of my conversation with Savala Nolan.Savala is a writer, public speaker and professor at UC Berkeley. Her brand new book, Good Woman: A Reckoning is out now. Her first book, Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender and the Body, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan Prize and celebrated as a “standout collection” by the New York Times. Savala's writing has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, NPR, TIME and more.Today is the second part of my conversation with Savala. In part one, we talked about bodies, race and gender. Today in part two, we're getting into sex, divorce and classy and trashy Butters. This conversation is for paid subscribers only, so go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith to join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You're not going to want to miss this one.One last thing! If you order Good Woman from my local independent bookstore, Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off if you have also ordered a copy of my book Fat Talk from them. Go to Split Rock Books and use the code "fat talk" at checkout.Here's Savala.You need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month!Join Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 237 TranscriptVirginia All right, we've got to talk about men a little bit.Savala  Do we have to? No, I'm kidding. I love them.Virginia  I really questioned whether we did. You write really well about men in this book. You articulate a lot about a certain kind of man that is going to be very familiar to a lot of our listeners. You call him the "voting booth feminist." Define voting booth feminist and tell us how that particular type of man, perhaps without realizing it, contributes to this narrative about what a "good woman" should be.Savala  Well, the voting booth feminist is alive and well, Virginia. I was married to one.

Lindy West, bestselling author and essayist known for Shrill, talks about her new memoir Adult Braces and the road‑trip that frames it. She discusses starting eating-disorder treatment and relearning food without dieting rules. She also opens up about living publicly as a fat person and why she writes candidly about marriage and non-monogamy.

You're listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today my conversation is with the brilliant Savala Nolan. Savala is a writer, public speaker and professor at UC Berkeley. Her brand new book, Good Woman: A Reckoning is out now. Her first book, Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender and the Body, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan Prize and celebrated as a “standout collection” by the New York Times. Savala's writing has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, NPR, TIME and more.I have a lot of conversations about bodies. I have a lot of conversations about gender. There is a lot that I thought I knew about race and bodies and gender in America. Reading Good Woman and talking to Savala blew my mind apart in ways that I'm still putting back together. This conversation is a must listen. This book is a must read.There was so much good stuff in this conversation, we are breaking it up into two episodes. Today in part one, we’re talking about bodies, race and gender. Part two will drop in two weeks, and that's when we're getting into sex, divorce and Savala’s classy and trashy butters. That conversation will be for paid subscribers only, so go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith to join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You're not going to want to miss this one. One last thing! Trust me, you will want to read Good Woman after hearing this conversation. If you order it from my local independent bookstore, Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off if you have also ordered a copy of my book Fat Talk from them. Go to Split Rock Books and use the code "fat talk" at checkout. Here's Savala.If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Episode 235 TranscriptVirginia Why don't we just start by having you tell listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do?Savala  I'm a writer. I was thinking about this question quite a bit, actually, because my very first instinct is to say I'm a mom, which makes perfect sense. Motherhood is all consuming. But I thought I'll start with something that doesn't include my relationship with another human being, just in the interest of practicing my own wholeness. So, I'm a writer and a mom and a lawyer. I direct the social justice program at UC Berkeley's Law School, which is really a privilege and gives me a lot of hope, because I get to see hundreds of law students every day who want to change the world and make it better. I'm also a former dieter. Like a hardcore, former dieter, which is what initially brought me into your world and your work. I was put on my first diet when I was two or three, and rode those waves up and down until I was maybe 36 or 37, so I've got a few decades under my belt. I include that in my biography because that experience of going on and off diets for so long, and of being almost pre-verbal when I was indoctrinated into that world of dieting, informs a lot of what I do, including as a mom, including as a lawyer, including as a writer. Body liberation, gender and race, they fascinate me endlessly, how they play together and kind of co-create each other. Most of what I write about, and definitely what I write about in Good Woman, stems from that experience of dieting, and then breaking free from dieting in my thirties.Virginia  That is the best intro I think anyone's ever given themselves on the podcast. SavalaOh, stop. VirginiaNo, really. I love that you are like, 'Let me own this part of my story. This is the origin point. And then now let's get into the conversation.' That's fantastic. We are here to talk about your exquisite new book Good Woman: A Reckoning. It is a collection of 12 essays about what it means to be a woman. It's this incredible blend of memoir, reporting and history. I would love you to read us the first paragraph, just to set the stage for everything we're going to talk about.SavalaI'll just take a quick second to set it up a little bit.I'm trying to take a critical and very skeptical eye to all the ways that women and girls are socialized to be good. Almost from birth, right? In our particular culture, good means agreeable, quiet, serving of others, all the things that probably would pop into any woman's head when she hears the idea of a "good woman" or a "good girl." I'm trying to unpack and destroy some of that socialization in my own life, and think about what lies beyond it. To kick the book off, there's this very short essay that's sort of a manifesto. I think of it as a huge bell that rings to open the book. Here's the first paragraph.I refuse to be good. This is a matter of survival, not inclination or mood. I refuse to be easy and I refuse others preferences. I refuse to be amicable and I refuse to appease. I refuse to go along and I refuse to agree. I refuse to do what I was trained to do. Instead, I choose whatever lies beyond my social conditioning, even if I'm still looking for it, still spurring it into being. This is work of the mind, cerebral and tough. This is work of new language, new concepts, new intonations and my thinking must expand to fit the scale of all existence. It is also body work, work that is nailed to my flesh. It is gestating of new bones, an anointing of muscle and fat. It is passing through the stomatous black opening of my own cervix to the bright field, waiting on the other side in the wilderness. It is a lot to take on. But I welcome the challenge and the mystery and the darkness. It was in darkness that the universe was made. It is in darkness that each day is made new.Virginia  Thank you. That was incredible. Really, it was.SavalaThank you. Virginia  I loved how you opened the book because it encapsulates so many of the themes that you then go deeper in in every chapter. One of the biggest themes of refusal in the book is around the body. You write about how Black women's bodies in particular are constrained, controlled and made not their own. I really, really want people to read this because we don't have time to talk about all the history you go through and it's so well done. You trace this narrative from Sarah Baartman and Sally Hemings all the way to Nicki Minaj, connecting so many dots. It's really powerful. What has and what hasn't changed when it comes to how Blackness and fatness are policed for women?Savala  I love this question. We could probably write a doctoral thesis or dissertation on this question alone. So I'll just sort of share what comes to mind, a sort of smorgasbord of thoughts that come to mind when you ask this question. The first thing is, there's an overlap when we talk about Blackness and fatness in this culture. The very first point to make is that everything here is cultural. Not all cultures treat women's bodies, Blackness and fatness the way we do. That's the page on which everything else is written. It's interesting to me that when we talk about Blackness and fatness, the stereotypes overlap, right? Both fat people and Black people are viewed in this culture as out of control, lazy, kind of greedy, having a hyper appetite. Either being hyper-sexualized or de-sexualized. You either have the kind of va-va-voom, or the 'friend, never the leading lady' when it comes to fatness. With Blackness, it's the same thing. You either have the video vixen - this kind of hyper-sexual Black woman in a music video - or the mammy.It's interesting to me that the stereotypes overlap so much, and maybe the most powerful way they overlap is that they're both undesirable. They're both things in our culture that you should try to get away from if you can. You should try not to be too Black or too fat in our culture. So to me, as a woman who's fat and Black, it's kind of a one-two punch. They work together. The stereotypes overlapping tells you there's some relationship in our culture between these two things. And as you say, it goes way, way, way, way back in this country. It goes to chattel slavery, where Blackness and fatness started to be policed together and associated together, very literally. I talk about this in the book - there's a magazine called Godey's Lady's Book, which you might consider the Vogue or Good Housekeeping of today. Sort of fashion, but also home-y stuff. It was the biggest magazine in the antebellum country. And they talked all the time about how white women should stay thin or else they might start to be Black, like they might start to be looked on as if they're Black. There's another article from that magazine that says, "If a white woman gets fat, she might as well put herself in Black face."You can't see it if you're listening, but there's a lovely eye roll from Virginia. Our culture has long braided these things together. That's the history when you think about what hasn't changed. I think they are still braided together. When we think about what has changed, from my vantage point, there was maybe five or 10 years where it felt more ok to be fat, and more ok to be Black. It was the like ascendance of Lizzo, you know?VirginiaA brief shining moment. SavalaIt was a shining moment. There was also the George Floyd moment. There was a political reckoning with Blackness that was refreshing. I guess maybe it wasn't even five years. It was a brief window. Now it feels like we're in a backlash. It feels a little bit like the more things change, the more they stay the same. We had this moment of a collective leap towards something like liberation. Because of politics and because of the capitalistic nature of the pharmaceutical industry in this country and GLP-1s being so, for now anyway, profitable, we're seeing a real backlash to both fatness and Blackness. That lands on women really hard, because of how women are tied to our bodies in this culture in a particular way. So I guess I would say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The silver lining being that because we did have these few years of something like enlightenment, the first sun rays coming over the mountain, there are a lot of people who have a much higher capacity to talk about what our culture does to fatness and Blackness than there were 20 years ago, right? So that's a silver lining, I think. VirginiaYes, I agree with that.We see these moments of women claiming their bodies and claiming control over their bodies, and then facing tremendous backlash. You talk about the Nicki Minaj album cover that she was taken to task for being too sexual, too graphic, etc.. She was like, 'It's my body.' Savala  'It’s my body.' Also, it's no worse than a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and everybody likes those. VirginiaYes, they sure do. But those are skinny white lady bodies. SavalaThose are skinny white ladies, not voluptuous Black women.Virginia  There are these moments where we have the conversation. Whereas if she hadn't had the album cover, we wouldn't have had the conversation. But I'm with you on how it's not enough. The backlash feels so brutal right now. But I do hang on to those moments.Savala  I do, as well. The comfort of a backlash is that you know you were doing something right. You can't make a quilt with one stitch. You have to put a lot of stitches in. So we have to keep stitching as far as our own liberation goes. The backlashes will come periodically, the tide comes in and out, you just try to keep inching it forward. I'm hopeful that we will continue, ultimately, to do that.Virginia  And keep reminding people where we've been. I really appreciated your post on Instagram this week. There's been so much talk about ICE as the gestapo and you were like, 'Guys, it's not the gestapo, it's slave patrols.' It's our own country. It's our own history that's coming up again here. I should note for listeners, you're hearing this in March, but we recording this at the end of January, right after all of the violence and murders in Minneapolis. Savala  I understand the urge to look to other countries and the violence in other places, and it's gestapo-like, you know. It's certainly fair to think about a comparison. But to completely ignore the fact that we actually invented this stuff.Virginia  That the gestapo guys learned it from us.SavalaOne hundred percent. Exactly.VirginiaThey've been watching what America was doing.Savala  Yes, and it's sad to own it, but it's a necessary step, and managing it and moving beyond it is to hold it close and see that it's our own stuff. It's like an individual who wants to grow and improve. They have to own their shit. 'Oh, this is my shit. I have to work on it.' It's the same. It's just at the level of culture.Virginia  As a country, we have to own our shit, and some of us are doing more of that than others. Well, on the level of the individual, you write a lot in the book about growing up as a fat little girl, being put on diets so heartbreakingly early and then continuing to pursue thinness throughout college and early adulthood. Now that you're on the other side of that, you write about how abandoning the pursuit of thinness feels like becoming a non-woman. I really was interested in this idea of the non-woman. I would love to talk about that a little.SavalaThere's a quote I love from a scholar, Sander Gilman, who studies fatness and gender. You might know this quote Virginia, some of your listeners might, too. He writes that dieting is a way that women show they understand their role in society. Part of the way that women remain and become legible in our culture is by practicing and performing privately and publicly dissatisfaction with their bodies and the pursuit of a better body, which generally means a thinner body, a more toned body, or a "healthier body."When you do those things as a woman, people get it. They understand you. They don't have to make any inferences. They don't have to wonder what you're doing. It's instantly obvious. When I talk about how much people rely on that sort of vocabulary to understand women. When I talk publicly at schools about this, one of the first things I do in my talks is post a before and after photo without the words "before" and "after." I ask people to raise their hands if they know what it is. The room could have 300 people in it and everybody raises their hands. They know exactly what they're seeing. That's what I mean when I say that the performance of dieting, or body improvement, or body shame, publicly and also privately, makes you readable as a woman to the culture. People can literally read it instantly, the way you can read a stop sign. When you stop doing that, when you stop dieting, exercising in ways that are meant to control the shape of your body, the weight of your body, all that stuff. When you stop using that vocabulary to bond with other women, when you stop policing what other people eat. When you stop doing those things, people don't get it. There's some level on which you're no longer performing the role of a woman. That's what I mean when I say that you become a non-woman. You become this other entity, that, let's be clear, exists in other cultures. It has existed in this culture to some extent, in various pockets of it, but that's what I mean. You step outside of the mold, and then people aren't quite sure what to do with you. Can I give a quick example? VirginiaYeah, please. SavalaI work with a fabulous team of people I love and adore at UC Berkeley. One of them had a birthday, so to celebrate, I brought in a box of fabulous French pastries. We have a little birthday party and we invite lots of people to come by and pick something up if they want to. Every single person, every person, who came in the room said something, and they all happen to be women, something like, 'Ooh, I worked out this morning. That's how I that's how I earned this.' Some version of, 'Oh, God, I shouldn't. I had a bagel for breakfast,' or, 'I'm gonna cut it in half because I think I'm gonna have a big dinner tonight.' I was the only one who didn't. At some point I said, "Come on, guys. Let's just let the food be food. We don't have to earn our food here."Virginia  You don’t actually have to publicly perform. Savala  You could have heard a pin drop, Virginia. VirginiaOh, I'm sure.SavalaIt was like I said something in a different language. People don't know how to read the moment anymore. They don't know how to read me anymore. It's so disruptive. So that's what I mean about becoming the non-woman. In that essay, I then go on to talk about the joy of being a non-woman. I don't mean this in the sense of gender identity, I mean it in a more metaphorical, philosophical way. I very much identify as a woman.Virginia  Right, but you're rejecting these expectations and this narrow definition of womanhood.Savala  One hundred percent. It's a little experiment. If listeners want to try that, I'm sure most of your listeners are already at least one foot in the door of not dieting anymore, but if they want to try performing something else and seeing how they become no longer instantly readable in the space, they'll know what I mean.Virginia  It's interesting because it's about how you simultaneously become more visible because you're doing this uncomfortable thing no one knows what to do with, and you're rendering yourself more invisible because you're no longer saying Yes, you can identify me as a sex object. Yes, you can identify me as young and thin and pretty and all the you know. So then it's like, 'Oh, we don't know what to do with her.'Savala  Totally. It's a spotlight. It's like, what's that? There's some rubbernecking that happens and you can be in the mood to deal with it or not. It's not like I always will say something when I'm around little pockets of diet culture. But in that moment, there were 12 or 15 people who came through and it was every single one. Virginia  Can we not just eat the pastries?Savala  Yeah. And if you don't want one for whatever reason, that's ok. Virginia  Don't tell us why. Just don't eat it. It's fine.Well, that's a great example too, because that's also the kind of modeling that I'm sure you're conscious of doing in front of your kiddo. There's a line in the book I really loved where you write:My child is my child, carrier of my histories, and I worry she'll be particularly vulnerable to dieting. In order to fortify her, I build a home life free from diet culture. This is, of course, a huge focus of my work. It's why I wrote Fat Talk.SavalaIt's the bread and butter, if you will.Virginia  It is the bread, yes. We'll get to the butter, but it's definitely the foundation of Burnt Toast. Deliberately, I'm more likely to say, 'Let's just eat the cake,' or 'Eat the dessert' when I know my kids are listening, because I've got to model the other way. I've got to model the non-woman for them.I would love to know what are some of the little things you do to get the anti-diet, parenting stuff in?Savala  Well, the number one thing, and this will be very familiar to the Burnt Toast crew, is I, myself don't diet. That's number one. I don't pursue intentional weight loss, and I haven't since my daughter was about six months old. That was breaking point when I started to look for a different kind of life. Not only do I not diet or pursue intentional weight loss, I never, not once, have ever spoken ill of my body or complained about my body in front of my daughter. It's funny when you're raising a girl because on the one hand, I want my daughter to feel beautiful and I want to speak a sense of beauty into her. "Oh, you're so beautiful." And I want to talk about myself through the lens of beauty for that reason, too. On the other hand, you don't want to over emphasize beauty and teach them that that is a super meaningful currency that they have to ... you know what I mean? Virginia  It's like, 'You are beautiful and it's the least interesting thing about you.' You're holding both of those with both hands all the time.Savala  All the time. So I speak well of my body, but try not to do it in a way that feels too "cover of a magazine" oriented. There are other little things like, we decant food in our house so most of it is not associated with "nutrition information."And we talk about nutrition information, because she picks it up in the world. But in our house, it's just in the container. I make a point of letting her choose how much she eats. I tend to take on the responsibility of picking what's on offer, and then she chooses how much. But we've mix that up as she's gotten older.I fill my home with physical media, like figurines, statues, posters, books that have all kinds of bodies, especially fat bodies, because I want that to feel normal and celebrated for her. I want her to see fat bodies depicted as beautiful, wonderful things, not just as things we try to move away from or punish. It's good for me, too. Almost anything that I practice for myself, I practice for her, in an age appropriate way. Including being really playful. It doesn't all have to be political. I talk in the book about this one episode where my daughter was probably about four or five years old, and she wanted some chocolate chips after she had already had dessert. Initially, I was like, "No, you had your ice cream. We'll have chocolate chips another time." And then I was like, I want some chocolate chips. I said, "Actually, yeah, let's have some chocolate chips." We each had a little handful, and she said, "I wish I could have more." And I was like, "I think one is enough." And then I was like, "Actually, let's have more." And we sort of did that playfully a few times. She still loves it. She remembers it was such joy. My goal there was to have a little fun, but also to celebrate appetite, and take this moment that we often are taught to read as personal failure - going back for a little more - and change it into something that was fun and goofy and totally fine.Virginia  Celebrating pleasure. Yeah, let's have more. It tastes good tonight. Let's do it and not feel like we have to put guardrails around that.Savala  Exactly. I look for moments like that, and I'll say, who knows what the future brings, but my kid has a really joyful, non self-conscious relationship with food that involves eating all kinds of things, including broccoli and kale, and with her body. Who knows what the world brings? Well, we do know what the world brings. We know what's coming, but she has a foundation that's much better than mine was.Virginia  Yeah, such a different foundation than what you had. And that has to do something. I have to believe that.Savala  Yeah, it has to. It has to. And I must say, obviously, your book inspired me and was part of my inspiration in how I approached feeding my kiddo.Virginia  I'm so glad it's helpful. Yeah, I mean, it's always a work in progress, but it is really rewarding when you see kids having that ease and not overthinking and not getting caught in those in those traps that we do. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈ButterEditor's note: We're splitting Savala's interview into two episodes, so tune in to part two on March 19 to hear Savala's "classy and trashy" butters. Part two will be for paid subscribers only, so go to patreon.com/virginiasolesmith to join us. Membership starts at just $5 per month. You're not going to want to miss this the second part of this conversation.Join here for just $5 per monthJoin Just Toast!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈VirginiaAll right. Well, this was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Just tell folks where we find you and how we support your work.SavalaOh, it's been a serious joy to be here. I could do it all again. The best way to support my work is, of course, to buy Good Woman: A Reckoning and share it with the women in your life that you love, and maybe even the the men in your life that you love.VirginiaI agree with that. SavalaIf you can't buy it, you can get it at libraries, or borrow it from a friend. Obviously, as an author, I'm interested in book sales, but mostly I'm interested in the ideas in the book doing good in the world. So read Good Woman. If people want to hang out a little bit, I'm on Instagram at savalanolan. SavalaNolan.com is my website, which is another way to get in touch with me. I totally welcome that. I love doing book clubs, talking to readers, all that stuff, so if folks are interested, they should reach out.Virginia  Thank you, Savala. This was such a joy.SavalaThank you, Virginia. The pleasure was mine.🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈Thanks for listening to Burnt Toast. If you enjoyed the conversation, please support our work with a paid subscription. They start at just $5 a month, and you'll keep Burnt Toast an ad and sponsor free space. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/join.Make sure you are following us for free in your podcast player. Scroll down wherever you're listening, tap the stars, five of them please, and leave us a review. That really helps us grow and helps new listeners find conversations like these.The Burnt Toast Podcast is hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. You can follow Virginia on Instagram at @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.bsky.social. You can follow Corinne on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay.bsky.social and on Patreon at Big Undies.This podcast is produced by Kim Baldwin. You can follow Kim at @theblondemule on all platforms and subscribe to her newsletter at The Blonde Mule.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Our video editor is Elizabeth Ayiku, who also runs the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders. Learn more and donate at melittlemefoundation.org.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!