The Burnt Toast Podcast

A deep dive into positions, props, and misconceptions, with body image coach Bri Campos.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your May Indulgence Gospel!Today, fan favorite Brianna Campos joins us again to talk more about… fat dating and sex!We’re answering your questions, like:⭐️ How do you navigate certain positions in bigger bodies?⭐️ How do you talk to new partners about what your body needs?⭐️ Are “oral sex skills” a myth?⭐️ And…who is Virginia dating now?To hear the full story, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!This transcript contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 191 TranscriptVirginiaOkay, for anyone who missed her last visit: Bri is a licensed professional counselor and body image coach who works with folks recovering from eating disorders and finding body acceptance through grief. She joined me on the podcast back in February to talk about her work and her experiences dating in a superfat body, and you all loved that conversation so much.We have asked Bri to join us again, this time to help Corinne and I answer your questions. So welcome Bri!BriThank you so much for having me back. What an honor.VirginiaWell we have some very spicy questions to discuss today. I hope you’re feeling ready.BriI’m so ready.CorinneIn today’s episode, we’re going to talk very practically about the mechanics of fat sex. Some of the questions are pretty graphic, so you might not want to listen to this one with kids around. You may not even want to listen with friends around!!!! And if you’re related to anyone who is on the podcast today, you may not want to listen to this episode!!!VirginiaI would say, you are strongly encouraged to skip this one, actually.CorinneMoms, siblings.VirginiaDads, brothers, whatever. More content for you is coming. This one isn’t it.BriWe appreciate the support.CorinneOkay, here’s question number one:My cis male partner and I (a cis female) have been together eight years. We have both gained belly weight in that time, and now missionary is tricky, especially if I need to use a hand to stimulate my clit. Plus, it’s harder for him to get as deep with bellies in the way. We’ve tried, him standing/me on the edge of the bed, him kneeling, and my hips up and other variations. I’ve been thinking about a wedge pillow, but that definitely takes the spontaneity out of it. Any tips?BriI mean, I’ll dive right in.

What RFK gets wrong and why "being healthy for our kids' sake" shouldn't be the goal, with author Jessica Slice.You are listening to Burnt Toast!Today, my guest is Jessica Slice, a disabled mom and author of the brilliant new book, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World.Jessica is also the co-author of Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down While Chronically Ill and Disabled, and This Is How We Play: A Celebration of Disability and Adaptation, as well as the forthcoming This Is How We Talk and We Belong. She has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility and more.As Jessica puts it, she originally wrote this book for disabled parents because their stories are not told or centered. But Jessica soon realized she was writing a book for all parents, because becoming a parent is its own kind of experience with disability.There are so many important intersections between disability, justice and fat liberation. One that I think about a lot is how both groups come up against the question: Don’t we owe it to our kids to be healthy? Jessica’s perspective on these issues is expansive, inclusive and enlightening. I know you will get so much out of this conversation and from reading unfit parent.You can take 10 percent off Unfit Parent, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you’ve previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)PS. If you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!Follow Jessica: Jessicaslice.com. I’m on Instagram @JessicaSlice, I have a Substack where I send monthly notes about Disabled Parenting, and then usually try to get people to read whatever poem I’m fixated on that month.Episode 190 TranscriptJessicaI am an author and a mom, and Unfit Parent, which is the book we’re here to talk about, is my third book. But it’s really the book that has my whole heart. And it talks about disabled parenting, which is the thing I care very much about.VirginiaI tore through this book. My copy is dog-eared every three pages, I think. It’s such a rich book. There’s so much in here. There’s so much for parents of all abilities—it just resonates in so many ways.Let’s start by having you talk a little bit about how you define disability. You have a very expansive definition, and I think more listeners may identify with it than they even realize.JessicaSo I have really thought a lot about the best definition for disability. And ultimately, I think everyone is better off if we don’t commit to a super firm delineation between disabled and not disabled. Because I think that delineation like ends up othering disabled people and further perpetuating stigma. And then I also think it puts a really inappropriate amount of pressure on non-disabled people that they should be sort of limitless and all powerful and show no weakness and hyper independent.My definition is, if you benefit from the disability rights or the disability justice movement, then you are disabled.It’s pretty easy to take that and say, “Well, everyone does.” Because anyone who pushes a stroller benefits from a curb cut or ramps, and additional time on testing is used for a lot of kids. So if you expand it too much, then everyone’s included. But I think that’s kind of fine! Having gone from someone who was not disabled to pretty disabled, I don’t feel threatened by having an inclusive and broad definition.VirginiaMore people in the club would not be a bad thing. It would actually make it easier to advocate for the changes we need.JessicaExactly, exactly.VirginiaThat’s super helpful, and I just want to encourage listeners who are new to conversations about disability rights to keep that broad framing in mind as we go, because so often, we do really silo off into “able-bodied” vs “disabled.” So I appreciate you grounding us there.JessicaEspecially for parents! When there’s this assumption that they’re not disabled and then therefore parenting shouldn’t be hard, or you shouldn’t be exhausted, or you shouldn’t need help, or you should be able to find the strength within yourself and the willpower to do all you need to do. I think that really particularly hurts parents.VirginiaI underlined this part of the book, where you wrote about your own journey towards claiming “disabled” as an identity:When my body shifted at 28 from one that could run work long hours and travel internationally to one that must mostly rest, I believed that I would go back to my old life once I solved the puzzle of my body. Until the hike in Greece during which I became disabled, I had the false belief that the life I wanted was a matter of sufficient effort and prudent decision making.I read that and thought, well, this is also really describing diet culture. Because an experience a lot of us have had around gaining weight is that if we just work hard enough and have healthy habits and make the right choices, we’ll lose it. We’ll get back to that level of thin privilege we once enjoyed.I’m just curious if that parallel resonates with you? Maybe it doesn’t at all! But wondering if you see this kind of diet culture driven mindset, does that show up elsewhere in our cultural attitudes around disability?JessicaYes, I very much relate to that. And have been following your work and Aubrey Gordon’s work for a while and other anti-diet activists.I think so much of the conversation overlaps. It’s a myth that there’s an ideal body, and pursuing this ideal body ends up hurting especially fat people and especially disabled people, but it hurts everyone to have this one type of body that we’re all trying to get, whether that’s based on size or ability.VirginiaIt just seems like it’s a mindset we apply to so many aspects of our life, too. We think, “Well, if I just do everything right, then I’m going to have this outcome and I’m going to achieve this goal or this ideal.” And so much of life is learning how often that’s just not the case.JessicaSo I became disabled, as you know, very suddenly in one day. But it was the onset of a genetic condition. In the years prior to being disabled, I exercised every day, or five to seven days a week. I was always trying to optimize my eating. I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ll have oatmeal, but then I also need to add chia seeds and then walnuts, and then blueberries, and then almond butter. Like, how can this be the very best bowl of oatmeal? And then should I add protein powder, too?” And then lunch, it was like, “Okay, well, definitely fish. Like, I need omega three, and then fruit and vegetables, and then some complex carbs.” I was just considering every meal I ate. And then I became disabled—so obviously, eating and exercising that way didn’t insulate me from that, right?VirginiaYeah, so fascinating. Because people think they’re making their bodies bulletproof.JessicaExactly that. Someone who ate like that should have been able to do anything.So after I became disabled it took a while to get a diagnosis. And then it took me years to accept that I was disabled and that I would always be sick. And during that time, I tried any sort of therapeutic diet that was recommended to me, like cutting out gluten and then dairy, or much more protein, or no sugar, or suddenly nightshades were the enemy, and all these iterations.As a hyper-achiever, I fully committed to each of these things. And then nothing helped. I mean, it’s not going to fix the makeup of my body to do those things. And I’ve now accepted the way my body is.But it’s funny now that I have a real acceptance of my body and a much more distant relationship with the food I eat, I would say I eat probably below average. I have a bowl of fiber cereal in the morning, and then I need a lot of food each day. My second breakfast is usually a bagel with butter, cream cheese, bacon on it. I also add cucumber as a nod to health.VirginiaA little cooling crunch. I get it.JessicaAnd then I have on my to do list every day “eat a vegetable,” which, if I compare that to the way I was before disabled, is hilarious. But I don’t know, this actually feels like a much healthier way to be, if you sort of shift the definition of health into humane. And without the delusion that my diet will solve everything, or really solve anything. Like I kind of just see it as like, all right, I eat as much as I need to, to give me energy. I mean, I also eat for pleasure. But my diet has shifted totally since becoming disabled, and I like it much better this way.VirginiaIt sounds like becoming disabled—I don’t want to oversimplify this—sort of gave you permission to prioritize pleasure with food more. And take up more space with that.JessicaYeah, and also not think about eating as, like, “I better not mess this up.”VirginiaYou talked a lot in the book about your struggles with perfectionism. There was a line I loved: “Becoming disabled dismantled something corrosive about my perfectionism.” That one resonates.JessicaRight? Exactly, exactly. And I think diet culture, as you talk about, has so much overlap with health culture, like wellness culture. That idea that you can do one last thing to optimize your life or your mornings or your days or your body.And you know, wellness culture wasn’t in full force—because I came I became disabled in 2011 and it was pre-Instagram, or very early Instagram. Something culturally was a little different then. But, oh my goodness, if I weren’t disabled now, I can only imagine how much I’d be cold plunging.VirginiaThat was the early days of Goop and Michael Pollan, and that sort of diet culture. Now we’re just like, “All of that times a million, please.”JessicaYes, right, right.VirginiaA major arc of the book is your own story of becoming a mom. One piece that I really want to talk about is how your experience of the early weeks of parenting was so much more joyful and less panicked than what many able-bodied parents experience—myself very much included.My first daughter was born with a congenital heart condition, so I was plunged into new parenting and into parenting a child with a disability, right off the bat in a pretty intense way. And when I was reading your experience, I was thinking, wow, there could have been so many moments of less struggle and less panic if I’d had the kind of preparation you’d had.JessicaI’m sorry, that sounds like a really hard way to be introduced to parenting.VirginiaIt was a cold plunge, for sure. She’s amazing. But it was a cold plunge.JessicaThat chapter really surprised me. I decided to interview a few disabled and a few non-disabled parents to try to see if there were different trends about the struggles of the first week. I expected disabled parents to describe more complicated recoveries from giving birth and that the difficulties would be maybe heightened, because there’s just a much greater chance of having the gestational parent hospitalized after birth, or to experience complications. And what I discovered in the first interviews is that every non-disabled person I interviewed talked about how becoming a parent was the time they went to war. I mean, it was just so much agony, even from friends I hadn’t realized how much agony they had been in. I thought so much about this, about why this is and, but it seems to be that almost across the board a uniquely challenging time is when you become a parent.But then, when I talked to the disabled people the first few interviews, they all said, “oh, it’s fine. It was fine.” And then I was like, well, how was your recovery? And one person said, well, I had preeclampsia after giving birth and I had really bad side effects and had to keep going to the hospital. Oh, and I had given birth to twins. Oh, and Child Protective Services visited—and they were describing all this stuff, but saying, “and that happened, but it was fine.”Disabled parents were like, no, it was fine. I knew we’d figure it out. And then the another disabled person I talked to, she was like, “Well, I do everything with only my mouth because of my disability, and I had someone coming to help me the first week, but they ended up backing out, so I had to recover from a c-section while caring for a child alone with only the use of my like mouth and neck muscles.” And she was like, “But we figured it out! It was a good bonding time!”VirginiaI mean that story! I was like, okay, okay.JessicaYes. I was like, what is happening here? But the thing is, it was true for me, too. I became a parent, and I remember talking to my therapist at the time, and I was like, “I think something’s wrong with me, because this is only good. I was like, where’s the anxiety? Should I have anxiety? Why don’t I have it?” Because I’m not a laid back person. And I just felt so preternaturally peaceful.So then I interviewed more non-disabled people and more disabled people and the trend continued with one exception. And at this point, I’ve interviewed about two dozen in each group, and it’s held steady.VirginiaWow.JessicaAnd I’ve thought a lot about it. The answer can’t be that everyone should just become disabled before having a kid. And it’s not like disabled people are better in some core way. So I’ve ended up coming down to these three explanations.One, becoming disabled or being disabled has so much overlap with becoming a parent. There’s a skill set that you develop as a disabled person in response to what it’s like to live day to day with a very, very needy body. What is it like to live day in, day out, with body-based problems that present themselves completely unpredictably, and with limited social resources to deal with them? There’s this problem solving and comfort that’s inherent with disability. And so when it comes to parenting the Venn diagram of skills is overlapped.VirginiaYou talked about sitting on the floor to make your bottles, or the woman who only used her mouth talked about the system she had in place to be able to make the bottles by the bed. There is so much creative problem solving.JessicaDr. Jessi Elana Aaron, who you were talking about, she had gotten her PhD and become a tenured professor, all with her disability. And so she had been practicing these incredible creative innovations for decades. So when it came to parenting, she wasn’t like, “Oh no, how do I use this body for the first time?” She’d been doing it for a long time in many contexts. So that’s one part.But then the other part is that I think becoming a parent, especially if you’re the one who is pregnant, is becoming disabled temporarily. And I think that is very, very challenging, if you live in a society, which we all do, where being disabled is a worst case scenario for a body. We are told that it is better to be dead than disabled. It’s understandable that someone might want to be dead instead of disabled. We’re reminded constantly that health is the ideal, and falling away from health is is to be avoided at all costs.Recovering from giving birth, I think, is a lot like becoming disabled. So suddenly you are living in a body that’s not safe in our world. And that that touches on something so primal. It’s like, How can I possibly survive with this new kind of body?And then I think babies are the ultimate disabled person. Because they’re so erratic and so needy. You know, we had a baby about a year ago, and I was noticing his breathing at the beginning. It was just like, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, and then sometimes he would not breathe for a bit, and I was having to pay attention to every sip of his bottle he took. It’s like you have this heightened attention to the to the way a body is working and the fragility of that tiny little body. It’s like, oh, my god, we’re all just fragile bodies and we could die.And I think if you are not disabled and aren’t having to confront our shared fragility on a regular basis, then that introduction to it is absolutely terrifying and destabilizing and harrowing.VirginiaAnd not only is an able-bodied parent experiencing disability for the first time—they’re experiencing this disability with the expectation that it has to be as temporary as possible, and that they have to get back to “normal” as fast as possible. There is so much pressure on us to get back to work as quickly as possible, to lose the baby weight, to start having sex with your husband again as soon as possible. This expectation of return to previous levels of whatever is just bananas, given what you’re actually going through.Whereas it sounds like, for you and for the folks who are interviewing, there is this understanding of Yes, it’s chaos. We’re just going to roll with this. We’re not trying to claw our way back to something.JessicaRight, and you know, for those of us who’ve been able to accept being disabled—which isn’t everyone, but it’s a lot of people—not returning to normal or having a changed physical experience, I think isn’t as scary. Like, we’ve done it. We were more acquainted with physical suffering and chronic physical suffering.There are these two studies that are relevant to this conversation. One of them I only learned about after finishing the book when I interviewed a UCLA doctor who works with a lot of disabled pregnant people. She was doing a study on recovery, and she had a disabled population and a non-disabled population. In recovery from labor and delivery, and she found that the rates of postpartum depression were much higher in the non-disabled group.So my interviews and my system are obviously not remotely scientific. I had no IRB approval. It was all snowball method of interviewing. But her study does reflect the same findings. And then there’s a Harvard study by Dr Lisa Iazzoni, who found that disabled people are checked for cancer less than non-disabled people, because it’s assumed that why bother treating us if we’re already disabled. But disabled people actually handle cancer better than non-disabled people. We navigate the medical system and handle the emotional fallout from cancer better. So she’s done this study, I guess, to try to convince doctors to treat disabled people for cancer, which is obviously depressing, but!VirginiaThey’ll do a good job with it! You should treat them. Also, it’s literally your job to do that.JessicaThey deserve to know.VirginiaCould you just do your job? Thanks!Okay, there is one more layer to this conversation that I want us to dig into: Something I frequently hear from parents, especially moms, who are struggling with whether to pursue intentional weight loss—maybe a doctor has told them they need to lose weight or again it’s that get your pre-baby body back pressure— is rhetoric like, “Well, I owe it to my kids to be healthy.” Or, “I just want to be able to run and play with my kids.” And I often struggle to explain why maybe that shouldn’t be the goal.It feels to me very much in line “all that matters is a healthy baby!” which is that thing that people will often say to pregnant folks. And as the parent of a kid who was not healthy when she was born, that fills me with a lot of rage.So, I would love us to talk about this idea of owing health, or “just” wanting to be healthy. Both are framed as so understandable, like everybody should feel that way—but they are actually quite problematic.JessicaBefore I answer, and maybe you’ve talked about this and I’ve missed it, but: Do you feel like a fear of fatness is a fear of mortality? Do you think those are bound up together?VirginiaI do, yes. Especially because of the way we pathologize fatness in our medical system. People experience a lot of fear-mongering around that from doctors, for sure.JessicaI think if you focus on thinness as the goal, you’re kind of secretly acting like if you can get thin, then you will never die. I think people kind of convince themselves that. But the fact is, there’s nothing we can do about our bodies being mortal.So this thing, “all that matters is the baby’s health.” One, it’s a lot of pressure on a parent and on a baby, because 20 percent of people are disabled. So it kind of sounds like they’ve all fucked up.And two, no physical body is ideal. No one actually measures up! Everybody has lots of needs, and lots of limitations.Our first kid had some asynchronous development and we found that milestone tracking brought us some heartache or some worry. So one thing that we have done with our second kid is we’ve actually totally, totally ignored milestones. We don’t have anything tracking milestones. And I think because we’re older and very tired, we don’t remember when anything should happen.VirginiaThat is such a gift of second child parenting!JessicaBut it’s been so funny, because we think our baby is hilarious now. Because we don’t know when anything’s supposed to happen. So one example is he started to take things out of a container, like any container, with a lot of intensity, and then he would put things back in the container with the same intensity. And so we started calling him like “our little businessman” or say, “he has to go to work!” And we were like, wow, he’s so organized. I guess he’ll be organized forever. And then we went to our one year old checkup, and the doctor said, “Now has he taken things out of a container and put things back?” We’re like, oh, this is just a milestone.VirginiaOh, this is just a thing babies do, okay. We thought it was a weird personality quirk.JessicaI think this is kind of wrapped up in the question, because I feel like in this one way, we’ve let go of “all that matters is his health.” We’re just like, who are you, little guy? And maybe it makes us slightly delusional, but it’s also much more fun to live this way. And he’s going to do what he’s gonna do. I think if he needs additional support, we’ll know. We are paying attention. We’re with him and we’ll get it.So I kind of wish we collectively could do that with more parts of our bodies. We could accept our bodies for how they are, and seek support to alleviate suffering. So not give up on ourselves, but not try to shoehorn our bodies into these completely unattainable ideals.Another thing I’ve been thinking about with this is before I knew that I had Ehlers Danlos Syndrome—I have a connective tissue disorder that causes a great deal of chronic pain, and it caused a secondary neurological condition in 2011. But before that point, I was in daily pain from the time I can remember knowing my body. Like my back and my neck and my arms and my legs and my hips, and I thought everyone else lived like that, and they were just a lot more chill than I was about it. I also thought I could do something to make my body stop hurting. I thought I just bought the wrong car. So I kept switching cars. I thought I needed a new mattress. I kept switching mattresses. I tried acupuncture, I did massage therapy. I thought I was like, one decision or one action away from not living in a body that hurts.And then when I found out I have this genetic condition that will cause pain the rest of my life, I first grieved. But it is much better to give up on thinking I can escape this pain. It doesn’t mean I don’t try to ease my own suffering. Like I have a heat pack on my back right now as we talk, and I have ice packs on my back as we talk. And I did switch mattresses last year because my old one was causing pain, and I could afford to switch mattresses, and the new one is better. So I still care for my body, but I’m not trying to fix it. I’m trying to just care for my body that will hurt every day of my life.VirginiaThat is such a helpful distinction—caring for your body versus fixing it. And also this idea of alleviating sufferingversus having a moral obligation, or a responsibility to others, to achieve health.I mean, when people say, well, I owe it to my kids to be healthy, it’s this idea that somehow “I’ll be a less capable mother or a less capable parent if I can’t get my cholesterol down, or if my diabetes isn’t managed,” or whatever it is.JessicaI mean, I think we’re kind of bad at knowing what will make us a good parent, right? I’m a very good parent, and I do almost nothing. Like I’m in bed or my wheelchair all of the time, but I’m a very involved parent. I’m a really patient parent. I’m able to be with my kids and tolerate the boredom of children, because I tolerate the boredom of a disabled life. I’ve been practicing being bored for so long.VirginiaThat sounds useful.JessicaYeah, and kids are so supremely boring. I’m really good at that now, and I don’t know, I just think we’re kind of bad at knowing what will make a good parent. People are like, well, I just need to run with my children. They always use that example. And I’m like, I don’t know. I mean, do you? I ride with my children on my lap, in my wheelchair and they really like that, too.VirginiaMoms will often say, like, “I can’t use the playground equipment.” It’s like, well, why aren’t we building playground equipment better? Also, it’s maybe fine you can’t sit on a child’s swing. Like, do you need to? I don’t want to.Manu Vega, Getty ImagesJessicaAnd what a narrow view of “good parenting,” if you have to be able to sit on a swing to be a good parent?VirginiaYes, yes, yes.I think again, it just ties back to everything we’ve been talking about. This pressure that’s on us, this way that health is a performance. And you’ve touched on this a little bit, but we’ll just maybe take it one beat further to help people distill it more. Like, okay, I want to unpack my ableism, but I’m still going to vaccinate my kids. Or, like you said yourself, you still have a daily goal to eat a vegetable.So there are still things we do that are health-oriented or health-promoting behaviors, even if we’re trying to let go of the idea that we are obligated to be healthy or that healthy is “better.”JessicaYeah. And what will it achieve us? I think keeping a steady stream of produce in my body is probably going to ease my suffering. I think it is a thing I want to do and I think it’s a really kind of achievable goal.VirginiaMost days.JessicaWell the cucumber on the bagel, I’ve done it actually.VirginiaYou’ve achieved it!JessicaI think if we keep our expectations reasonable about what we will get from those choices, that’s caring for ourselves and that’s more sustainable and kinder and healthier, too.VirginiaAnd something like vaccines obviously alleviate suffering.JessicaAnd it’s social responsibility! We’re very pro-vaccine because it alleviates our suffering and the suffering of other people.VirginiaI really loved the scene at your daughter’s birthday party, where you talked about when she needed a break from the party, and she had the little finger signal, and that you could just roll away with her on your chair and give her this break. That level of attuned, present parenting is something that I think a lot of us are striving for on our best days. So it’s really inspiring and fun to read about the way you are able to create those moments of connection.JessicaThank you. That means a lot.VirginiaAnything else about the book we didn’t touch on that you want to make sure we get to before we wrap up?JessicaI wrote this book primarily for or initially for disabled parents, because we’re so excluded from conversations, and I wanted there to be a place where we’re talked about and celebrated. But in writing it, I became convinced that I think it’s a book that all parents would really get something from. Disabled experiences and disabled wisdom is worth talking about, even if you’re not disabled. Not just, “you should buy my book,” but I really think we shouldn’t have this assumption that we should ignore disabled things. One, the line between disabled and not is pretty thin. And two, as long as you don’t die very suddenly, at some point everyone does become disabled. It’s a topic worth considering for all bodies and minds.VirginiaI’ll also add, for anyone who’s parenting kids with disabilities or neurodivergent kids, or just, in any way a part of a family that does not match the ideal health performance, perfect nuclear family myth that we’re sold—There is so much to learn from folks who have had these different experiences and found different ways through and I think the disability piece of it is just a huge, huge part of the conversation.---ButterJessicaSo you had told me that ahead of time, and I was positive that I was going to say these new Birkenstocks I bought.VirginiaI love that.JessicaThey’re called Reykjavik, and the thing I love about them is they have so much rubber on the sole. And it makes absolutely no sense, because the top of them has like normal holes and is suede.VirginiaOh, they’re cute.JessicaThank you for saying they’re cute. My whole family thinks they’re horrifying.VirginiaThey’re ugly cute the way Birkenstocks are ugly cute. I will admit they’ve leveled up from the basic Birkenstock, but I think they’re pretty cool. I mean, I like an ugly clunky shoe.JessicaWe were trying to discuss what situation you would need that much rubber on the bottom, but really no protection on the top.VirginiaDecorative rubber at best.JessicaAnd then my husband was like, “And you’re in a wheelchair, there’s zero situation that you would need that.”But then I actually, can I say one more? My husband grew up in Manhattan, then lived in Brooklyn, then we met in San Francisco. He’s this, like erudite philosophy major. Literally, while he was cooking dinner yesterday, he was reading a history of Western philosophy. He’s just this man. And then inexplicably, he has become completely obsessed with the 2021 Matilda musical.VirginiaOh, it’s so good!!JessicaOkay, he’s obsessed. He listens to it on his headphones nonstop. Last night, before we did anything else, he was like, can we just sit together and watch a YouTube video of the song “Naughty?” And then he’s like, tearing up watching it.VirginiaIt’s so good. This is the one with Emma Thompson as The Trunchbull, right?JessicaYes. Okay, I’ll tell him you said that. And so I just am delighted. My Butter is my husband liking Matilda very, very, very much.VirginiaIt’s such a good production, and it has been very popular in my house with my kids. We actually saw the theater version of it when we were in London last summer, which was delightful. Because, I mean, man, those little British kids can dance. It was such a good performance. We’re obsessed with the soundtrack. We play it all the time.And I will also say, because on Burnt Toast, we do track for examples of fat stereotypes: I do think that the way the Miss Trunchbull character is written in the book is not great. There’s a lot of fatphobia in Roald Dahl books in general. I mean, he was not a great person.But I loved Emma Thompson’s performance of it. They did pad her, but I wouldn’t say it’s a fat suit. I would say it’s more like they’re making her cartoonishly big and muscular. And then the scene where Bruce has to eat the chocolate cake—all the kids are cheering for him. And you can read it as very empowering. Like, look at this kid who can eat a whole cake to stand up to the bully! I found it a very pro-cake scene. It is not always played that way, but in the movie, I think it is.JessicaWell, even better.VirginiaMy kids and I had a whole conversation about it. We decided that it’s a cake positive, body positive interpretation of the text.JessicaI’m so glad.VirginiaOh, this was so much fun. Thank you, Jessica, for taking the time with us. I really appreciate it. Tell folks where they can find you and how we can support your work.JessicaSo you can buy Unfit Parent anywhere you buy books. And there are also links on my website, Jessicaslice.com. I’m on Instagram @JessicaSlice, I have a Substack where I send monthly notes about Disabled Parenting, and then usually try to get people to read whatever poem I’m fixated on that month.---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

When fat influencers get...even thinner.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your April Extra Butter.Today we’re talking about plus size influencers getting weight loss surgery. We’ll get into:⭐️ Is this the start of the Ozempic backlash?⭐️ How much do public figures owe their audiences?⭐️ How to hold space for body autonomy with weight loss journeys.This is a complicated conversation! To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.Extra Butters also get exclusive weekly chats, DM access, and a monthly bonus essay or thread. And Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism. Join us here!PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription.PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts!Episode 189 Transcript

On writing for the female gaze, with Jasmine GuilloryYou are listening to Burnt Toast!Today, my guest is the brilliant Jasmine Guillory.Jasmine is a New York Times-bestselling author of nine novels, including The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and her brand new book Flirting Lessons.This is an absolutely delightful conversation. Jasmine and I get into why she is publishing her first queer romance. We talk a lot about fat rep in romance novels, and we also talk about gardening. It’s so much fun!You can order Flirting Lessons through the Burnt Toast Bookshop. Don’t forget, you can always take 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk from Split Rock Books! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Episode 188 TranscriptVirginiaWe are here to talk about Flirting Lessons. I completely inhaled it on vacation last month. It is such a treat. I was already a Noble Vineyards fan, so getting to follow these characters was really fun. But this book is also exciting because it is your first queer romance!JasmineIt is. I’m very excited about it! I hope people like it.VirginiaTell us how this came to be.JasmineI have been wanting to write a queer romance for a while. But my publishing schedule was kind of set. I had other books planned, so I didn’t quite get to this one as soon as I wanted to. But Avery and Taylor were both characters in my last book, Drunk On Love, and as soon as I wrote them, I was like, oh yeah, these two. So it was really fun to get to write their book.I also took a little break in between books because I was just very burnt out. During the pandemic, I wrote three books back-to-back-to-back, and then had the idea for this book and tried to start writing it, and was like, oh, no, I can’t. I have no ideas. I am empty.Once I got excited about writing again, it was really fun to come back to Avery and Taylor. I was really excited about them, and to get to write a fun, happy story of them out in the world, exploring each other and learning new things. We had a lot of fun with it.VirginiaYou have a job that I think most people would think sounds like the most fun job in the world. But as a fellow writer—although I don’t get to write romance—writing burnout is real. So I’m glad you were able to take time and take care of that, because it becomes really not fun really fast.JasmineIt was really helpful that I have a very supportive publishing team. Many years ago, actually, I was talking to my editor, I asked her a question about one of her other writers and when her next book was coming out. And she was like, “Oh, it’s not coming for a while. She needs to take a break. She was really burnt out.” And then she said to me, “If this ever happens to you, don’t worry. Just let me know. You take your break whenever you need to.” And she told me this five or six years before it happened to me. But it was so nice that I didn’t have to really worry, “will my editor be mad at me?” I’m blowing my deadlines, whatever.It was funny, because right before I realized I needed a break, I had a conversation with my agent, and I don’t even remember what I said exactly. And I said something about publishing or trying to write. And she was like, “Pkay, that’s it. You need a break. You’re not allowed to try anything, like write anything, for at least another month. And then we’ll talk.” And I was like, oh, okay. I think I needed someone to just tell me.And it was great, because once I started getting excited about writing again, then it was fun again. When it wasn’t fun was when I was trying to push through it.VirginiaI love that. I’m so glad you have people you’re working with who see that and get that. We need more of that.It sounds like you’d been thinking about this book for a while. Was there any pushback or questions, or anything from your team when you were like, “It’s going to be Taylor and Avery? We’re doing a queer romance this time.”JasmineNo, not at all. They were really excited. They were like, okay, great. What’s their story? What are we going to do? So that was really good. It helped I think that I’ve had a number of the people on my publishing team have been the same people for a long time, so I wasn’t really worried about that. But it was nice that nobody blinked.VirginiaI think it speaks to how romance in general has just—and you’ve been a huge part of this—as a genre, it has exploded in so many wonderful, inclusive directions in the last decade. There was always an audience for queer romance, but now the the industry knows there’s an audience for queer romance.JasmineExactly right. As with so many of the other kinds of diversity that have gotten good sales over the past 10 years: There was always an audience for those things. It took publishers a while to figure that out.VirginiaThey had to keep seeing the math.Of course, I want to talk about Taylor Cameron. She stood out to me in Drunk On Love, as such a fun, fantastic character. And I just love how you write her. She is introduced to us as this insanely hot person. She’s an incredible flirt. Everybody in Napa Valley wants to sleep with her. And she’s fat.You kind of casually work that in. There’s a moment where they’re at a spa and she’s like, “Oh, yeah, I can’t ever wear the women’s robes. I’ve got to go walk around naked till they realize they need to get me a better robe.” And it’s unapologetic. It’s just part of who she is. It’s not a plot point. It’s not something that needs defending. I’d just love to hear you talk about how you think about that, as you’re thinking of characters.JasmineI think there were a few things. I mean, first of all, I love reading books where there are fat women who don’t care about being fat, right? Too often, it’s like, oh, I have to worry about this or I’m trying to lose weight, or whatever. And that’s not everybody. That’s not who I see out in the world. I see so many unapologetic fat women who have great relationships and everybody likes them and everybody cares about them and I wanted to represent people like that in fiction.I think Taylor very much knows herself, knows her body, knows how she is attractive to other people. And I also think that the queer community tends to be—well, women in general tend to be much—I don’t want to say better, but that’s part of it—about accepting other kinds of body sizes and shapes and finding them exciting and attractive. And so that was another fun thing to explore.VirginiaI think that’s so needed. There are a lot of examples, as you said, of the apologetic fat character. Who is often written by straight sized folks who just haven’t lived this experience. They can’t imagine it not being something that people would feel the need to define themselves by or apologize for and all of that. It’s just always a delight to get a book and be like, okay, it’s going to be a different version of that here. It’s a safer reading experience, I think, for a lot of folks.JasmineIn so many books there’s a moment where you’re like, oh, I didn’t expect that little hit to the ego. And I never want people to have that experience when reading my books. I mean, I don’t want me to have that experience when reading any books! And so I try to think about that and pay attention to that.VirginiaIt’s always disappointing.Obviously, across romance, I think we’re making some pretty good progress on fat rep. I think again, you were a real trailblazer on this, and there are a lot of other wonderful authors doing it now. But it’s still by no means a given. Where do you think the industry is on this? Where are you still running into brick walls?JasmineI think some of the brick walls just come from, at least for me, not my editor, my publisher, like my agent, they’re all great. Sometimes it’s retailers, right? If there’s a book with a fat woman on the cover, will they want to put it front and center? Or will, will they want to stock it at all? Sometimes it’s in the right cover design. Sometimes retailers will come back when there’s a cover and be like, we don’t love it. And if it’s a big enough retailer, you have to fix the cover or change the cover. And so sometimes it’s that they don’t want a woman who looks like that on the cover or they don’t want someone with too dark of skin on the cover, or anything like that.And then some of it is readers, sometimes. It’s retailers thinking that readers will think this, and sometimes it’s readers actually thinking this. You’ll see it in reviews, which I tried to avoid reading. But yeah, sometimes they get slapped in your face. Like, “well, would someone with a body like that really think about that though? Like, I don’t know if someone would really find her attractive.” That happens all the time. That’s some of the pushback that you get.VirginiaYeah, the reader response is really interesting. I had Nisha Sharma on the podcast last year. And she was talking about how sometimes at book events, readers will say, like, I didn’t think this book was for me, because, either because they’re thin or because they’re white. And she’s like, well, you read books about serial killers, but you’re not a serial killer.JasmineRight? You read books about dukes in 19th century England, but you’re not a duke.VirginiaLike, you managed to make those leaps, why is this a hard? It’s fascinating that this comes up.JasmineI think it’s fascinating, but also so anti-my experience, because I grew up reading all sorts of books that had nothing to do with me. I don’t think about having to relate to the main character.VirginiaYou’re not reading in front of the mirror when you read a book.JasmineI guess, if you grow up reading books where the characters look like you, and have specific experiences that you do, you think about books in that way. It has never been anything that I had have ever thought about.VirginiaYeah, and it’s limiting. I mean, it just is. Of course, it’s powerful to see ourselves reflected in books. That’s why representation matters. But it shouldn’t be just this one default experience all the time.JasmineYeah, some people have very strong preferences for point of view in books, which I just don’t care about at all. But I’ve seen people say that they prefer first person because they like to envision themselves as the character, which is never anything that I would have thought of. But I think so many people are just used to reading books where they can do that.VirginiaWhat do you hear from readers for whom your books are offering them representation for the first time?JasmineThat has been one of the most rewarding things. I’m going on book tour next month. And in many cases, book tours are exhausting because it’s like so much travel and going from place to place and airplanes and events and stuff. But the actual events just fill me up because I have so many readers who say, “I see myself represented here, I see my relationships, I see my family in ways that I haven’t seen in other books or that I didn’t expect to see.” Things like that from readers really just keep me going. It just does feel really wonderful to hear that and to and also to feel like something that I have written resonates with other people in that way. It really just makes such a big difference to me to hear that.VirginiaYou’re showing people different possibilities sometimes. Another thing Nisha mentioned was hearing from fat readers saying, “I didn’t know a fat person could have sex that way.” And like, it devastates me that someone would become a fully formed adult, not have had that get clear to them that that’s possible. But that’s why the power of fat bodies in positive, joyful sex scenes, is really important.JasmineAbsolutely, I totally agree. And being able to think, “there are people who find that kind of a body attractive, maybe they will find me attractive, too,” I think is really incredible, especially for maybe younger readers. I’m not talking about teenagers, well maybe teenagers, but people in their 20s maybe who have only ever seen a certain body type reflected in this is who is attractive. And I think one of the delightful things about romance novels and especially queer romance novels about women, is that I am writing to the female gaze here. It’s women appreciating women, which is very fun to write and it’s very fun to read.VirginiaWas it different writing the sex scenes for this book, compared to past novels?JasmineYes and no. I think the most fun part of writing sex scenes, for me, is always writing about female pleasure. So it was just like a lot more of that.VirginiaIt’s now doubled, literally, twice as much female pleasure. I mean, that is what is so wonderful about your work is how much it centers female pleasure.JasmineThank you so much. I really appreciate that.VirginiaI checked in with podcast listeners to see if folks had questions for you, and one that actually came up more than once was okay, the book is called Flirting Lessons. Can Jasmine give us a flirting lesson?JasmineThere are a few things that Taylor tells Avery early on. But I think one of the things that I had her keep emphasizing is: You want this to be fun for you, too. Only flirt with people who you find attractive, who you want to flirt with. And if it’s not fun for you, then you can stop. This isn’t something that you have to do. One of the things about flirting is that it should be fun and exciting. And if you’re not getting that back, then you move on to the next person. There are lots of people who you can flirt with, and that’s okay. And I think that’s something that people think too much about. Like, is the other person enjoying this and not am I enjoying this?VirginiaYes! Because as women, that’s what we’re conditioned to think: Am I doing what he wants (or they want) as opposed to centering our own pleasure?JasmineYes. One of the things about flirting is you have to be willing to put yourself out there. You want people to know that you are flirting with them, and that feels scary because you’re setting yourself up for rejection. Like, what if this person is like, oh, I don’t want to flirt with her. Okay, then you move on. But I think that is kind of one of the barriers to get over is like, you you have to let yourself be open to that, and then if it’s not good, then you just move on.VirginiaYeah, because if it’s not good, it won’t be fun for you.For folks who haven’t read the book yet, Taylor has many excellent flirting tips. Like, the whole book is her taking Avery on these flirting lessons where they go out in the world. Especially in this era of mostly online dating, I was just so nervous for Avery.I should say, Jasmine, I am divorced after an almost-25-year relationship. So my experience of dating in my 40s has been mostly really great—but I really felt for Avery in that panic of, I’m really going to go out there? I have to talk to people. What?JasmineYeah, because it is scary, right? I think that was one of the fun things about writing this book as we are coming out of a period where we were all shut in and not really talking, not encountering people out in the world, was to think about where would they go? What would they do? What are situations where you’re just meeting new people? And I think one of the things is having things already built in to talk about. Like the first flirting lesson that they go on—minor spoiler—is at a bookstore for a book event. And like, you have something to talk about. You’re there at a bookstore, you can talk about books. You can talk about the author that you’re there to see. You could talk about what other books have you read? And so that helps us, we already have a built in topic that I can talk to a stranger about and then maybe it’ll go from there. And thinking about things like that was really fun for me. How it’s a slightly safe setup for for them to start with that and then kind of keep going.VirginiaA lot of the advice was about making friends as well. It’s not just, would I want to sleep with this person? It’s about being open to all kinds of relationships. And that was really beautiful. I really enjoyed that theme.JasmineYeah, absolutely. I hear a lot of people ask you the questions, like, how do you make friends as an adult? And I think the the answers are the same, right? You have to be willing to put yourself out there. You have to be willing to say to someone who is basically a stranger, like, do you want to get coffee sometime? Or, we talked about that cool bar, do you want to meet there for a drink sometime? And I think that’s hard and scary for people, but that’s how I’ve made some of my closest friendships.ButterJasmineIt is springtime or getting close to and I’m getting slightly obsessed with planning my garden. I, as Avery does in the book, like, learned to garden. And I have been lightly obsessed with planting for years. And then a few years ago, I bought a house. And then now have a very small amount of things to plant, and have started planting as much as possible in all of that. So I have six new rose bushes ready to be planted in space that I don’t have. And I have been planting lots of herbs and some sugar snap peas. There’s a great book that came out last year, I think it just came out in paperback called Soil. It’s by a Black woman and it’s about planting and gardening and the history of doing that. And it was very fun to read, and it’s very fun to like think about at a time like this.VirginiaI am a hardcore gardener as well, and also regularly have more plants than I have space for. That’s a deeply relatable problem.JasmineI’ve been inspired by you, actually, because was it last year that you only planted flowers? And I planted a bunch of roses, but not a lot of other flowers, and this year I want to plant more flowers.VirginiaI strongly encourag that. We really underestimate the absolute necessity of growing beautiful flowers. Like, it’s an essential in my mind.Interestingly, now there’s some pushback in my household that we should maybe get back to doing some more food, and I’m like, should we? Where’s that going to go? Because I really need all the space for the dahlias. I don’t know what to tell you. We’re trying to carve out different areas so it can be a little more of a mix. But it’s so satisfying and fun. That’s a great Butter.Anything else you want to recommend?JasmineI have read a few great books recently. I read the upcoming novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere. It’s about two women in the space program in the 80s. It is so good. I loved it. It was one of those I read in a day. I mean, I was on vacation, so I could do that. But I loved it so much.I’m reading. Alexis Daria’s newest one right now, It’s called, Along Came Amor, it’s so good. It’s about the oldest cousin in the family—which, I am from a big family and a lot of the family stuff in it I really related to, and also I am the oldest sister and my mom is also the oldest sister. So, a lot of that kind of stuff, I related to and I loved the characters. So those are two of the most recent books that I’ve read that I really loved.I’m in the midst of Kennedy Ryan’s upcoming book, which is just lovely. It’s called, Can’t Get Enough. I’m in the middle of that and it’s, I mean, her writing is just so beautiful all the time. It’s great to kind of linger in.VirginiaThose are such good recs. I’m adding all of them to my to be read pile, which is, of course, a never ending list.I’m going to do two book recs as well. One is Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London.JasmineOh, I love Kate. I haven’t read this one yet, but I need to get to it, because everybody’s told me it’s so good.VirginiaIt’s so delightful, especially if you are a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan or a Twilight fan, or were ever in the vampire genre. It’s a romance, but it’s a whole, delightful experience. It’s someone who’s a fan of vampire novels who ends up inside a vampire novel, etc. It’s great. It was really, really fun read.And then the other one I just finished, actually, on audiobook. My podcast cohostCorinne Fayrecommended this a few weeks ago, but I’m just going to second Corinne’s endorsement ofThe Safekeepby Yael van der Wouden. I’m probably mispronouncing that. I’m so sorry. It is an erotic story of love and obsession in 1960s Amsterdam.JasmineSomeone else told me about this book. I’ve heard about this book from a few other writers, and I need to really read it.VirginiaCorinne didn’t want to say too much about it, and now I understand why. There’s a lot of twists, so I don’t want to say too much, but it does center a queer romance, which is really fascinating in that time and place. It also has a lot to do with post World War II Europe. I was totally absorbed in it. I had a long road trip this weekend and just kept being like, when am I back in my car so I can listen to that book some more?JasmineOkay. I need to get to it.VirginiaWell, Jasmine, this was so much fun. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with us. I am such a fan of your work. All of your novels are must reads. And I want folks to check out Flirting Lessons. So tell us where to find you, how we support your work, all those things.JasmineI’m on Instagram at JasminePics. My website is Jasmineguillory.com and on the events page, you can find links to all of my upcoming book tour events and doing a bunch on the Eastern seaboard and then in the Midwest, and then the West coast. So hopefully I will be coming to a city near you, and you’ll be able to come out.---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

All the feelings about a work-in-progress relationship with social media and screens.You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your April Indulgence Gospel! These episodes are usually only for paid subscribers but we’re releasing this one for free! If you like it, you can get even more Virginia by becoming a paid Burnt Toast subscriber.There has been so much conversation in online spaces over the past few months about divesting from social media. Folks are dropping X, Facebook, Instagram as a form of protest against billionaire tech bros like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And a lot of us are also feeling the need to doom scroll less as a form of self care. Plus, when Tiktok drops a new Chubby filter, it doesn’t really make us want to be there. So today we’re chatting about how we’re both feeling about social media. What are we divesting from? How’s it going? And does any of this feel like a diet?PS. You can always listen to our episodes right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! This transcript does contain affiliate links; shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 187 TranscriptCorinneWell, you’ve really been a leader in this field.VirginiaA pioneer, would we say?CorinneYou’ve been a pioneer in the field of quitting Instagram.VirginiaSince December? I feel I cannot really claim pioneer status for something I’ve been doing for three months! But let’s start at the beginning.What was your starting point in feeling like you wanted to start reevaluating your relationship with social media?CorinneWell, to be honest, I don’t know. I still feel mixed about it. We maybe should start by acknowledging that the “quitting Instagram” conversation just feels like it’s been going on forever.VirginiaForever!CorinneIt feels like it has been years of people being like, “I’m so tired of Instagram blah, blah, blah.” And I’m someone who has always sort of felt like, “whatever, it’s fine.” I don’t necessarily feel like I go down an Instagram rabbit hole and then feel terrible about myself. Maybe in some specific circumstances.So maybe for me, it started with our screen time episode.VirginiaWhere we looked at how much time we were spending on our phones. That was a hard day for both of us.CorinneI saw some stat recently that was like, if you spend two hours a day on Instagram, at the end of your life, you will have spent 10 years on Instagram. And that felt a little bleak.VirginiaOkay, I don’t love that.CorinneYeah, I didn’t love it. But there are also things I enjoy about Instagram. I do have a lot of friends and community there. SoI thought, well, why don’t I just delete it for the weekend?VirginiaAnd that’s what you’ve started with.CorinneAnd that’s what I’ve started with.What about you? What was your starting point?VirginiaMine was a little bit of a whim. I’ve been trying different things for a few years now to manage my relationship with Instagram specifically and with my phone more generally. And some of that was realizing that as a business strategy, it was not serving me to keep putting a lot of time into making reels and elaborate content for Instagram. Instagram is so siloed. It wasn’t translating to people coming over and finding Burnt Toast and the podcast. Maybe a handful of people do every week. But it’s not our main driver, and never has been.So once I connected those dotes, I had to ask: Why am I spending an hour+ per day making content, for free, for this evil billionaire-led corporation? It didn’t feel right to me. So I’ve been scaling back and scaling back. But then it was really a total whim that in December, right as my kids’ winter break was starting, I was just like, you know what? I’m going to just fully delete it while my kids are off school. It’s the holidays, and I want to be able to focus on that.And I will say, that was the first time I’d ever deleted it. I’ve often, in the past, on vacation, logged out or taken it off my home screen or taken a two week break, or a one week break, just by hiding it in my phone somewhere. But I always knew the tricks to find it again. So if I wanted to get back on I could. And this time, I was like, nope, it is not on my phone anymore. And that felt really huge.And then. I really did not miss it at all. I really loved not having it in my space over the holidays in particular. And while I would agree with you that I’m also not someone who was spending a lot of time looking at beauty influencers and feeling bad about my skin or whatever, it turns out that I was getting locked into a comparison trap I didn’t even recognize. Especially around the holidays when a lot of people are posting their perfect family photos—I realized I enjoyed my own Christmas much more when I wasn’t comparing the messy reality of my family navigating the holidays with what people are curating for social media.CorinneTotally. That makes a lot of sense.VirginiaI hadn’t even realized how much that bummed me out! But I was like, oh, I don’t want to see people’s Happy Family photos! Which makes me feel like a jerk, but it’s where I was.CorinneI think that’s very honest, and good to be aware of.VirginiaSo that was an interesting data point. And then after the holidays, I really was not dying to get it back on my phone, but I felt like I needed to bring it back for work. So here’s what I’m doing now: A couple of times a week, when we have a new podcast episode or new newsletter to promote, I’m logging on. I’m putting some stuff in stories. I’m spending a little bit of time responding to DMs. And then I delete it again until the next time I need to do that. So I’m really only downloading it like three or four times a week for an hour or two at a time.CorinneWow, that’s awesome.VirginiaYeah, it’s a big change.What have you noticed about not having it during the weekends?CorinneI think I’ve done it for three weekends, so hasn’t been super long. The first weekend, I was still looking for Instagram on my phone all the time. And then the second weekend, I think I actually forgot to delete it and just didn’t look at it.VirginiaInteresting.CorinneOne thing I’ve noticed is, I think we’re in a day and age where a lot of useful information is on Instagram. I was trying to look up whether something was open.VirginiaOh, like local businesses.CorinneAnd the only thing I actually trust would be Instagram. But you can still kind of use it in the web browser app.VirginiaYes, and it’s not at all addictive there because it’s so bad. You can quickly look something up if you need to. That’s how I’ve been using it for podcast episode research or story research is strictly web browser. Yeah, the local business thing. I definitely hear you on that.CorinneI’ve also noticed how quickly I can just use something else the same way. Like Substack notes have kind of turned into a similar thing. Or I also used to be really into playing Candy Crush, and so I’ve gotten a little bit back into Candy Crush as a zone out phone thing.VirginiaBecause you still need the dopamine hit and the “I’m going to just check out for a minute and do something mindless on my phone” break.So when I went on vacation in February, I deleted Instagram, I deleted Substack, which felt terrifying because that’s my lifeline to my whole business, and I deleted my email off my phone, which felt even more terrifying. But was actually great. And I had the privilege of saying to Corinne, “If something explodes with Burnt Toast while I’m away, please text me.” And I would do the same for you. So it’s nice we have that option.But now on the weekends, I’m trying to remember to delete all three of them to cut down a little bit on that mindlessly-looking-at-my-phone thing. I would so much rather be reading a book if I’m going do something where I just need a brain break. I would rather be reading a feminist romance novel than scrolling an app! It’s going to be more relaxing for me. I know this—but I have not yet broken the pickup phone check. I have not broken the muscle memory of that and I don’t know how we do that.see the shape of my phone out of the corner of my eye sometimes it’s distracting, you know?VirginiaI’m also such a power texter. And I do love texting for the connections it brings me. I don’t live with another adult and my kids are amazing, but I need adult conversation. Texting helps me feel like a part of my community. So that means I’m looking at my phone more for texting. And then once you’re texting, it’s like, oh, let me just check… And so I’m really on top of my New York Times word games. I’ll often find myself mindlessly doodling around my phone being like, wait, I’m not doing anything because there’s nothing here.So I don’t know if that just fades eventually, or if I need, we need to do something more concrete to break that cycle.Have you ever tried the brick?CorinneNo, but I’ve been hearing about that. I’ve been hearing a lot about the brick, and also this app Opal, that similarly blocks certain stuff on your phone.VirginiaI bought a brick maybe a year ago, and I did use it for a little bit. I was totally like, “This is going to be my Butter on the next podcast episode because it’s changing my life!” And then I put it down and never used it again.CorinneThat’s so funny.VirginiaBut as we’re talking I’m like, should I try it again? Maybe it would turn my phone into a texting only vehicle.CorinneI’ve heard about people using it so as you go out the door on the way to work, you tap it and then it blocks stuff while you’re at work. But as a person who works from home, it doesn’t feel like that makes as much sense for me.VirginiaYou would just get up and go get the brick when you wanted to break into your phone, right? That’s what was happening to me.CorinneAnd I feel like it’s more like, I want to block stuff on my phone when I’m at home.VirginiaI’m like, should I brick everything except text messages over the weekend? It’s something to play around with, maybe. Except, like, Google Maps or something, the essential things. Like, can you make your phone as unfun as possible?CorinneThere are also now all those smartphone alternatives. I think there’s one called, Wisephone where they have the basics, but they just try to make it not fun. I think they’re black and white and don’t have social media apps, but still have phone calls, maps, texting stuff.VirginiaHave you noticed any differences in terms of how you’re feeling about your body just because you’re less on Instagram and Tiktok?CorinneTo be honest, I haven’t noticed. I feel like my body stuff is more influenced by real life and discomfort in the actual world.I guess I do notice on Tiktok especially, that there is just a lot of filtering, I guess. Both skin and body stuff. Right now, there is a lot of talk about the new AI chubby filter, where you can use this certain filter and it makes you into a chubby person.VirginiaI want to know what it would do to actual fat people. (Spoiler: Not much!!!)CorinneYeah, I have seen fat people using it. It does not do a lot.But the thing I’ll say about it is: It’s Disney chubby. It makes you into a cute cartoon fat person. Like chubby arms, but they’re smooth and you still have a waist. And then I also was realizing Tiktok has this app called CapCut that is a video editing app, and there are so many things you can do to your body. There are little things you can click like “square shoulders” or “shrink in waist,” just all these tiny little edits that you can totally mess with your your body.VirginiaI mean, it’s not hard to see the potential for harm there is from that. Like, if you are uploading content of yourself and using these filters to digitally alter as much about yourself as possible, it is going to create a major disconnect with how you feel about your actual body.I don’t use CapCut. But when I am editing photos, I use A Color Story, which is a photo editing app. I mostly doing it to brighten up a photo that didn’t have good lighting, or cropping it to fit into how I want it to look on Substack or something. But I do brighten, and I sometimes use a filter that makes the photo look higher quality. But of course, in doing that, it also is smoothing out my skin, or making me look a little more tan, that kind of thing. And there are times when I then look at an actual mirror and I’m like, oh, wait, I don’t have the Color Story “Welcome Home” filter on me. I am less glowy in real life. And it is weird. And that’s like, such a mild use of it.CorinneTotally. When you’re recording TikTok videos, I think maybe the default is to have some kind of beauty filter on that like smooths out your skin.VirginiaOh god! So wild! Do you ever use filters when you make Tiktok content?CorinneI think I have unknowingly in that way where it’s just the default.VirginiaI’ve been coerced into it.CorinneYeah, not that I’ve looked at my face and been like, dang, put something on there. But I’ve also played around with some of the like, makeup-y filters, and usually I hate the way they make me look.I recently posted a TikTok where I was like, Does this not work on me because I’m fat or because I’m gay? I just don’t like how it makes me look. So, yeah, I think I’m maybe like, less susceptible. But I mean, it’s really strange. It’s just weird.VirginiaIt is really weird! We will link to Elise Hu, who was on the podcast a while back, talking about her book about Korean beauty culture. She has a greatTED talk she did recently about digital beauty standards and how they are messing with all of us, and particularly teenagers. It is a grim piece of this.CorinneThe other thing I think about a lot with this is plastic surgery. Because the filters are one thing. But then I also think there’s just a lot of really popular people who are doing a lot of stuff to their face.VirginiaIt’s just like intentional weight loss. It’s a necessary survival strategy in a capitalist society for a lot of people, a lot of job descriptions hinge on it. So it’s there. And it also then has these ripple effects, of the more we look at those images, the more our brains normalize to those images, and the more we expect out of ourselves and others, and that way danger lies.CorinneRight? And it’s one thing to like be doing that and disclosing it, and then it’s another thing to not be.VirginiaTotally.Are you deleting Tiktok as well on the weekends? Or just Instagram?CorinneI have been deleting Tiktok as well. Tiktok is way more of a problem for me. I have this thing where I’m like, I’m just going to look at Tiktok for 15 minutes before I go to sleep. And then it’s literally two hours later, and I’m like, what?VirginiaSo then that leads me to the next thing on our outline, which is we are going to check our phone time.I am curious to know if not having Tiktok is actually lowering your screen time.CorinneWell, not having Tiktok for two days. But yeah.VirginiaSo for anyone who missed our previous episode, Corinne and I were both averaging around eight hours of screen time a day according to our phones. Now I will put a caveat in that, which is, I talked toTheGamerEducatorafter that episode came out. And Ash told me that the iPhone screen time is not actually accurate, because it keeps recording after you put your phone down if you haven’t quit out of an app. So, like, there are lots of ways the phone is amplifying your screen time, which I think is very important for us to know.However we can at least compare. It was somewhere around eight hours before. What is it now? So let’s look at last weekend.How did you do, Corinne?CorinneLast Friday, I had six and a half hours. I had eight hours on Saturday, but I had 12 hours on Thursday and 11 hours on Wednesday.VirginiaI had 13 hours on Thursday.CorinneYeah, I’m really questioning how accurate this is.VirginiaI’m really questioning how accurate it is, but I’m also like, wow, so it doesn’t fucking matter? Because even if it’s not accurate, it’s still roughly the same as what we had before, when we were on Instagram and Tiktok all the time?CorinneI mean, it doesn’t look like it’s making a huge difference. For me it looks like there’s maybe like, one hour difference. I don’t know.VirginiaI mean, my most used app before was texting, and that’s still true. Like last Saturday, 8 hours and 39 minutes of total time, 3 hours and 22 minutes on texting. And what can I say? I had my kids last weekend, and I need adult conversation when I’m parenting. So there we are. But there is no Instagram time listed because I had deleted it.CorinneYeah, yep. Definitely spending less time on Instagram. Is that a net positive?VirginiaI don’t know, but it is distilling for me what the problems are. It tells you how many times you picked up your phone in one day, and I’m picking up my phone like 150 times a day. So maybe that’s the next piece of this I need to work on.CorinneYeah, my daily average is 140.VirginiaYep, that sounds right. Wow, cool, great. So that’s depressing. We’re getting no better, but we are noticing benefits from being on these particular apps less.CorinneYeah, right. We are? What are they?VirginiaDid we just like ruin our entire sense of accomplishment? Oh, my gosh.I mean, I think what’s interesting is we had both verbalized concrete ways this was making our lives better, and then we looked at the numbers and we felt like garbage.And what does that remind us of, Corinne?CorinneHmmm, dieting?VirginiaSo how do we think about wanting to use our phones less and not get caught up in a perfectionistic diet-y mindset?CorinneAs you said, the tracking is not accurate. So I think we need to just not track. And not turn this into an information thing.VirginiaIt really should be more about how we feel. I also think there’s still some work that I personally need to do untangling morality and screen time. Like when I said earlier, oh, I’d be so much happier reading a book. I know that is true in the way that my brain feels after reading versus the way my brain feels after scrolling. I know I feel calmer and less stressed.But what I don’t know is how much of that is because I think reading a book is a morally superior activity to being on my phone.CorinneI mean, I think it’s also really easy to make a diet culture parallel there. It’s like, sometimes I might actually physically feel better if I eat some salad with my pizza, rather than just eating a ton of—I don’t know, pizza is not a problem for me. But I think there’s an argument sometimes, where it’s like, I do feel better when I eat this way, and it’s not the whole story.VirginiaHow much of that is “I feel better because I’ve been told this is better” versus “I’m really noticing some physiological shifts.” And I think it can also be both, right? And I think with me, with books versus phone, it is both. But it is that is a piece of it. And I think I have to be careful to interrogate that part of it, in order to prevent this from becoming like…the phone diet.CorinneTotally. I also feel like you’ve pretty clearly identified what part of the phone using is helpful and valuable to you, like texting.VirginiaYeah, that’s true. So there’s no reason to feel bad if there’s a lot of hours spent texting, because that’s me being in touch with my community. What about you? Do you feel like there’s a clear way your phone is valuable to you?CorinneI feel very clear on what I don’t like, which is scrolling TikTok for three hours before I fall asleep. But that also seems to be one of the most impossible things for me to kick.VirginiaWhat if you deleted it before bed?CorinneI mean, it’s just like, would I? There are all kinds of tips that are, like, put your phone in the other room, blah, blah, blah, and I’m just like, I’m going to put my phone in the other room after I look on TikTok for five minutes. So I don’t know if deleting it would be any different.VirginiaI used to put my phone in the other room when I shared my room with someone else who had their phone on the nightstand, and now that I don’t, I want my phone in my room in case of emergencies. I want it in my room if my kids are not with me, in case, a kid gets sick in the middle of the night and, God forbid, I need to be notified. And I want it in my room when the kids are with me, in case the killer breaks into our house. So I can’t do that one anymore. And I think that’s fine.But I do think editing down what’s available on the phone is helpful for the bedtime thing. But I also understand it’s like, are you going to do it? Maybe that’s where one of those apps, or the brick or something, could come in handy. But we haven’t gotten there yet.I mean to that note of us being like we need our phones in our rooms for safety, which I think is valid for people who live alone, we should also talk about like the function of privilege in all of this, and how much divesting from screen time is, in and of itself, for privilege,CorinneAnd just the privilege to have a ton of screen time.VirginiaYeah, yeah, to have the time to do it. But also, I really, again, love Ash Brandin’s work on this. They talk about screen time and kids. So they’re not really talking about social media. They’re usually talking about video games and younger kids. And Ash wrote:If we fear a child has too much screen time? Perhaps the question to ask is, what underlying need is not being met for this child? And if we do think that’s related to screen time, the question becomes, what need is this screen time meeting? Is it replacing a lack of parental leave, child care, a regulated parent, outdoor access movement? How do we address that need? Focusing on the screen will only make the caregiver feel shame, and that doesn’t help anyone, especially the child.And I read that, and thought, yes. Because I know in addition to me needing my phone with me more as a single parent, my kids get more screen time now that they live in two single parent households, because there are not two people there all the time to have other things going on. And it does meet some needs.And I think we can definitely extrapolate that to ourselves and ask what need is our screen time meeting?CorinneYeah, that’s a great question.VirginiaSo what need does three hours of TikTok scrolling meet for you?CorinneI don’t think I have an answer, but I will definitely be thinking about it.VirginiaI do think a lot of it is social connection. I mean, I think all of our screen time increased during the pandemic because social media became a replacement for community. I think there’s a lot going on there. And I think talking more honestly about that piece of it and understanding, what are you actually getting out of this, seems more useful than just, it’s bad, it’s bad. I’m bad for using it.---ButterCorinneVirginia. Do you have a Butter this week?VirginiaI do. I’m going to suggest a fun, non screen time activity to do with kids. Not because I think screen time is bad, but just because it has been really fun in my house lately. It is giant coloring sheets, where you just put this giant poster roll of paper with a printed coloring thing on it, on a table with some markers, and you and your kids or your friends or whoever go to town on it, and it is really soothing and lovely.Some recent coffee table coloring at Virginia’s houseCorinneWow, that sounds fun.VirginiaYeah, I got the first ones at Christmas, and I did buy them off Amazon, which we are no longer shopping at. And I had them out over the holidays when grandparents were visiting, and it was really nice for giving them an easy way to hang out with the grandkids, and just like, anyone could do it. There’s no skill. There is not really a lot of skill in coloring, and it’s just a nice it’s a nice way to be together. I don’t know, it’s great.And then I posted about it on Instagram, and said I was looking for some non-Amazon options. And folks sent me two good ones. One is Friends Art Lab, which makes some really cute 10 foot long coloring rolls. So I’ve ordered some of those. And then I got some from Grove Collaborative. They’re smaller, but that was actually kind of nice. They fit better on our coffee table. And we’ve been doing those. I just keep it out on the coffee table with some markers. And I particularly find when we’ve had a cranky day, or there has been a lot of squabbling, that sitting down to color calms me down, and then inevitably a kid will join me. And maybe we’re not really talking, but we’re kind of like co-regulating ourselves.CorinneThat sounds really nice!VirginiaIt’s also good to do while you’re watching TV. if I don’t have a puzzle going, it’s the same kind of like, keeps my hands busy, keeps me off my phone.CorinneI love that.VirginiaWhat about you?CorinneMy Butter this week is maybe a little bit niche.VirginiaI love a niche butter.CorinneI was really struggling with the water pressure in my shower, my shower hose head thing was broken, and like all this water was just leaking out of it. Anyways, I replaced my shower head. It’s incredible. I highly recommend replacing your shower head, especially if you have hard water.VirginiaOh really?CorinneWe have really hard water here and minerals build up and break everything and clog all the little shower holes. But I got a new shower hose and shower head, and it’s incredible. Like, what was I doing? Was I even washing shampoo out of my hair? Or was I just leaving it there? I always kind of dread stuff like that, but it was literally like, I could do the whole thing with my hand. I needed a wrench to get the old one off, just a tiny bit. But then you just hand tighten it. It doesn’t leak. it It’s so great. It’s such an easy little upgrade. So, highly recommend getting a new shower head.VirginiaI love when any house thing that I think is going to be a nightmare turns out to actually be quite easy. A lot of them do. Not all of them! And then you’re like, oh, this dramatically improved my daily quality of life. Why didn’t I do it a year ago?CorinneYeah, it has really, really improved my quality of life. So, something to think about!

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for a bonus March Indulgence Gospel!Today we’re chatting about:⭐️ How to talk to your kids about (your) weight loss and/or GLP-1 use.⭐️ How to handle medically-advised diets without getting…diet-y.⭐️Our favorite leggings (we stand by all these recs!)⭐️Dealing with haters… and more!To hear the full story, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can add on a subscription to Big Undies, Corinne’s newsletter about clothes, for 20% off.Today’s episode is a rerun; we’re bringing you episode 100, which ran in June 2023—such a simpler time! But we had a really valuable conversation about how to talk to kids about body changes, especially if you’re losing weight on Ozempic and we thought it might be a helpful one to revisit now. Plus there is our usual smattering of assorted random Indulgence Gospel topics. And dahlias! Enjoy.PS. This transcript does contain affiliate links; shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast!

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your March Extra Butter.Today we’re talking about Dr. Becky Kennedy, the beloved parenting influencer. We’ll get into:⭐️ The Dr. Becky mantra that Virginia uses…often.⭐️Why you don’t need to cook dinner for your kids at 3pm.⭐️ The infamous “school nurse call” post.⭐️ Is Dr. Becky — and parenting content more broadly— a diet or diet-adjacent?

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your March Indulgence Gospel!Indulgence Gospel episodes are usually only for paid subscribers but we’re releasing this one for free! If you like it, you can get even more Virginia by becoming a paid Burnt Toast subscriber.Today we’re chatting about:⭐️ Navigating fitness spaces designed for smaller bodies!⭐️ Feelings about hair color!⭐️ Do Virginia and Corinne like sports now? 👀⭐️ And what to do when it seems like everyone is on a weight loss drug.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 184 TranscriptVirginiaOkay, I just want to say: We got a lot of clothing-related questions this month, which we’re sending over to the Big Undies space. Not that we’ll never talk about clothes on Burnt Toast! But if you’re someone who’s coming to us for that content, you really need to be reading Big Undies because Corinne is doing the Lord’s work over there.CorinneYep,. I am doing the Lord’s work.VirginiaYou are the most size-inclusive fashion Substack. I’m going to just claim that title for you. I think it’s correct?CorinneI mean, a size-inclusive fashion Substack.VirginiaWell, admittedly, the competition for Most Size-Inclusive is not stiff, since most fashion Substacks are not at all size inclusive. But there are a handful of great ones! You are just my favorite.CorinneYou can always DM or email me your questions!VirginiaCorinne has answered many of my fashion questions. So send more of them to Corinne!Okay, so what’s new? How are you doing?CorinneI’m doing good. Is there something I should talk about other than the weather?VirginiaWell, it’s March, which is my least favorite month of the year weather-wise in New York. So if you have good weather tidings, you can bring them to us. Because I don’t.CorinneWe have had a few unseasonably warm days, I’m talking low 70s, and the bulbs are starting to come up.VirginiaI’m jealous of everybody else’s spring. I live in a very cold part of the world and it will not be spring for many, many more weeks. But that’s nice for you.CorinneYes. Shall we get to the questions? I’ll read the first one.I turned 49 in January. My hair is brown, ash blonde and going silver along the hairline. I have a hair stylist who loves to do color and is very good at it. I’ve been thinking about doing color or streaks as a way to mark this fifth decade. But what color? In my dreams, it’s sparkling gold, but I’m not actually Galadriel. I don’t want anything neon. If you’ve colored your hair, how did you choose which color? Especially if it wasn’t for overall beauty labor reasons, but more as pleasure.VirginiaI love this. I love the idea of dyeing your hair to mark turning 50, specifically dyeing it what sounds like a not found-in-nature color.How many hair colors have you had Corinne?CorinneMainly one. I dyed my hair pink in high school. I think I dyed my hair darker brown in college once, just box dye. I’ve never seen a professional hair colorist. But I have been thinking a lot about this because, you know, I recently got my colors done.VirginiaOh, that’s right! We are going to have a whole episode about getting your colors done, people! The early teaser for that is that I’m still waiting for my results. But yes, so you got your colors done. And did it make you rethink your hair color?CorinneWell, yes, and no. I think a lot of people use that framework for choosing hair color when dyeing their hair. So that is one way to think about it. And I did sort of have the question, like: Well, if gray isn’t one of my colors, and my hair is starting to go gray, what does that mean? Should I think about coloring it?VirginiaBut wouldn’t your hair naturally go the right gray for you?CorinneI mean, I think there are different interpretations.VirginiaIs there a right gray? Maybe you have no grays in your approved colors.CorinneI’m a true spring so I think I would want like a lighter gray? I don’t know.VirginiaMore of like a blonde gray ? There’s so much to discuss on this whole colors thing, because I am something of a skeptic. I started as a devotee, now I’m a skeptic. So stay tuned for the colors episode. But I could see it being both helpful and stressful when it comes to thinking about hair color.I have never had fun colored hair. I have a child with blue hair, so I do know quite a lot about the maintenance involved in living with fun color hair, and it’s a part time job of mine to maintain that. But I’ve never had it for myself. I had a brief blonde period in college—if I can find photographic evidence, I will consider revealing that to the world. You can see the color of my eyebrows. They are dark, dark brown, so it was very like 90’s Tori Spelling. It was not a natural state for me.So that was a mistake. And then I stayed my natural color, which is dark brown, all through my 20’s and 30’s. But sometime after I had my second child, my hair stylist—who is one of the most important long-term relationships of my life, she’s been cutting my hair since I was maybe 29—slowly nudged me over into color, and now I do get my hair colored, and it’s a mix of a base color and highlights. I don’t really understand what happens, I just let her do what she wants because I trust her implicitly with my head. And I like not having to make decisions about it, and that it always looks good.But it is a point of reckoning, because I don’t actually care about the beauty labor piece. Like, I don’t actually care about covering my grays, but she is covering my grays most of the time anyway.CorinneSo how do you know you don’t care about it?VirginiaBecause when they grow back in, I’m like, “Oh, hey, that’s fun. Gray hairs!" When I’m in between, you know? I’m not, like, I want to cover the grays. That’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I like going to see her and hanging out with my friend, and I enjoy what it looks like when she’s done. Like, it is pleasure. And it’s pleasure that upholds a beauty standard, so I feel complicated about it.But the way I choose the color is I just go to the salon and I trust the person who knows very well what to do. And it sounds like this reader, this listener, has someone in their life who does that. So I think I would start there! Go to your hair stylist and be like, “Okay, let’s do something fun.” And I feel like she’s going to blow your mind.CorinneI agree. And I also think I wouldn’t let not being Galadriel stop you from getting or wanting sparkling gold hair.VirginiaI think it could be pretty sparkling! Hair color technology has come a really long way. If you’re doing salon color, they can do quite a lot, especially if you have some silver you’ve already got some bleached parts. I think it could be pretty awesome.CorinneJust based on your description, brown ash blonde, going silver, sounds like a good match for sparkling gold.VirginiaIf you do it, please send us pictures! We would love to see this.Okay, next question:Even though I’ve been in the anti-diet space for years, once in a while, I think maybe I should just try Zepbound and see what happens. Has anyone else been pulled into these thoughts?Corinne“See what happens.” What are we talking about here?VirginiaWe’re talking about weight loss. We’re talking about seeing how much weight loss will happen.CorinneOne good thing to remember about these drugs is that they do cause weight loss in most people, but they don’t cause weight loss in everyone. And, if you ever want to stop taking them, you will likely regain the weight.So I think the question is: Do you want to go on this drug, see how much weight you can lose, then go off it and regain the weight? Is that a net positive?VirginiaThat’s a really useful framing. Because what you’re essentially saying is: Do you want to go back on a diet? It’s not that different from what I presume most of us have done with intentional weight loss in the past. It’s just a different delivery vehicle. You want to try the drug approach versus the diet approach now. Or a lot of people end up doing both, whatever.I think all of us have had these thoughts, right? It’s hard. The drugs are everywhere. People are talking about them constantly. We’re human. Of course there are moments where I’m like, “Am I going to be the last fat mom in the Hudson Valley?”CorinneOh God!I do just want to also make the point now though, that a lot of people also go on these drugs, lose a lot of weight, and are still fat.VirginiaThank you for saying that. Excellent note. Or don’t even lose that much weight. Not everybody responds the same way. That’s the thing.So you can have the thought. There’s nothing wrong with having the thought. But it’s important to put the thought into the context of what’s actually happening with these drugs. Which is the same thing that always happens with dieting. Yes, some people are losing weight on it for some unspecified amount of time. And not everybody is losing dramatic amounts. It’s just dieting. So yes, we’re constantly tempted to reconsider an anti-diet stance because we live in a culture that’s constantly telling us to.CorinneTotally. I do think within the anti-diet space, we’ve become so anti-these drugs that I can sort of understand being like, “What if I just tried it,” you know? And I think if you want to try it, that’s fine. But I do think it’s good to just have a reality check of what that’s actually going to look like.VirginiaBe realistic about where you’re going with it.CorinneYou could even just start by looking into how much it might cost.VirginiaOh, yeah. That might clarify some choices.CorinneYeah. It might be like, well, if I can get it for free, sure, I’ll try it. But if I have to pay $2,000 a month, no thank you.VirginiaIf it’s a second mortgage payment.Yeah, and how do I feel about chronic nausea? I was thinking about this because I just had food poisoning at the end of my vacation, and we won’t talk about it because Corinne is very triggered by discussions of food poisoning and specifically airplane-adjacent vomiting.But when it happened I was like, people are signing up to feel this way? It feels so awful feeling nauseous! It’s an awful feeling. If you’re on the drugs and you don’t feel nauseous—I get it, not everybody does. But that’s the most common side effect. And to voluntarily be like, “Let me do something where I’m going to walk around feeling nauseous.” I’m like, I have been pregnant twice. I have had stomach bugs. I could be retired from that feeling, thank you.CorinneI think nausea is one of the worst feelings in the world. And, I can understand the calculus between, would I trade feeling nauseous to experience less fatphobia? Like, that’s real. There’s a lot to think about.VirginiaI think we’re saying it makes sense you’re pulled into these thoughts. We’re offering some larger context in which to put the thoughts. We support you doing whatever you want to do, but that’s the calculus we’re landing on. We get the thoughts, and then we put it in the larger context and we move on in our fat lives. But your mileage may vary, and that’s fair. You’re still welcome here.CorinneGood luck!Alright, here’s the next question.I would love to hear a discussion on the ways movement spaces are geared towards smaller bodies, even in subtle ways—because it pisses me off, and I can’t be alone in this! For instance, I enjoy a morning spin class with a friend of mine, and when the gym got new bikes, the new models moved the lever to adjust intensity to the front/middle. Now, as a fat person, my stomach bumps the dang thing and resets it throughout my workout. Clearly, bigger bodied people were not considered when creating this piece of exercise equipment. Not shocking, but super frustrating! Keep your anti-fatness out of my delightful morning spin.VirginiaI’m so annoyed about this.CorinneYeah, that’s horrible.VirginiaOt’s so dumb. I hope you’ve complained to the gym, because they should know they bought equipment that does not serve their clients. That’s irritating.CorinneYou should definitely complain to the gym and possibly also the company that manufactures the bikes.VirginiaIt’s just rude. I mean, my solution to this is that I don’t work out in mainstream fitness spaces. I work out in my home where it is sized to me. Because I find this constantly maddening.And I think it is subtle stuff. It’s the equipment, it’s the physical built space, and it’s also the felt experience of being the fat person in a space that is oriented around thinness. I just don’t like putting myself into it.So that’s not very helpful. I’ve spent a bunch of money on weights for my house, and I have space to use them. But that’s not everybody.CorinneThis question was interesting to me, because I actually feel like I don’t encounter this a lot at my gym.VirginiaSay more.CorinneI feel like a lot of the equipment at my gym is designed to hold really heavy weights, because people are lifting really heavy weights. And a lot of the equipment is extremely adjustable. There are two bikes at my gym—they’re what are called assault bikes. Is that the real name? You pump your arms and pedal your feet. But the seat moves up and down, and it moves forward and back. So you can really kind of adjust it. When one arm is pulled all the way back, sometimes I do hit my belly, but it’s fine.VirginiaI am googling an assault bike. We’ll put a visual for people like me who have not heard of this. I just have to say, there’s just no end to fitness equipment that looks like torture devices. And why do they keep inventing these things?CorinneIt’s literally just a bike with with arm pedals. One thing I really like about it is the front is, I guess it’s like a flywheel or something? So it blows air on you. It’s cooling.VirginiaOh, that’s nice. Why does that have such an aggressive name, though?CorinneI do not know. That’s why I was like, is that the real name? I’m not sure.VirginiaWhy can’t it be called the breezy bike?CorinneOkay, I don’t know.But my other thought about this was, I was recalling that I encountered this a lot in yoga studios where you would get a strap and sometimes it wouldn’t be long enough. If there was a place I was going all the time, I would know which strap I had to get.VirginiaAnd yoga mats are not cut for everybody, they can be too skinny.CorinneYeah, not wide enough or not long enough.VirginiaAnd depending on the number of people they’re trying to cram into the class if you go into a popular yoga studio, you can feel really cramped. The space my body will need to move comfortably here is not available. I hate that.It makes sense that a sport like powerlifting would be better on this since lots of different body sizes powerlift and you’re lifting heavier weights. And I think there’s more inclusivity in terms of the size of athlete it attracts. Whereas something like spin or yoga, which are thin lady sports, are going to be really annoying on this front. Which is not to say you have to be a powerlifter, but I think if you love a sport that really emphasizes thinness or has a thin ideal, you’re going to have to advocate more.CorinneI am also curious: Are you sure the bike doesn’t adjust at all? But maybe it doesn’t adjust in a helpful way.VirginiaI’m kind of guessing maybe this person has already explored that.CorinneI will say I experienced this a lot in other spaces. Anywhere else that has seats. Bathrooms sometimes. Why is the toilet paper blocking where I need to sit.VirginiaBathroom stalls are so narrow. That’s really real. Oh, I will link Dr. Rachel Millner, who is a wonderful eating disorder therapist and fat activist. She has been posting a lot of content on Instagram—she’s on a mission to become a fat Peloton instructor. She’s posted a lot of great content talking about adjustments you can make riding your Peloton bike, and how to do that as a fat person more comfortably. So we can link to that. Rachel is amazing.I just think this speaks to the lack of inclusivity. Like, Peloton still has only ever had one fat instructor, Ash Pryor, who is a rowing instructor, not a spin instructor. So that’s not great. I mean, she’s great, but the inclusivity is not great there. Peloton fans, you don’t have to email me. I know how much you love your Pelotons. But even brands that nod towards being anti-diet, or even attempt to represent anti-diet are not always fat inclusive. Like, it’s skinny ladies talking about being anti-diet.I mean, this comes up for me even in the workouts I do at home. I mean, I do videos by two women I absolutely adore and have relationships with, so I can offer this feedback. But sometimes I’ll be like, yeah, that twist didn’t work for my belly, you know? There’s just a lot where someone in a smaller body, might suggest a child’s pose where your knees press into your stomach, and as a fat person, you’re like, yeah, that is not my ministry. I’m not going to enjoy that one. And I think the onus is really on the industry, and I think there are people really trying to do better at this, but if they haven’t had that experience they just don’t know if they’re not really making an effort to talk to fat clients about what they need.CorinneI’m sorry this is happening to you. I hope you can get a good solution.VirginiaThis next question is very funny to me. This person wrote:Do you like to watch sports? How did you become a fan? Are you becoming a fan? What’s that like? And what do you wish you were a fan of? Will you never be a fan?CorinneWow, a lot of questions packed right in there.VirginiaOkay, do we like to watch sports? We’ll go one by one. We can both answer it. Do you like to watch sports?CorinneYes.VirginiaOkay. I would say no, until quite recently.CorinneOkay, I will say yes, but I know nothing about them. But I have always enjoyed the Super Bowl, because I really enjoy the Super Bowl snacks. And I think it’s cool to watch people doing athletics.VirginiaI feel about watching sports the same way I feel about exercise, which is that I’m never naturally going to want to do it. But sometimes I end up being glad I did and enjoying it more than I expected?CorinneThat’s fair. I mean, I’m watching it, and I’m like, well, don’t really know what’s going on, but cool to watch.VirginiaSo I have someone in my life who’s a big football fan now. Which means I did watch quite a lot of football this past season. And I don’t understand what they do, and I am concerned about the traumatic brain injury stuff, and I have many feminist critiques of the NFL. And I will also say, it’s fun when they suddenly do run really fast across the field, and you’re like, well that seems impressive. And I enjoy the player backstories. I can be here for the gossip. I know a lot of player backstories now. I don’t understand what’s happening in the game, but I like that part.CorinneDid you become a fan? Are you becoming a fan?VirginiaI don’t want to commit to a position on being a fan. That feels like a big step for me. I mean, I have historically been probably the most anti-sports person you could meet. This is all quite new and disconcerting for me. My dad is a lifelong fan, loves all the sports. My extended family are hardcore football and basketball fans. I grew up just being completely allergic to the whole thing.CorinneWell, this year I’m trying to get into watching the WNBA.VirginiaThis is the other thing we need to talk about. I do feel like women’s sports finally getting a modicum of more attention is helping me quite a lot. I mean, obviously this NFL thing is not a women’s sport. But I feel like Simone Biles helped me understand that maybe I could care about sports a little bit. Certainly, the Williams sisters have done a lot on that front. And then now women’s basketball.CorinneYeah, I will say basketball is fun to watch because it’s really fast and not very long.VirginiaWhich is the opposite of football. That is the slowest game. I did not understand. One minute can be three hours. It’s wild. It makes you question the entire concept of time.My mom is really into women’s basketball, so I feel very basketball adjacent. Even if I’m not watching it, I’m often being informed about it.CorinneYeah, it is really fun to watch. Also fun to learn the gossip backstories. I have been watching, along with the Out of Your League Substack chat, which was has also been fun.VirginiaI mean, Frankie de la Cretaz makes sports very fun. I read Frankie—and of course, we can link to Frankie’s interview on Burnt Toast—even though I am not following any sport closely enough. They always make me laugh and also blow my mind.CorinneTotally. So I think we’re both getting more into watching sports.VirginiaAnd some of us feel complicated about it? Some of us might have to write a think piece about it at some point?CorinnePlease write a think piece. And I’m curious what other Burnt Toasties are watching or not watching!VirginiaI will say, after I wrote about the Super Bowl, I realized we do have some die hard football fans, because those were people who got cranky with me about that Super Bowl piece.In some cases, rightfully so, but also just don’t mess with sports fans. It’s exhausting. They feel so strongly and so deeply. And it’s like, You do realize this is all made up? Some people are on a field with a ball and nothing changes in the world? Sorry sports fans. I support you. I see you. But your fervor is sometimes absurd to me. I mean, it’s like Taylor Swift fans.CorinneI was just going to say that. Yes, Swifties.VirginiaThe sports fans and Swifties and all of the fandoms. People feel this strongly. It’s understandable. Want to read the last question?CorinneYes. The next question is:This question is both late and like THE question right now, to the point that it can feel trite. But also, I’m desperate to hear people’s ongoing thoughts and ideas around how to stay sane in this onslaught of terribleness. Not hoping for any big solutions—though, absolutely welcome if you have any, maybe just one or two things you guys are finding helpful right now.VirginiaI mean, just to put into context, we are recording this on February 26. You’re going to hear it in early March. So the terribleness this week is the Republicans just absolutely gutting Medicaid yesterday in their budget vote. The federal government layoffs continuing apace, and oh also, now suddenly we’re blaming Ukraine for the war with Russia. Like, yeah, cool, cool. So the terribleness is intense, and obviously by the time this episode airs, there will be 50 million new terrible things, and what I just said will be completely out of date.So I’m just situating us in this moment of terribleness before we give our answers here.CorinneYep. What are we doing?VirginiaI would say the number one thing I am doing that is helping me is calling my reps. You taught me about this last year when we were advocating for ceasefire in Gaza— just use the five calls app.I think people know about the five calls app, but if you’re like me, you might have downloaded it and not used it yet or for a while. Because I definitely did that for a while after you first told me about it, where I was like, yeah, I’m going to use it, but it’s scary. It’s scary. I don’t want to make the calls! It’s scary! I’ll just have it on my phone for a while.And then I did finally do the first Gaza call. I was like, okay. And now I’ve re-upped using five calls, and I don’t manage to call every day, but I definitely try to call like, three or so times a week is kind of my baseline. I have it on my to-do list every day. It always only takes three minutes. There was one scary time where I had to talk to a person, but mostly I’m leaving voicemails. You can call after hours if you would prefer to just leave voicemails. And it does make me feel like, okay, I am doing the one thing that we as constituents can do right now. I am using my voice to inform my representatives of my disgust and tell them what I want them to be doing.And it’s helping me focus in a little bit. I knew that budget vote was the big thing happening this week, because the app will be like, vote on this day is happening now. So you can kind of be like, “This is the fire I’m actually going to pay attention to,” because there are so many things on fire all the time now, and it’s overwhelming. But like, okay, I’m tackling this one.Like, when RFK was going to be confirmed, I was like, I am calling about RFK this week. I can do this one thing. So that is really a game changer for me. It makes me feel informed, and also then like I can step away the rest of the day a little bit and preserve my own sanity, because I did the one thing.CorinneIt just feels a little bit less like shouting into a void. I feel like there’s so much posting on social media, and not that that has no value, but it’s like, what value does it have? I don’t know. I would just rather make one phone call than post like five Instagram stories about whatever.VirginiaI mean, we’re so polarized. It’s very unlikely that anything I post on my Instagram Stories is being seen by people, A with the power to do anything, or B who don’t already agree with me. So the performative nature of that was getting really old to me. I mean, it’s sometimes informative. There are sometimes things I hear about on social media before I read about it in the news. And that’s valuable. But it feels otherwise, just like a waste of energy. And so making the calls is like, okay, I used my voice in the most productive way I can.CorinneYeah. The other thing I want to recommend on that front is the Substack Chop Wood, Carry Water. Do you follow that one? It’s a daily political action email. So every day they give you a thing to do, and I think a lot of it is kind of focused on Democrats and its more national electoral politics focused, but if that’s your thing, I do think it’s helpful.VirginiaOkay, I love that.This is related to what we just talked about with doing a little less on social media. But ever since I did my Instagram break over the holidays—we’re now in March, almost March, as we’re recording this, and I have continued. I still go on Instagram, but only when I’m going to post, and then I delete the app. I’m not using it for doomscrolling anymore. And I think that is really, really helping.Like, it hasn’t been perfect. I had random insomnia one night, and I was like, well, fuck it. I’m going to download it and stare at Instagram till my eyes burn. But for the most part, I’m much less on it. And there has been absolutely no downside.CorinneWow, I gotta do that.VirginiaIt just really feels great. Don’t miss it at all. I don’t know that I’m going to quit it completely because, for business purposes, whatever, whatever. And I haven’t added Bluesky, I haven’t added any new replacement social media. I’m just on Substack, which doesn’t feel like social media to me in quite the same way. I think it’s just giving me a little bit of space. So I think finding space is important.CorinneOne thing that’s completely unrelated, but, one of my friends sent me a care package the other day, and it was so nice. And now one thing I want to do to distract myself from the terribleness is send people care packages so I’m going to endorse that as a large-scale solution for everyone.VirginiaEven if you can’t send a care package, maybe you can send a card? I do think, like, time with our people. Everyone’s been saying this, but I do really feel that.Another thing that we’re doing locally in my house is Friend Friday. My seven-year-old named it. Where on Friday nights when I have the kids, we invite some friends over for takeout and all the kids play or watch a movie. It’s not revolutionary. I was actually doing it for a long time before we named it, but I’ve now told a group of friends that it’s a standing invite.I’ll send the text to remind but standing invite if you want to come over this Friday and then if you don’t make it, you can come to another Friday. Because I have them two Fridays a month, and that’s making me feel like I’m continuing to invest in my local people in a way that feels good.CorinneYeah, I have a standing dinner date with some friends once a week, and it’s so nice.VirginiaOh, that’s beautiful. Do you go out?CorinneNo, we rotate whose house it’s at. So someone cooks, but then it’s like, if you’re doing it with three other people, you basically only have to cook once a month for four people.VirginiaRight.CorinneIt’s really nice.VirginiaI want more things like that in my life. More like we have these touch points of when we’ll see people and just having those breaks. And I mean, you know, as someone who does long solo parenting stretches, I really need the adult time to pace myself with that. And it really helps, and it makes my kids happy, and I feel like it’s making my kids have a sense of us as part of a larger community. And you know, that feels really useful right now.We had more helpful advice for that one than I thought. I thought we were just going to be depressed and have nothing and just be sad. But, yeah, we’re doing what we can. We’re chipping away at it. I guess.CorinneWe’re trying, for sure.VirginiaWe’re trying. I’m trying.ButterCorinneWell, speaking of staying sane, what’s your Butter this week?VirginiaMy Butter this week is going to be meatballs. I’ve been on a meatball kick because I regularly cook for one vegetarian pasta lover, but I love pasta sauces with meat in it. And then I have another child who doesn’t like any kind of tomato sauce. And I realized that making a batch of meatballs and keeping them separate from the sauce to spare the vegetarian means that the child who doesn’t like tomato sauce will eat the meatballs because they are not tainted by the sauce. So you see, you see what my life is?But I then get to eat pasta with meatballs one night, which I love, and then I have a bunch of leftover meatballs for the week.A recent spaghetti and meatballs night, with separate components. (And Julia Turshen’s Italian Salad!)And today for lunch right before we got on to record, I’d made some lamb meatballs. They were really good, and I’d throw them in with a cup of Minute Rice, and then I had some leftover salad that didn’t have any dressing on it, that I just added, and then, dumped a bunch of creamy dressing all over the top of the whole thing. And it was such a good lunch.CorinneThat sounds delicious!VirginiaHaving those meatballs made in my fridge made lunch come together in a very useful way. So yeah, Sunday meatballs! That’s my Butter.CorinneWow, more meatballs. My Butter is probably one of those things everyone already knows about, but I’ve been watching Severance.VirginiaOh, I need to start the new season.CorinneYeah, I needed to go back and re-watch the first season, because I started watching season two, and I was like, I remember nothing. But it’s great. I’m really enjoying it. Also just want to shout out that there’s a tiny bit of fat rep. The character Dylan on Severance is a fat man, and he does some really important things. Hopefully he continues to be a good character in season two. But yeah, I’m really enjoying the show, and just wanted to shout out that there’s a fat person without, at least so far, a weight loss storyline.VirginiaWe love it. We love to see it. I’m excited to get into that. I also need to re watch season one, and then I want to do White Lotus too. So I’m like, oh, that’s two stressful shows. I gotta pick which stressful show I’m going to watch, because I can only handle so much. But they’re both on my list.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

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