The Burnt Toast Podcast

Virginia Sole-Smith

Burnt Toast is your body liberation community. We're working to dismantle diet culture and anti-fat bias, and we have a lot of strong opinions about comfy pants. Co-hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (NYT-bestselling author of FAT TALK) and Corinne Fay (author of the popular plus size fashion newsletter Big Undies).

  1. When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder

    6D AGO

    When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder

    You're listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today my conversation is with Dr. Lauren Muhlheim. Lauren is a psychologist, a fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, a certified eating disorder specialist and approved consultant for the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. She's also a Certified Body Trust Provider and directs Eating Disorder Therapy LA, a group practice in Los Angeles. Lauren is the author of When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder and a co-author of the brand new The Weight-Inclusive CBT Workbook for Eating Disorders. Lauren joined me to chat about how she and her colleagues have been working to make eating disorder treatment less fatphobic, because, yes, that really needed to happen. We also get into why it's feeling harder than ever to treat eating disorders, or live with one, in this era of RFK, Jr., MAHA and GLP-1s. Plus what to do if your child is hiding food, lying or otherwise showing signs of developing an eating disorder. When do you intervene? And how do you do so in the most supportive way possible? If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscriiption is the best way to support our work! Join Burnt Toast 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 Episode 231 Transcript Virginia I am really delighted. We have been, I guess I would say, colleagues in this space, or comrades in this space, for a long time. Lauren Comrades, for sure.  Virginia I've interviewed you for articles over the years. We're both in the fat activism world in various ways. You're someone I learn so much from. I'm very excited to have you here today. We are going to talk about your new workbook that comes out this month, called The Weight-Inclusive CBT Workbook for Eating Disorders. Do you want to give us a little background on how this workbook came to be? Then we're going to dive into my list of questions. Lauren I should introduce CBT for eating disorders. CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy for eating disorders, which is one of the leading treatments. I was trained in it back in the 1990s by one of the two main researchers who's credited with developing the treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy looks at what's maintaining a problem in the present. It looks at the relationship between thoughts, behaviors and feelings, and helps to sort out ways to solve problematic behaviors related to eating.  Fast forward to present day, we've learned a lot more about eating disorders than back in the '90s when I was trained in the model. When I was trained, it was very weight-centric, focused on primarily low weight and "normal weight." You know, thin-ish white women, and that's who was largely studied.  But now we know so much more - that eating disorders affect all people, all genders, all ethnicities and all body sizes. As I've evolved as a clinician over the last 20 years, I've really become influenced by the weight inclusive movement, Health At Every Size and listening to people with lived experience who have experienced harm from traditional weight-centric treatments.  So I have evolved. And in my mind I had modified what I was doing, and when I went back to look at the manuals, I was horrified to remember what was still in there that was really weight-centric. This has been a passion project for the last eight years. I've collaborated and talked to different people about it. I ultimately teamed up with two colleagues who were as passionate as I am, and we came up with the idea of modifying CBT to be weight inclusive. We coined CBTWI to be weight inclusive, and we took the 30 year old manuals and updated them to be relevant to today and to speak to people in all size bodies. A lot of people come to us in bigger bodies and the old manuals were so harmful. You know, focusing on about being the right weight and other elements that were just not conducive to people in larger bodies when they go through this work. Virginia Can you give a specific example? For folks who've never been in eating disorder treatment, or just don't know the world well, it's like, 'What do you mean eating disorder treatments are not weight inclusive? Isn't that where you go to feel better about your body?' Give an example of what CBT used to do that was harmful, and how you've updated it. Lauren When I was trained in CBT, I always thought it was a non-diet approach, because the focus is on regular eating and including all foods. So the center of the model is still good. But some of the fatphobic elements that were in the original treatment were - one was this insistence on regular weekly weighing and the client knowing their weight. And that if the therapist refused to weigh the client weekly, it was the therapist's own anxiety and avoidance of tolerating the client's distress over being weighed. But if you're in a bigger body, being weighed is more than just exposure. It can be traumatic.  Virginia Yeah.  Lauren We don't need to put people through that, where every week they see their weight. So that's one of the first things that we eliminated.  The other thing, there's behavioral experiments with a focus on challenging what they call the broken cognition. The broken cognition is this belief, and again, this was developed on primarily thin, white women who had the belief that if 'I eat a cupcake, I'll gain five pounds.' The behavioral experiment was to have them eat a cupcake, weigh them before and weigh them the following week, and prove that they didn't gain five pounds, but that's also hugely fatphobic. Because you're trying to prove to people that it's all in their heads, that weight stigma is not a thing. Virginia Well, and you're saying, 'Look, the scary, terrible thing didn't happen.' Lauren Which reinforces that that's the scariest thing. Virginia Even what you're saying, weighing folks in bigger bodies can be traumatic, not because inherently it's bad to be in a bigger body, but because if you're in a bigger body and you've been weighed in medical settings, you've had that number weaponized against you for so long. That's the trauma you're alluding to.  Lauren Yes, exactly. Virginia I see, so it was a lot of methodology around weight numbers meant to reassure thin women that 'Don't worry, you won't get fat.' Lauren Exactly. Virginia Which really leaves out any fat person with an eating disorder, and doesn't really do the thin women any favors either. Lauren Right. Because it just reinforces this fear that weight gain is the worst thing that could happen to somebody. Virginia That's fascinating. It sounds like a lot of very much needed updates and a really terrific resource for folks. I saw in the back of the workbook under Resources, you listed Burnt Toast as one of the newsletters with an online community dialogue. It means a lot to have us spotlighted in this way. We do work hard to have our chat rooms and safe spaces in the comment section for folks coming for support. You also listed a lot of folks that we love and look to as leaders in this space: Christy Harrison, Ragen Chastain, Rachel Milner, Sabrina Strings, Bree Campos, Chrissy King, etc. How do you think about the importance of community in the work you do with your clients as you've been reframing CBT in this way? Lauren We are big fans of yours and all the people you've named, and it was really important to us because here we are, three white women with privilege doing the updating of CBT and we wanted to take it further.  It was really important to us that we learned from people with more marginalized identities. We negotiated with our editor to have sensitivity readers and we had people advising us on some of the things that we might not have been as aware of, like food insecurity, gender considerations, and the experience of people in larger bodies. As references, we tried to include some of the thought leaders that we've really learned from.  Community is super important in this work because we're asking people to go against the grain of society. Many of the people that come to us for help with eating disorders are people in larger bodies who have been told by medical doctors and people in their lives to lose weight. And then they come to us and we say, 'Well, you're not eating enough.' And they think we're kind of crazy to say that.  It really helps when you're asking people to do this work, which is so hard, to have other people in their lives who are supporting this. Many people don't have people in their personal lives who are anti-diet. Where do you find those people? A lot of it is online and in podcasts. I always tell people it helps, even if it's you and me and the person listening to the podcast. They're hearing the interviewer and the guest and there's two other people who are in this world with you.  Virginia That's right. Lauren It helps a lot. And I do think that is the missing piece for people in bigger bodies who experience disordered eating - they don't have the support. Virginia Especially right now. We're in a really dark cultural moment. You know, just like a swirling vortex of badness in a lot of ways. So it feels even harder, because what the federal government is telling us, what we're seeing in the news, etc, etc, is also running counter to what will actually promote healing.  To that end, I'd love if we could talk a little bit about how you're thinking about your work in this dark time. We just had RFK’s latest USDA dietary guidelines come out. Lauren, how are you feeling about the new food pyramid? Lauren Sadly, I feel like I am not going to be able to retire anytime soon. The culture just propagates and perpetuates disordered eating in so many ways. Obviously eating is so much more individualized than just following a guideline, but what I can say is that I have never seen a person with binge eating who was not restricting their carbs.  Virginia That’s really interesting. Lauren Carbs are basically the building blocks of what we ea

    33 min
  2. The Pets + Gay Hockey Episode

    JAN 29

    The Pets + Gay Hockey Episode

    We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for a BONUS January Indulgence Gospel!This episode is free for everyone. If you enjoy it, consider a paid subscription to Burnt Toast! It's the best way to support our work and keep this an ad- and sponsor-free space. You'll also get behind some of our most popular paywalled episodes like: 🧈 Why is Katie Sturino Working for Weight Watchers? 🧈Don't Go On the Pete Wells Diet 🧈The Mel Robbins Cult of High Fives And more! (Find every Indulgence Gospel episode here.) Never miss another episode! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 This episode may contain affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast! Episode 230 TranscriptVirginia So today we are just catching you up on some general January news. These are things that are happening in our lives and the world. And then we're going to answer a few listener questions.  Corinne This is kind of my favorite type of episode,  Virginia Same. Do you want to go first? Do you have an update for us? Some news?  Corinne One thing that I've been dying to ask you, and I've kind of been holding back on is... have you watched Heated Rivalry.  Virginia I haven't watched it.  Corinne Okay, but do you know what I'm talking about? Virginia Well, I'm just going to Google it real quick. Corinne Oh, my God. No! Don't even Google it. This is what you need to do this weekend. Wait, do you have a kid-free weekend because it's not kid-friendly. Virginia Oh come on, it’s a sports thing!  Corinne There is so little sports. Let me just tell you. Virginia Okay... Corinne If you're watching it for the sports, you will be disappointed. There' is no sports, okay? No sports. Basically, if the camera was one inch lower, it would be porn.  Virginia Oh! Okay. Corinne It's based on, like, gay romance novels. Virginia Ohhhhh it's the gay hockey players! Yes, alright. Watching. I am kid-free and I will be doing that this weekend. Corinne And I think Jack will like it as well. So I recommend you watch it together.  Virginia Obviously. Corinne It's very horny. Whoa. And I will say: I watched like, half of the first episode, and I was like, I don't think this is for me. And then it was, like, popping off on the Internet. So I was like, all right, I gotta give it another try. And now I'm, like, obsessed with Connor Storrie. Virginia So okay, is it like you're watching it because it's so absurd? Or are you invested in the characters?  Corinne I'm invested.  Virginia You're invested. Corinne It's just like a romance novel. They're both different kinds of sports tropes. One of them's kind of like a tough guy from Russia, and the other one's a little softie Canadian. It's very sweet. And I think that the actors have a lot of chemistry.  And you see their butts a lot. Virginia Well, I'm in. We'll watch this this weekend. I mean, I have read many a hockey player romance novel. Some of them were gay.   Corinne Then you've probably read the novels. Virginia I may have read the novels. Although I don't like hockey, I have to say, I'm never going to be a pick me girl for hockey. It's a confusing sport to me.  Corinne There's like, basically no hockey. Having watched the whole thing I can tell you nothing about hockey. Virginia  You have learned nothing. Corinne  There's like, cup that you can win? That's all I know. Virginia Oh yes. Wait. I want to call it a Stanley Cup? But isn't that the water bottles? Or is there also a hockey Stanley Cup? Corinne I don't know, Virginia and I don't care. Gay hockey forever. Virginia Delightful. This is an amazing update. We are actually watching the second season of Bad Sisters right now, on your recommendation. So we do have to finish that up. I didn't think that it could pull off a good second season, but they really are delivering. And then in my parenting life, I'm continuing to work through Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my 12 year old. It's a delight. I really do feel like you maybe need to consider a Buffy watch at some point. Corinne Next time I have 47 hours unscheduled weeks. Virginia I mean, you can chip away at it too. It's on Disney Plus! Oh wait, you probably don't have Disney Plus. Corinne My bad.  Virginia No that's fair. Well, it's been very fun we're in season four now for the Buffy fans in the audience. And it's going to start getting a little more violent. I'll have to feel it out. But I think we're, at the point of no return. That's a good TV update. Have you been reading anything good? I read a book that I think you liked, and I don't think I liked it. But I think I'm in the minority.  Corinne Which book? Virginia Heart The Lover by Lily King. Corinne Oh, my God, you didn't like it?! Virginia No. What am I missing?  Corinne What didn't you like?  Virginia I felt like they were all so annoying and pretentious. Is it because I was an English major, so I don't like English majors? We're just pretty annoying, with all the literary references. Okay, we get it. You are boys who read books. I was just like, why would you sleep with either one of them? I don't get it. Corinne Oh, fascinating. I mean, I was just sobbing for the entire second half. Virginia It does get sad in the second half, but I didn't like him, so I didn't care? Corinne You weren't invested. Virginia And it's not hard to get me invested in a health journey of any sort! I'm not going to spoil it for anyone, but—okay, spoiler alert! We're going to talk about it with spoilers, so that we can really get into it. If you didn't read that book, you'll want to skip ahead about a minute and a half.  🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 SCROLL TO NEXT SET OF BUTTER EMOJIS TO AVOID SPOILERS! Okay, I thought it was real weird that she gave a kid up for adoption, and then was just like, "But I know she's fine. It's fine. It's all fine." And yet she was so worried about the kid she did have who had health issues. I mean, of course she was worried about him— but she had just mentally been like, that one's fine. I picked good people. They had a nice photo. So I know she's having a great childhood. That was really weird to me.  Corinne I mean, I felt like that seemed like the decision of a young, stressed out person, Virginia Yeah, maybe. And how she keeps talking about it is meant to be a trauma response? Corinne It was a questionable young person decision. Virginia Yes, definitely. But it felt weird that she would never reflect further upon it as she got into her own motherhood. I'm not saying she was wrong to give the baby up for her adoption. I also think abortion exists, and that would have made sense. But I'm not saying she should have kept the child. I just thought, don't you think you would have gotten any more nuanced in your feelings about it as the years went on? Corinne The book is her getting more nuanced about it. Right? Virginia Not really! Not about the baby. She's like, Yeah, she's fine. I mean, she finally tells him about it, but. Corinne I don't know. I think she was kind of in denial about it, or just avoiding it, and then the book is her coming to terms with it.  🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 END OF SPOILERS Virginia Well, I just felt like everyone was pretentious and unlikable. And it feels like everyone loves this book so much, and I don't know what I missed.  Corinne Have you read her other books?  Virginia No, this was my first Lily King,  Corinne Okay, because there's also, like a connection to one of the other books.  Virginia Well, I'm not going to read it because I didn't like any of these people. But Corinne loved it, guys, so if you love it, if you've read it, let us know in the comments! I was just surprised. This is the first time I've ever not liked one of your book recs. Corinne I am a little surprised, but I think maybe I'm primed to like those college, academic group of kids books. That's a genre I really like. Virginia  I think it's a genre I don't like. I think I actively dislike reading about people in college. Corinne Yeah, it's interesting, because I'm not like, looking back fondly on my own experience at that time. Yeah. I think I just like, enjoy the dynamics. Did you read A Secret History?  Virginia No,  Corinne I love that book. So I feel like, this was maybe tapping into that. Virginia I think I just think academia is very pretentious? Corinne Isn't one of your parents a professor?  Virginia Yes I was raised by professors.  Corinne So maybe there's something there.  Virginia Three out of four of my parents have worked as professors. So yes. I grew up in academia. Corinne Okay, well, none of mine have. Virginia Well, I am now reading The Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. It's about this woman, who's sort of lost  in her life and moves into a convent. And I keep thinking "Corinne would really like this book."  Corinne It does sound good to me.  Virginia I don't know if I like it, but I do think you would really like it. Usually I'm a big do not finisher if I don't like a book. And I will say Heart The Lover was a snappy read. So I kept going. Because I was like, well, Corinne loved this book, so I'll keep reading to find out when I'll love it. And that was never, but it was a fast read, and this one is too. I'm moving through it quickly, but I think I do need to really root for the characters. Corinne That's funny. I have a conversation like this a lot with my mom, because she doesn't like books where the characters are too flawed. We always say it like, if she doesn't like them, she, doesn't want to read it. Virginia I am okay with flawed, but they have to be flawed and likable. Corinne They have to have redeeming qualities, Virginia And maybe some awareness of their flawedness in a interesting way?. I don't know. I don

    40 min
  3. [PREVIEW] A White Man Thought He was Fat and Quit His Job.

    JAN 22

    [PREVIEW] A White Man Thought He was Fat and Quit His Job.

    We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your January Indulgence Gospel! Today we are talking about former restaurant critic turned diet crusader Pete Wells—and why the New York Times always spends January turning into a women's magazine from hell. CW for discussions of intentional weight loss and lazy fat jokes (from Pete), including some that are offensive to both humans and bassett hounds. You do need to be a paid Just Toast subscriber to listen to this full conversation. Membership starts at just $5 per month! Join Just Toast!Don't want an ongoing commitment? Click "buy for $4!" to listen to just this one. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 This episode may contain affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast! Episode 229 TranscriptCorinne Ugh. That's all I can muster. Virginia And it's not a new ugh. They do this every January, guys. We have to emotionally prepare ourselves—those of us who still have an admittedly increasingly problematic subscription to The New York Times—we have to emotionally prepare ourselves that every January they become like Cosmo from 2004, and do this ridiculous weight loss challenge bullshit. And it's so odd and misaligned with actual journalism.  OK, so dd you see the piece that came out like two days ago? Corinne “Our Former Restaurant Critic Changed His Eating Habits, You Can, Too?" Virginia The before and after journey of Pete Wells. Corinne I sure did see it. I mean, my first thought was... the food looks good.  Virginia Food does look good.  Corinne I might be making some of these recipes. And guess what? I'll still be fat. Virginia Virginia comes in hot and angry. Corinne...angry, but also willing to make a delicious chickpea dish? Corinne I'm definitely going to eat this. But don't get me wrong, also very angry. Virginia One of the listeners said in the chat today, Why does New York Times Cooking do this to me? They have good recipes and then they have to,take this weird turn. Like, just make good recipes. That's what you do. That's what we pay for. We just want the pretty food pictures and the useful recipes. We don't want this. We don't need this.  Corinne Articles like this are literally putting people off the recipes. Virginia Before we talk about the current "Reset Your Appetite" challenge, and the way he's talking about his story now, we'll just quickly back up for people who blessedly missed this whole thing.  Pete Wells is a former restaurant critic for the New York Times. And last July he wrote a piece titled, "After 12 years of Reviewing Restaurants, I'm Leaving the Table." It was all about how the job had made him fat, and so he couldn't be a restaurant critic anymore because he felt bad about being fat. Wells talked a lot about his own health issues, too. He said, “my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I expected. The terms pre diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around.”  And sure, that is all upsetting, and a lot to deal with. But he blamed it all on his weight and then made all these really lazy fat jokes. He wrote, “I've decided to bow out as gracefully as my state of technical obesity will allow.” Which just, why? Why do you need to frame it like that? Fat people are graceful. Fuck you. There's no need for talking about bodies in such a gross way. Even though he's making a joke about himself, which I'm sure makes him think it's okay. Corinne I mean, I hate it. It makes me feel really weird. Virginia It is really weird. It's like we're watching one man's midlife crisis just unfold in our nation's supposedly most reputable newspaper.  Corinne There is just something confusing about it, too. You wanted this job! Why can't you eat the way you want to eat? I don't know. He makes it sound like he's being force fed or something.  Virginia I do think restaurant reviewing is a job where you often have to eat even if you're not hungry. Like you have to taste things, right? He talked about how he was eating an average of 125 multi-course restaurant meals a year. Which is not how most of us eat. Corinne That is like, twice a week? I bet a lot of people go to restaurants twice a week.  Virginia But you don't necessarily get appetizers and cocktails and dessert every time, because you don't have to try the whole menu when you go. And let's see, 52 meals a year... it would be 104 if it was twice a week. So it's two to three times a week.  Corinne Okay. It's a lot. Virginia So I agree there's an open question of: Did eating this way take a toll on his health? Possibly. Does he need to make it all about his weight and make lazy fat jokes? He doesn't. We don't need to do that. And do you need to tell America that the reason you're quitting your job is because of health reasons? I don't know that this was news. A lot of people quit jobs after 12 years. I don't care. Corinne And a lot of people quit job for jobs for health reasons, and then don't write weight loss stories.  Virginia That was the other layer to this piece last year that really bugged me. He talked to other former restaurant critics, including Adam Platt, who was at New York Magazine for a really long time. And Adam Platt called the job "the least healthy job in America." I'm sorry, sir. You are not an underwater welder. You are not working at coal mines. Corinne Professional athletes come to mind, too. Football players.  Virginia The least healthy job in America? You get to eat in beautiful, comfortable places. You get to expense the cab ride home. You're not being underpaid. You're not being abused. You're not being forced to have sex against your will to stay employed. You're not being held captive in a workplace. There are a lot of jobs that are less healthy than this, sir. And just the total lack of acknowledgement of that privilege made me insane. I find it just so exasperating.  Another great quote from Platt: "Your body changes over time. You have this giant distended belly which wants to be filled. All those weird sensors in your brain that cry out for deliciousness are at DEF CON one all day, you become an addict."  It's just such a dramatic—and again, super anti-fat— way of talking about your experience with a career which brought you...a lot of success and financial privilege. Corinne It's troubling. Virginia So that is the back story.  Corinne A successful white man thought he was fat and decided to quit his job. Virginia He felt bad about his body, so he quit his job. That was the tragedy that befell Pete Wells. And now he's back, Corinne! Because he lost 60 pounds in a year! Corinne "An entire basset hound." Doesn't he say that? Virginia Yes, I'm sorry. And trigger warning that we're using numbers. He's using numbers, we're just quoting. “Today, I'm about 55 pounds later than I was at my zenith, a loss roughly, roughly equivalent to dropping an entire male basset hound.”  Is there nobody at The New York Times—I am truly asking, as someone who has written for this newspaper, been interviewed for this newspaper—is there not one editor in any of your departments who can spot anti-fat bias? Is there not one person in the copy editing department, or maybe one senior editor reading a draft of this, who would say, "Wow, this is wildly offensive, dehumanizing language to use about people's bodies?" Corinne Or notice how ableist It is against people with diabetes. Because that's what struck me when I read this. Virginia Yes, to Pete Wells, diabetes is a death sentence and a moral failing. It is the nightmare scenario he's desperate to avoid.  And I'm not downplaying the stress of managing a chronic condition. But that is extremely offensive to the many millions of people who live functional, happy lives with diabetes. Corinne And who don't have a choice to focus all their energy on avoiding it and get a New York Times column to write about how they avoided it.  Virginia Let's talk about after he describes his "basset hound" weight loss. He then says: "...Slimming down was not my main purpose. I never counted a single calorie. Somehow that took care of itself because of the new ways I started shopping, cooking and eating back then, and it more or less stuck to since.” Corinne I mean, could it get any more diet-y? You're selling us a diet. Virginia It's absolutely about slimming down. All you're talking about is how unhappy you were that you got fat. Obviously, you care about slimming down. Yes, you were worried about your biomarkers. But if that was all you were worried about, you would shut up about the basset hound! You would not use that phrase. It's so egregious. What's also egregious is that this is the first of four articles Pete Wells will be writing on this theme. We are recording this on January 7. You are hearing it on January 22 which means by the time you listen, there have been two more atrocities that we can't even get into because we haven't read them yet. But I can bet they're crap! Corinne I think it's also kind of interesting to think about this whole thing within the greater GLP-1 era. He doesn't really say whether he's taking a GLP-1 or not, although it feels like he's implying that he's not? And with that, there is some kind of moral judgment. Virginia That struck me as well. This first article is all about how to break up with sugar. That's literally a headline in here. Which, again, they stole from a women's magazine from 2005. Like I wrote that! "Break Up With Sugar" is classic women's magazine bullshit. But okay, Pete Wells. When a white man writes it, we get to pretend it's real journalism.  Corinne Doesn't he also talk somewhere about how sugar makes you crazy? Virginia Yes, he writes: "And having raised two boys, I probably should have known that going through sugar overdrive many times a day was not producing the most rational behavior." There have been mu

    11 min
  4. Welcome to the We Do Not Care Club

    JAN 15

    Welcome to the We Do Not Care Club

    You're listening to Burnt Toast! I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with the one and only Melani Sanders. Melani is a digital creator and the fearless founder of the We Do Not Care movement. If you are a woman in your 40s, 50s and beyond, you are very likely already in this club. Melani's viral club meeting videos, where she runs down a list of everything "We just do not care about anymore," are the kind of thing that my friends are constantly sharing and dropping in our group chats, and I'm sure it's the same for you.  Melani perfectly articulates the pressures we're under, and when she names it, it feels easier to let it go. So I loved this conversation. Welcome to the Burnt Toast chapter of the We Do Not Care Club. Let's get this meeting started. If you enjoy this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work! Join Burnt Toast! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 Episode 228 TranscriptMelani Hello and welcome to all members of the We Do Not Care Club. I started this club for all women in perimenopause, menopause and post menopause. We are putting the world on notice that we simply just do not care much anymore. This is a special body liberation edition. Yay. Virginia I'm so thrilled to have you here. I just love your work, and I'm a huge fan. So thank you for doing this. Melani Thank you for having me.  Virginia Well, you just kind of exploded into all of our lives in the last year. Where did the We Do Not Care Club come from? What's the origin story? Melani This was something that happened by chance. I was at Whole Foods in the parking lot. I was waiting on Whole Foods to open up because I was out of ashwagandha. Ashwagandha has been a huge part of my perimenopause journey. It is my prerequisite to life, that and coffee and a few other things. I got to have that. It helps me to feel more stable. I realized I didn't have any more. I woke up, and I keep it on my nightstand, and I turned the bottle over to look for some. And I pulled the cotton stuff out, and I said, 'Oh, crap.' And it was about seven something in the morning. They weren't open until eight. I was in the parking lot when it opened. When I got back in the car, I popped open my ashwagandha. I took the ashwagandha, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I honestly just didn't care much anymore. I didn't comb my hair. Everything was unstructured. I had on a bra that was half the size of my boobs, and it was, it was all out of order. And I didn't care that I didn't care.  And I thought, I'd been a creator for a while, for over four years. And I said, 'You know what? Maybe I could start a club called a We Do Not Care Club.' And I hit record and I asked, "Did anyone else out there feel the way that I did, and if so, join me. Join the club." And sure enough, by the time I got home from hitting that record button, my phone was blowing up. It was blowing up. The notifications: "Absolutely, I want to join, I want to join. I want to join." Yeah, I'm in it, I'm in it. And sure enough, my platform grew to maybe about 500,000. The WDNC is at 6 million now, across all platforms.  Virginia Unbelievable.   Melani I was gaining hundreds of thousands of followers per day.  Virginia Oh, my God. How are you? Because that's a huge shift in your life. Melani  Yes. In the beginning, I was very scared. I've freely shared emotionally what this is doing for me, mentally, all of it. I'm just openly sharing because I'm just a girl in perimenopause, and I hit record as it was happening. I didn't quite understand it, because when you get new followers, it's like, 'Oh, I got 100 new followers. Yay. That video did well.' But when you look and you're gaining hundreds of thousands of followers per day, it's like, 'What is going on?' I was trying to be sure, like, did something else come up besides this video? But then, typically, I'll post and I’ll post on several platforms at one time, and they were all going viral.  They were just going. So it scared me. And honestly, in the beginning I ran because I wasn't the content creator that showed up every day doing a lot of content. Sometimes I don't post for a week or so.  Virginia You're living your life.  Melani Yeah, I'm living my life. I'm not stuck to my phone or to social media. I got very nervous, because look at me running my big mouth. I started a club and now I'm not even all there. I don't even know who I am most days. So how's this going to work out?  I think I've migrated from scary to just a bit nervous. You know, this is the internet, and there are so many things that are so out of the box. It's very surreal. Very surreal. Virginia Well, I feel like it blew up because you voiced something that so many of us are experiencing and didn't know how to voice. It's a good kind of blowing up. You're giving voice to this thing, women's experiences in our 40s and 50s and beyond are not talked about. It's not made visible at all. But I can imagine it's, yeah, coming with quite a cost to you personally. So thank you for your service on behalf of all of us. Melani Well, thank you. The one thing I do want to add is that I feel as time has gone on, I've felt like I was meant to do this, if that makes sense. As I cry openly. I cut my computer off for a while. I really just examined everything that was going on in the sisterhood, all of the comments like, what do they see? What do they hear? And to your point, just being able to say things out loud. I'm getting stronger in that. But before this happened, balance was something that I really, really, really tried to master, if that makes sense. And just paying attention to Melani and what it is I need. I was on this journey before WDNC started. So now that I'm here, it's like I can apply all of those things that I have been trying to do to make my life better. I'm able to take that and put it into WDNC. Virginia One of the themes of your content that resonates with me really deeply, and I think with the Burnt Toast listeners, something we're always talking about is how to let go of perfectionism and these expectations that are put on us as women, as moms, especially around cooking and other domestic labor. One of my favorite entries on the list recently was 'We do not care if we said we were cooking dinner this morning. That was this morning's energy, and this afternoon is different.' And I was like, yes, that is how I feel today. Thank you.  Melani Absolutely. That was when the coffee was hot. Virginia Does naming these specific things that you want to let go of, does that actually help you let go of those expectations for yourself? Melani Yes. The announcements are comprised of me and my thoughts, but also the sisterhood. I take a lot of the content from that. So collectively, if our sisters don't care about that, then we don't care about it either. And yes, it definitely does.  What really helps is just we are all high fiving each other, and it's like, like you just said about the kitchen and cooking and all of that. Yeah, it feels good to know I'm not the only one. Virginia We're all not cooking dinner tonight. Melani If you're hungry, the kitchen's not locked. Figure it out. Figure it out. We got stuff to figure out. Virginia The main thing at Burnt Toast that we don't care about is diet culture. We are trying to make peace with the bodies we have now. We are trying not to keep chasing the dreams of the bodies we maybe used to have, or never had, but thought we should have. What are some of your favorite body related things to stop caring about? Melani One, and I speak about this in the book, in The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook, is my arms. It's one thing that I have been so… I've kept my arms covered up, no tank tops, for years. I have a 24 year old, and when I when I got pregnant with him, my body stretched out a lot, and I got a ton of stretch marks on my arms, and then I ended up having surgery some years later, under my arm, so I just felt like it just looked bad. And I covered it up for a very long time.  And after starting the We Do Not Care Club, I really just started to take inventory to be sure that I'm living up to what I'm saying. And I said, 'You know what? I'm about to go put on one of them tank tops, and I'm going to go to TJ Maxx.' And so I walked into TJ Maxx with my tank top on, and I looked around, and I'm trying to figure out who you know. I know they're looking, they're judging, and nobody really gave a damn about my arms. I'm the one that cared so much. So now it is what it is, darling. Virginia Everybody deserves to not be hot and sweaty. Tank tops are great. Melani Especially in midlife, tank tops are life. You look at how many years--my son is, 24 years old, and I went through all of this time, and it was in that moment where it's like, 'Girl, don't nobody care. You better show your arms.' Virginia You have a right to show your arms. It’s just a body.  Melani It sounds so easy, but mentally for many of us, it's not. We know we will judge ourselves. We're waiting to be judged. We're comparing ourselves, and it's like the hell with all of that.  Virginia It's true that there are times body things do get commented on. One of mine is the way I gain weight. I get mistaken for pregnant quite often. I carry my weight in my midsection and it's this awkward moment that for years, I was like, 'Oh God, am I going to look pregnant in this dress? Someone's going to say something. It's going to be this weird conversation.' And then I was like, 'Well, that's on them for saying the rude thing to talk about.' If they feel uncomfortable in that moment that is not my problem to worry about. They're the ones commenting on someone's body when they shouldn't be. And that really turned that around for me. Melani Yeah, exactly. The one thing that I really focus on now as I study the sisterhood is empathy. I have this saying, and the saying is, 'If our sister

    30 min
  5. [PREVIEW] Potato Girl Year

    JAN 8

    [PREVIEW] Potato Girl Year

    Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it's time for our annual Ins & Outs Episode! This is what we do every New Year, instead of making resolutions or setting problematic body change goals. It's deeply unserious but still satisfies that urge to reflect and make some (fun) plans for the year to come! Listen to hear... ⭐️ The pants Virginia forgot she was wearing. ⭐️ The food trends Corinne is SO OVER. ⭐️ Virginia's new religion!! To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber. Join Extra Butter!🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 This transcript contains affiliate links. If you're going to buy something we mention, shopping these links supports Burnt Toast at no extra cost to you! Episode 227 TranscriptCorinne So today we have a topic that we have done before.  Virginia I think we've only officially done it once before? But it now feels to me like a Burnt Toast institution. Corinne Yes, and that institution is called Ins and Outs. Virginia Ins and Outs for the new year, because it is 2026! Corinne It's our little way of ringing in the new year and talking about what we're feeling right now. It's not a resolution. It really is a snapshot of what we're thinking at any moment in time. Virginia Whenever we happen to make the list. I like it because it's the epitome, to me, of anti-diet resolution culture. It's really just: These are things I love. These are things I'm done with.  I suppose you could do a diet-y version of this. But we don't, and we encourage you not to. Corinne And I think we'll see, perhaps, as we look back at some of ours from last year, how fleeting some of these really can be. Virginia Which is the fun of it. So you brought this concept into all of our lives. And I'm very grateful to you, because I do like having a New Year's ritual. The part of my brain that gets excited for New Year, fresh start, blah, blah, blah. That part of my brain that likes new pencils and whatnot, is like, oh, good. I have a thing to do. Corinne I feel like in past years people have done ins and outs like on Instagram. Like they would just do them in their notes app and then post a screenshot of it. And I haven't seen any of that yet this year. It is a bit early, but I'm curious whether that's going to be happening. Virginia Or if this social media trend is dying. But not here! Corinne Not here on Burnt Toast! Virginia Ins and Outs are still In. For us. All right, should we look back at our 2025 lists before we get into the new lists?  Listen to the 2025 Ins & Outs ep!Corinne Yes. I'll read yours.  Okay, so for 2025: In for you was Bird Buddy. Out was Instagram. Virginia I do think I've done a lot less Instagram! I wouldn't say it's gone completely, although I am currently in the middle of a spontaneous extended break for the holidays, and I love it. And Bird Buddy, I do still love. I ended up getting one for my mom for her birthday, and we have both our Bird Buddies on the same app. That said, ours is currently on a technical hiatus because we had to switch our wifi network. And I have to re-sync it with the wifi network. And, you know, that's the kind of annoying chore that's going to take you, like, six months to do. But I'm getting there. And bird feeders in general, are still very in over here. We're very into them. We did them all year, and it's a major joy.  Corinne Okay, cool. In: bootcut pants. Out: Colette cropped pants.  Virginia Did I even buy any bootcut pants?  Corinne Wasn't it bootcut Beyond Yoga pants? Virginia Oh, wait. I'm wearing them right now! Corinne Oh my God. Okay, wow. Virginia I guess they're in! I didn't take it any further, though. Corinne And are the Colette crop pants still out? Virginia Well, I think those blue corduroy pants I wore over the fall are the Colette pants.  Corinne So, no. Virginia I don't know, man. All pants are out for me. They're all out, they're all in. It's ever changing. Corinne Okay. In: air fryer cookies. Out: Tate's cookies. Virginia Well, I definitely did not stop buying Tate's cookies, even a little bit. But I did make so many air fryer cookies, like at least once a week. So I think pants are always out, cookies are always in. Corinne That seems fair. All right, In: two pieces. Out: apology ruching. Virginia I do love a two piece swimsuit, and I don't think anyone needs to ruch. I think your midsection can be whatever shape it is, and you don't need to put bumpy fabric on top of it. Corinne Fair. In: buying meat and eggs from the local butcher. Out: buying grocery store meat and eggs. Virginia I think we did pretty well with this one. I mean, now our eggs are our own chicken eggs.  Corinne That's awesome. Virginia The meat we are mostly buying from the local butcher, or we have one grocery store that  stocks some local farm-sourced meat. It's a very bougie thing, but it also, if you're going to be a meat eater, trying to be an ethical meat eater, is, I think, valuable. So I feel good about that. Corinne In: teal, dark green and pink. Out: light gray. Virginia If you could see my house, there's so much teal, dark green and pink in it. Corinne  That's awesome.  Virginia I'm really noticing what a stranglehold gray had on home decor from like the 2010s on. And when I go somewhere with a lot of gray now, I'm like, oh, this is kind of sad. And I mean, I had a very gray, neutral house for a long time. Corinne That's so funny, especially because wasn't the Pantone color of the year was just announced?And it's like... cloud.  Virginia If depression were a color. Not good. But for me, color is in.  Okay, let's do your 2025 list. In: wearing one thing over and over. Out: buying multiples of the exact same thing. Corinne Okay, I'll say I think I did okay at this. I don't know how I did wearing one thing over and over, but I think I did cut back a little bit on buying multiples. Although I have bought some of the same thing in different colors. Virginia Is that not buying multiples? Corinne Well, I don't know. It was unclear what "buying multiples" was supposed to mean. I think buying multiples meant buying the exact same thing. Virginia Oh, because of scarcity mindset. Corinne Yes. And I think I've done better at this. Virginia If you're buying multiples, but they're different colors, that feels like a baby step out of buying multiples of the same item. So I give you a gold star. Okay, bird watching is in. Tiktok watching is out. Corinne, how did it go breaking up with Tiktok? Corinne I have not broken up with Tiktok. I am still watching Tiktoks. I did recently start using an app blocker to block Tiktok after 10pm and that is working pretty well for me.  Virginia That seems great.  Corinne And I haven't done too much bird watching, but I do still really enjoy passive bird watching. Virginia Do you do bird feeders? Bird feeders are really great if you just want to passively bird watch.  Corinne No, I should get a bird feeder. Virginia You would really enjoy a bird feeder. The key is you hang it somewhere that you already sit, and have a window you can look out of, so then they really are just coming to you. Otherwise, you'll forget about it and you won't fill it.  Corinne Okay, let me think about that. Virginia In: Decluttering. Out: Organizing. Corinne I mean, who knows.  Virginia I'm confused about how those are different? Corinne It was based on some blog post I read where she was like, "Organizing is pointless. You need to declutter first." So if your closet is messy, don't just buy new hangers. You actually need to get rid of stuff.  Virginia You actually could stand to have like, a third less stuff.  Corinne And I will say I did do a big closet declutter, and it has been helping. So. Virginia Yes, you did, we have not yet seen post clutter, post decluttering, organizing photos of that closet. But we trust. Corinne Probably doesn't look that different to anyone else, but. Virginia You know. Corinne  Wait, I think I did do photos. Virginia Oh, maybe you did. I'm sorry. Okay, In: accessories. Out: matching sets.  Corinne Um, hard to say. I will say, I think this is still true for me. I think matching sets, I really want them to work, and then when I put it on, I just don't feel it. I just wrote this post about sweatpants, and I have a matching sweat top for all of those sweatpants, and I almost never wear them. Accessories are in, though. I'm currently wearing a bandana. Virginia And you've been wearing your new red collar quite a bit. I also struggle with the matching sets. Although I will say Naadam, which is a sustainable cashmere brand that Corinne and I both love, gifted me some pieces recently. (Full disclosure, it was gifted.) And because I've already bought myself several Naadam pieces, I didn't really need stuff. I did get this hoodie that I'm wearing, but then I got Jack a matching set, like cashmere pants and a zippered hoodie. And every time he wears it, I'm like, God damn it, I really want a matching set. This is so cute.  Corinne That's cool. Virginia He wears it around the house all the time and loves it. And now I'm like, maybe I do want that? So I don't know. I think I'm coming back around on those.  Okay, in was beef stew. Out was pulled pork. Corinne I mean, yes, sure, yes. Virginia Controversial position. Corinne I haven't had too much pulled pork this year. If it was offered to me, I would eat it. Virginia I made a delicious pulled pork yesterday. Throw it in the slow cooker and put a Dr Pepper over it. Corinne Oh, that sounds delicious.  Virginia So easy, so good. I made beef stew two weeks before that. I mean, this isn't my list, so I'm allowed to have it all.  In was passion fruit as a flavor in pastry and desserts. Out, was

    12 min
  6. All Fat People Are Strong

    JAN 1

    All Fat People Are Strong

    You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Happy 2026!!! To celebrate—and kick off the most diet-y month of the year!—we are here with a roundup of the very best anti-diet fitness advice in the Burnt Toast archives. If you find this useful, consider a paid Burnt Toast subscription! We're way cheaper than a gym or a diet app membership, and arguably better for your health too. And in addition to getting behind paywalled episodes and essays, Burnt Toasties get to join our awesome chat rooms like Team CPAP, Anti-Diet Ozempic Life and Fat Fashion! You'll find so much practical support, inspiration, and fat joy. Join us here! Don't diet, come hang with us! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links! Episode 226 TranscriptVirginia Happy 2026! We made it. It's a whole new year.  Corinne Thank God, honestly. Virginia See you later, 2025. Excited to be here in a new in a new chapter. Corinne To celebrate, we're bringing you a helpful episode to kick off the most diet-y month of the year: A roundup of our favorite anti-diet fitness advice. Virginia I'm excited for this. I hope this is grounding to people and helps prevent you spiraling off into some new thing that doesn't serve you.  We're also holding space for the fact that a lot of people do like fresh start culture. We will be coming to you next week with our annual Ins and Outs episode. So don't think we are immune from resolution culture! That's the Burnt Toast version of it. It's coming. All right. First up, we have an excerpt from an episode called “We Have Only Recently Acknowledged That Female Athletes Need to Eat.” This episode aired October 19, 2023. It's an oldie, but a goldie. And the guest was Christine Yu, author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes. And one of the main things Christine wanted us to understand was carbs are good for you. Virginia I also want to spend some time on your very excellent chapter about diet and sports. This was so well done. It feels like nutritional science, athletic research— all of this research—has only just recently given women permission to eat as athletes, and to eat enough to support their sports. This feels really staggering to me, that there has been this underfeeding of women athletes for so long. Christine Consistently. All the time. And I think it’s in part because of just general diet culture in our culture and society and these ridiculous expectations that we have or we place on girls and women in terms of what their bodies need to look like. And then you have the sports performance side, you have this idea that certain body types are the ideal athletic body types.  It’s almost no wonder that we create this perfect storm and a way for disordered eating and eating disorders and all these other problematic behaviors to take root. Especially because bodies are so central, obviously, in sports and performance. And we focus so much on bodies and how they look, what their body composition is, and all of these different things, the shape of you, all of that. It’s wild to me that it’s only been recently that we do acknowledge the fact you just need to eat. We talked so much about nutrition and sports as this idea of fueling your body, which I think was at first kind of helpful in the way of reframing food within this context. Your body needs fuel to be able to do all this stuff, in order to start to give folks a little bit more permission to eat or feel like they could eat what they needed. But that, I think, even still creates this idea that there’s a certain kind of fuel that you need to be eating in order to be an athlete, in order to fuel your body correctly, if that makes sense. Virginia It’s, again, mind blowing, but makes sense that we had to first embrace the idea of eating, period, as opposed to eating being the enemy. You have so many heartbreaking stories from athletes in this chapter talking about feeling like they were so tapped out at the end of a practice that they couldn’t function and that when they started eating enough, they were like, wow. Christine Turns out! Virginia “I can do a 90 minute workout without a problem!” The fact that they were performing at all when they were being asked to do it while starving is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous what they were being asked to do. Then seeing that immediate and logical shift that if you feed yourself, you can perform better. But then from there, this idea of food as fuel can also become very limiting because, of course, athletes are human beings, as well. And food is more than fuel for all of us. Christine It’s really easy within sports and athletics to look at food as almost a hack, in a way. Like, as a way to like fine tune your performance. Oh, I need more iron, or whatever other very specific thing that you need. And again, I think it dissociates food from what it actually is. I think that also just makes it really ripe to encourage a lot of these behaviors that aren’t always helpful or healthy. Virginia You also do some amazing work in this chapter dissecting a couple of the modern big diet trends: Intermittent fasting, keto, and you even look at some of the less extreme ones like the Mediterranean diet, and show how they underserve athletes and especially women athletes. I wondered if we could just spend a little time talking about your findings there, because that felt super important to me.  Christine In the last several years, we’ve seen things like intermittent fasting and keto pop up within athletic communities as this way to make your body a better machine. Especially, I think, within endurance sports, it’s this idea that your body can run longer or you can somehow create these these efficiencies, if you will. But the body likes to be in homeostasis, it likes to be in balance. So anytime energy levels start to dip, your body starts to send out these flares that are like, “Wait a second, hold on. Are we going to be starving real soon?” Because if so, I need to make some adjustments, physiologically. So with a lot of these diets, you’re actually ended up with these long periods of under-fueling your body. With intermittent fasting, you’re not eating for anywhere between eight to many, many hours. So you’re leaving your body in this huge deficit of energy so it starts to freak out and starts to shut down these non essential systems. And the thing with women is that our bodies are much more sensitive to these downturns in nutrition. It starts to send up those flares a lot earlier, it starts to make those those physiological changes a lot earlier. That can have repercussions on things like your menstrual cycle and all the hormonal things that your body does.  Similarly, with keto, this whole idea of eating a lot of fat and very few carbs might seem like, Oh, I’m really full, I don’t need to eat as much. But it’s the same idea that you end up inadvertently underfueling your body. But more importantly, especially for women, by not eating carbs, it sends up those same flares to the body. Women’s bodies, in particular, need carbohydrates in order to function well, in order to do all the things it does. And when we don’t have carbs, the body starts to send all these warning signs. We tend to see intermittent fasting or keto “work” in men because it seems like male bodies can get away with that under-fueling a little bit more than female bodies. But when women tend to try these diets they end up feeling, unsurprisingly, really flat, really fatigued, a lot of brain fog. They don’t see this performance boost and then they wonder what they’re doing wrong because all the podcasts, all the influencers, say I should be intermittent fasting. This is going to be how I’m going to lose weight. This is how I’m going to cut time on my race. This is how I’m going to improve performance, improve body composition, all the stuff. But I’m not seeing that. I’m feeling flat. I’m not seeing all these other positive benefits. It’s because your body is essentially saying, ah, this isn’t working for me. Virginia Just because it works for Peter Attia does not mean—and question mark on if it even works for these guys? Thats the other thing I just want to interject. It might improve athletic performance, it doesn’t mean it’s not having other consequences on their mental health or their relationships with food and body. But that’s fascinating to realize specifically, if your goal is improving athletic performance—one of these diets is not going to deliver for you the way you’ve been told it might.  Christine Especially the idea around carbs. I feel like carbs still have like a bad rap. People are still really afraid to eat carbs and I just want folks to know it’s not a bad thing. Your body actually needs it. It wants them.  Corinne I mean, what can I say? Perennial wisdom. Virginia Perennial wisdom. Really important. And it's just absolutely wild —the science she gets into about how little female athletes in particular, were allowed to eat for decades, and how much better everybody performs as a human being and an athlete when they eat carbs. Corinne Yeah, this makes me sad.  Okay, next we're going to hear a clip from an episode called It’s Time To Free The Jiggle. This one aired on December 14, 2023 and our guest was Jessie Diaz-Herrera. Jessie is a body affirming dancer, health and wellness influencer, and fitness enthusiast. You might know her on Instagram as curves with moves or from her Free The Jiggle classes. Jessie's advice is so helpful if you're thinking about starting about starting any new kind of workout or entering a new workout space, especially as a fat person. Virginia The first question is: Do you have any tips for focusing on how you’re feeling in you

    42 min
  7. High Fiving Ourselves For This Year!

    12/25/2025

    High Fiving Ourselves For This Year!

    You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.Happy Christmas if you celebrate! If you don't, happy Thursday where everything is closed! Either way, today we're taking a look back at your five favorite episodes of the year. If you enjoy the snippets you hear here, why not give yourself the gift of Burnt Toast? In addition to getting behind paywalled episodes and essays, Burnt Toasties get to join our awesome chat rooms like Team CPAP, Anti-Diet Ozempic Life and Fat Fashion! Join Burnt Toast for 2026! 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links! Episode 225 TranscriptCorinne So we dropped an episode on Thanksgiving Day, and we're back with another holiday episode. This time we're going to be looking back at your five favorite episodes of the year. Virginia This is so fun for me to put together every year. I think this is our second or third time doing it, and it's just really satisfying. Plus the top episodes are not always what I would have predicted! Some are, but some aren't.  So a little background before we start: Since we moved platforms—we went from Substack to Patreon-—it was actually incredibly difficult to compare all the usual stats. The way Substack tracks episodes and the way Patreon does it—it's not an apples to apples situation. So this isn't the most scientific ranking. But I tried to find the different metrics we're interested in as podcasters —and I found the most popular episode for each of those metrics.  1. The Episode You Shared Most: Dr. Mara Will Not Sell You A Weighted VestVirginia So this one got the most shares on Substack Notes, on Instagram, etc. This is the one that people sent to other people as much as possible. Corinne I was recently recalling this episode because one of my friends texted me to say "What do you think about weighted vests?" And I was like, weighted vests have not gone away.  Virginia Did you say I wear a weighted vest all the time? Because that's what I say. Corinne My weighted vest is my body. Yeah, I feel like we had a little chat about it. it's one of those things people have got to try for themselves. if you're interested in weighted vest then me being like, "eff a weighted vest" isn't gonna deter you, necessarily. Virginia No, no. Well, and they're not harmful. Dr Mara, who is a weight-inclusive doctor and writes the excellent newsletter Your Doctor Friend, was definitely not saying they were harmful. It's just this idea that as a perimenopausal woman, can never be not strength training. it's okay to just go for a walk as well, right? Corinne Well, and also, just the thing of, you need to be at least as lean as possible, but put the weight on your body. Just not as part of your body, Virginia Yeah, only weight you can remove. That's the deep irony. Let's listen: Virginia Okay, so now let’s get into some related weight questions. I was just told by my OB/GYN that excess abdominal weight can contribute to urinary incontinence in menopause. How true is this, and how much of a factor do you think weight is in this situation? And I think the you know, the unsaid question in this and in so many of these questions, is, so do I have to lose weight to solve this issue? Mara Yes. So this is a very common refrain I hear from patients about the relationship between BMI and sort of different processes in the body, right? I think what the listeners’ OB/GYN is getting at is the idea that mass in the abdomen and torso might put pressure on the pelvic floor. And more mass in the torso, more pressure on the pelvic floor. But urinary incontinence is extremely complicated and it can be caused by lots of different things. So I think what the OB/GYN is alluding to is pelvic floor weakness, which is one common cause. The muscles in the pelvic floor, which is all those muscles that basically hold up your uterus, your bladder, your rectum—all of those muscles can get weak over time. But other things can cause urinary incontinence, too. Neurological changes, hormonal changes in menopause, can contribute. Part of my size inclusive approach to primary care is I often ask myself: How would I treat a thin person with this condition? Because we always have other treatment options other than weight loss, and thin people have urinary incontinence all the time. Virginia A lot of skinny grandmas are buying Depends. No shame! Mara Totally, right? And so we have treatments for urinary incontinence. And urinary incontinence often requires a multifactorial treatment approach. I will often recommend my patients do pelvic floor physical therapy. What that does is strengthen the pelvic floor muscles particularly if the person has been pregnant and had a vaginal delivery, those muscles can really weaken, and people might be having what we call genitourinary symptoms of menopause. Basically, as estrogen declines in the tissue of the vulva, it can make the tissue what we call friable. Virginia I don’t want a friable vulva! All of the language is bad. Mara I know, isn’t it? I just get so used to it. And then when I talk to non-medical people, I’m like, whoa. Where did we come up with this term? It just means sort of like irritable. Virginia Ok, I’m fine having an irritable vulva. I’m frequently irritable. Mara And so that can cause a sensation of having to pee all the time. And that we can treat with topical estrogen, which is an estrogen cream that goes inside the vagina and is an amazing, underutilized treatment that is extremely low risk. I just prescribe it with glee and abandon to all of my patients, because it can really help with urinary symptoms. It can help with discomfort during sex in the menopausal transition. It is great treatment. Virginia Itchiness, dryness… Mara Exactly, yeah! So I was doing a list of causes of urinary incontinence: Another one is overactive bladder, which we often use oral medications to treat. That helps decrease bladder spasticity. So this is all to say that it’s multifactorial. It’s rare that there’s sort of one specific issue. And it is possible that for some people, weight loss might help decrease symptoms. If somebody loses weight in their abdomen, it might put less pressure on the pelvic floor, and that might ease up. But it’s not the only treatment. So since we know that weight loss can be really challenging to maintain over time for many, many reasons, I think it’s important to offer our patients other treatment options. But I don’t want to discount the idea that it’s inherently unrelated. It’s possible that it’s one factor of many that contributes to urinary incontinence. Virginia This is, like, the drumbeat I want us to keep coming back to with all these issues. As you said, how would I treat this in a thin person? It is much easier to start using an estrogen cream—like you said, low risk, easy to use—and see if that helps, before you put yourself through some draconian diet plan to try to lose weight. So for the doctor to start from this place of, “well, you’ve got excess abdominal fat, and that’s why you’re having this problem,” that’s such a shaming place to start when that’s very unlikely to be the full story or the full solution. Mara Totally. And pelvic PT is also underutilized and amazing. Everyone should get it after childbirth, but many people who’ve never had children might benefit from it, too. Virginia So the excerpt we just listened to is Dr. Mara talking about urinary incontinence. The listener's doctor was implying that it was because of their weight. And we were just getting into how many health issues, especially in perimenopause and menopause, you're gonna hear that explanation for. And that's just not always true, and even when weight is a factor, there are almost always other treatment options besides weight loss.  Corinne It also makes sense to me that this is the most shared epsiode, because I feel like menopause is such a hot topic right now. Virginia Oh, it is. And we will continue to see this theme as we talk about our most popular episodes. Corinne Oh, interesting, yes, for sure. 2. Episode With The Highest Open Rate: You Can Count Your Protein And Still Be Nice to PeopleVirginia So for folks who don't know: "Open rate" means the percentage of people on the Burnt Toast newsletter list who actually open the email each time. It's okay, we know you don't all open the emails all the time. But it's helpful for us to know which emails get more or less opens than average. This podcast episode, when it got emailed around, had the highest open rate all year. It was the Indulgence Gospel episode where Corinne and I both talked about the diet-y or diet-adjacent behaviors we still participate in: Virginia Do you personally have any diet-y somethings, Corinne? Corinne I struggled a little bit to think of some, but I actually feel like I have so many! First of all: Right now, I am wearing a fitness tracker. Virginia Oh my God. Corinne I wear a Fitbit. I love wearing a Fitbit. I am not one of those people who gets into a certain type of headspace about steps. I almost never look at the steps. What I love it for is the sleep tracking. I like waking up and getting a grade on my sleep, which might be— Virginia You like being judged first thing in the morning? Corinne Yeah! It’s like, good job I did great. Or I find it kind of validating sometimes, like, if you wake up feeling like shit and you’re like, Yeah I didn’t get enough REM last night. Virginia This is a big revelation, because I have written pieces critiquing Fitbits, which you have edited and never told me. Corinne I go in and out of it. I will wear it every day for months, and then sometime I’ll take it off and just not put it back on. And this is part of where, like, I’m not addicted to it. I like getting the grade on the sleep. I l

    40 min
  8. [PREVIEW] The Year in Butters: 2025

    12/18/2025

    [PREVIEW] The Year in Butters: 2025

    You're listening to Burnt Toast! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.And it's time for the episode we look forward to all year long—ever since we made it a tradition exactly one year ago! It is time for... The Year In Butters, where we look back at everything we've recommended in the past year and tell you what's still buttery and what has...gone rancid. If you're new here: Butter is what we call the recommendation segment at the end of every episode. It might be a new favorite food, a great book, an experience, or a state of mind. But since we give recs every week, some Butters stand the test of time more than others! Find out if we still love... 🧈 Tracking Virginia's hydration? 🧈 Corinne's new shower head? 🧈 The $16 sundress Virginia bought last summer! 🧈 And so many more! To get the full schmear, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Membership starts at just $5 per month and is the best way to support our work! (Just want the Butter, no strings attached? Buy this episode for just $4.) 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 This episode contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Burnt Toast when you shop our links! Episode 224 TranscriptCorinne Well our big realization when we did this last year was that a lot of things we had recommended, like clothes, hadn't stood the test of time. Virginia They sure did not. We took a real hard look at my fast fashion problem. And I think I've made some real progress on that front, so I'm excited. I think a lot of our Butters held up pretty well this year...but we'll see. Corinne Yeah, when I was compiling this I could tell that we were having a reaction to the clothes recommendation thing, because I think there is maybe, like, one this year. Virginia Well, it is a lot to think of a Butter all the time! When I invented this segment, I did not know what I was doing.  Podcast guests always get very nervous about the Butter. (We're not going to go over the guests’ Butters, by the way. These are just the Butters that Corinne and I have recommended together on our episodes, or we'd be here all day.) It is a lot of effort every week thinking of a Butter. I try really hard to think of something that's a little quirky and random, and not necessarily something you have to buy, though sometimes they are things you could buy. What are your criteria for a good Butter? Corinne Well, I think we have both found that if you don't think about it a little bit in advance, and then when you're on the spot, everything you've ever liked just falls out of your brain. Virginia Yes, then you don't like anything. Nothing is good. Corinne This year, for 2025, I really leaned into food and media Butters. I was basically recommending whatever I was enjoying making for dinner or a snack, or what I was watching or reading. Virginia I do think those are the best butters. Although I always enjoy it when we have a wild card. My favorite ever Burnt Toast Butter probably still is your sun face shield, which was one of the very first Butters you ever buttered. It was so out of the box and delightful to me. Corinne That one really did not stand the test of time. Virginia I know. I guess for me—as much as I think it's valuable for us to look at what Butters hold up—sometimes a Butter is just a moment in time. Not all Butters are lifetime Butters. Some Butters are more fleeting. They're like the the sand art and, you know, that's fine. Corinne Maybe in 2026 we should try to have more wackadoo butters. Virginia I would definitely be here for that. Okay, should we jump in and go back and forth? Corinne My first Butter of last year was the Connally Goods denim chore jacket, which is named after me. My last name, Fay.Virginia So obviously a great Butter right there.  Corinne I stand by this one. Virginia For you to back away from a denim chore coat would be breaking news.  Corinne They actually just came out with a brown version that has blue stitching, and I ordered that. Virginia So, you are doubling down on this Butter. You're going to be a Double Butter on the denim chore coat. Corinne I think that is my only clothing one of the entire year. Virginia Well, and Connally Goods is not fast fashion, right? It's company we feel great about supporting. A good slow fashion brand. And my Butter from that episode was the brownies you sent me for Christmas last year from Vesta Chocolate. And I'm going to say, Yeah, that one holds up. I mean, I haven't had them since, but this is making me be like, ooh, who do I want to send those to? Maybe myself? Corinne I think it's hard for brownies to not hold up. Virginia That's going to be an evergreen Butter in the Burnt Toast universe. Okay, your next one was the TV show Bad Sisters.Corinne Good one. I still like that show.  Virginia I still haven't watched the second season. The first season was amazing. Corinne Yeah, can't say I've re watched it, but. Virginia It's a great clothes show. Corinne Yes, and I love Sharon Horgan. Okay, yours was Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.Virginia This is a good Butter and if you don't have that card game, and you regularly play card games, especially with kids, I recommend it. It's great if you have younger kids who aren't as good at harder card games—they can do well at it.  We haven't been playing it as much recently, but I'm not getting rid of it. I think we've just cycled into other games for the moment? But it's a good one to have on hand if you have a crowd of people you're trying to get united in some way. This is a good crowd pleaser.  Corinne Yeah, that sounds fun. I feel like sometimes when you play a game a lot it gets too easy. Virginia You can get expansion packs that make it harder, and we do have some of those, but we just kind of maxed out on it for a minute. I could see that come back around. Okay, I've completely forgotten what your next one is. This outline just says the word Anora and I don't know what that is.Corinne That's crazy, because it was a movie that came out at the very end of 2024 and won a bunch of awards. Virginia Oh yes! And it had what's her face from Better Things in it? Corinne Yes. Mikey Madison. I stand by that. I thought that was a really good movie. Virginia I have not seen it, but I love Mikey Madison in Better Things, which I believe was another Butter of mine last year. So, yes, great. Corinne Your next one was shearling, big buckle, Birkenstock clogs.Virginia On my feet right now. Absolute lifetime Butter, these clogs.  I think I'm on my third pair? I've been wearing them eight years probably. They do wear out. I wish they lasted a little longer. Shearling often starts to kind of go bald on you. But they are my forever house shoes in cold weather, and they make me so happy. Corinne That sounds really comfy.  Virginia I've still never bought Birkenstock clogs for outside of the house wear. but they're great slippers. If you're someone who works from home, invest in your slippers. Your feet are important. Okay, your next one is the book The Safekeep.Corinne That was one of the best books I read this year. Virginia I co-sign. I read it on your recommendation. My whole book club loved it. And we do not always agree on books. We don't always have the same taste, and we were all uniformly obsessed with that book.  And then my mom's book club read it, and they were more mixed. Corinne Ooh, interesting.  Virginia I think it was a little spicy for them? But I think I like that for them. My mom loved it. She got it. Corinne That was one of those books I read, and then was just trying to get everyone I know to read it. Virginia Because you just want to talk about it. It's wild, it's so wild. I'm excited for anyone who needs a good holiday read. It's just such a good immersive novel. If you haven't read it, pick it up for your winter break read.  Corinne Okay, your next one is one I am very curious about. It is the Water Llama hydration tracking app.Virginia We might have reached our first dud. Corinne How long was Water Llama in your life? Virginia I definitely Water Llama-ed for a few months.  Corinne Oh, that's a pretty long time.  Virginia I had maybe, like two-ish months, three months? So for folks who don't remember: This is an app that tracks your hydration throughout the day. The reason I started doing it was because I was having so many headaches and I thought I was dehydrated. And then I figured out that probably I have so many headaches because I have sleep apnea, so hydration became less of a focus.  But what I'm actually proud of is that I didn't keep tracking. Because I am someone who can be a little too into tracking. I think the fact that I let go of tracking Water Llama is a sign of personal growth.  Corinne I love that.  Virginia And if you do need to track hydration for medical reasons or whatever, it is a delightful app to use. But it's also okay to break up with tracking when it doesn't serve you. I do feel like I'm overall a little better hydrated, though, from the experience.  When I do a weightlifting workout now, I always make sure to have my big water bottle with me now. All right, you were really on the media kick. Your next one is the TV show Severance.Corinne Stand by it. That was great. I feel like it was really fun to be watching Severance every week earlier this year. It was one of those shows that everyone I know was talking about.  Virginia I missed out on that! For some reason I loved the first season and have not watched the second season.  Corinne Oh my gosh. Virginia I gotta get that and Bad Sisters going again. Corinne This is Apple TV. You need to re subscribe to Apple TV. Virginia  I am. I'm watching Slow Horses on it right now. So these will be next. Corinne All right. Yours from this episode was...meatballs.Virginia I mean, obviously I'm still pro-meatballs. I'm assuming there was a specific kind of meatball? Or a reason? Corinn

    11 min
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About

Burnt Toast is your body liberation community. We're working to dismantle diet culture and anti-fat bias, and we have a lot of strong opinions about comfy pants. Co-hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (NYT-bestselling author of FAT TALK) and Corinne Fay (author of the popular plus size fashion newsletter Big Undies).

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