Did you know that despite being a full-time dad (OF NINE) and “farmer,” Daniel can work out for two hours every day? And “eats clean,” meaning basically only protein powder? Super Daniel! How does he do it all?!

What a Ballerina Farmer Eats In a Day

Meanwhile on the pod, Corinne and I are discussing photos. Why are they so freaking hard?!

We get into what to do when you have that knee-jerk “I hate it!” feeling about photo of special moments, whether pro photos are easier than candids, what we like to wear, and what the heck to do with your hands. (We still have no idea.)

Get in the photo already!

A few other goodies you may have missed from the Burnt Toast universe:

What if I just don’t want to be fat? — this month’s Paywall Unlocked!

Why it matters that malls are losing Torrid

Corinne and the brilliant Mary Mahoney on turning 40!

The worst advice:

Join Burnt Toast!

This section contains affiliate links. Shopping our links supports Burnt Toast at no extra cost to you!

Plus Some Butter

I treated myself to a new Geneva Dress and will likely now live in it. Why is this particular Universal Standard piece so iconic? They just super nailed the fit; it feels like you’re wearing nothing, but also looks sort of effortlessly polished. Cute with sneakers or sandals; this is my third, but I couldn’t resist the stripes. (Rest of the outfit, including my thigh chafe solution linked here.)

One last thing: We’ve jumped straight into Summer Weather here in the Hudson Valley, which won’t last, but IS inspiring me to get the first installment of Garden Toast ready for Sunday.

These are always paywalled for privacy (since it’s a lot of pics of my actual garden/life) so join us here if you share my admittedly niche passion for hellebores and starting zinnias from seed, etc. Or buy the full collection for just $10 here.

I need Garden Toast!

(No, that’s not a moral obligation—even if you’re in perimenopause, although the Internet sure claims otherwise!) But I still workout at home in my family room with my emotional support cats.

I’m thinking about joining a gym — at some point, I need access to heavier/more weights than I can reasonably store in my house? But I don’t like the ambience of most gyms, I don’t like how steeped in diet culture and fatphobia they can be, I don’t want a gym bro mansplaining weights to me.

This week’s podcast conversation with Brooklyn-based personal trainer and power lifter Keri Harvey is… shifting my thinking a bit though.

Keri talks a lot about why gyms need to be for all bodies — and why, specifically, it matters for people who look like her (or me!) to show up there. She also has great advice for navigating workout motivation challenges, body changes, and more. It’s a must listen.

Keri Harvey on Burnt Toast!

I also wrote up a little travel diary of our recent spring break in Santa Fe!

No, Burnt Toast is not a travel newsletter, but I personally love getting these slice of life pieces from my fav writers every once in a while. If you’re interested in where we ate, what we did, how we made travel fun for my ND kiddo, and pics of me and together IRL, read it here.

Spring Break in Santa Fe!

Coming up on Sunday: What If I Just Don’t Want To Be Fat?

Over on Patreon, the Burnt Toasties have voted and we’ll be unlocking the paywall on this essay (which I wrote way back in 2022 and is still in second place for most paywall conversions ever!). I think this is because this just IS the question we all grapple with. Yes, yes, you think: I know fatphobia is bad, I support and love fat people… but I just don’t feel good about it for me. So, then what?

My thoughts —from 2022 with some slight updates — are coming Sunday morning.

To make sure you don’t miss it, join the Patreon free list NOW — just click “join for free” in the top righthand corner of that page.

This Week’s Butter

I know this mask is the MOST ABSURD thing ever. But Jack got me one a few months ago and OMG, it is game changing. I wake up with a lot of early morning headaches, so I keep it on my nightstand to slip on — I can almost always eke out another hour of sleep. It also thoroughly blocks light, so is a great travel sleep mask. I don’t understand how it stays cold, but it feels so good.

The journalist in me loves Discourse Weeks because it feels like we’re part of something important, plus it’s way easier to write headlines. But the human in me adores Random Weeks most, because it makes this space feel (even more) like a bunch of friends hanging out in our comfy pants, eating cheese.

So ICYMI, here’s what we’ve been chatting about during this quite random week!

Why are American Girl dolls on Ozempic?

Freaking. Daniel. Neeleman. 🐄

Melt the ICE.

Not our Corinne interviewing on Big Undies!!!! So excited to read Famesick.

How do you prep for a colonoscopy without feeling like you’re back on a crash diet?

Flying while fat and/or with small children is hell.

Heated Rivalry book reports!!!

And…spring break travel must-haves!

One thing I absolutely LOVE about Burnt Toast: Our comment section. You don’t all agree with my take (cool!) but you’re all so smart, thoughtful and respectful. Zero trolls, zero nonsense, great conversation that pushed my thinking further? Yes please.

Truly, even if you think you’re a person who doesn’t really do comment sections or chats — our comment sections and chat rooms are a reason to spring for the paid subscription!

Join the conversation!

Meanwhile, on the pod, we have Savala Nolan back for part 2 of our conversation. This time we’re getting into why so many men are “voting booth feminists,” why she’s pro-chivalry, and lots of thoughts about divorce, love and motherhood. It’s SUCH A GOOD ONE, you guys!!

Listen here!

One Good Thing

Over on Big Undies, wrote such a smart piece about the “oversized” clothes trend. It absolutely drives me nuts when something is “fashion” just because it emphasizes someone’s tiny body by making them swim in fabric. (And yet these same brands can’t make plus sizes? Hello?) And yet I am trying to shift myself out of skinny jeans mode and embrace the comfort of bigger clothes even if they make me look bigger.

To that end, this oversized boyfriend cardigan (gag at that name) is getting a lot of wear right now. I’m wearing the 2X and it is, indeed, roomy. It goes up to 3X (the biggest Quince ever goes and not for most of its inventory despite clearly having the ability!). Rest of outfit linked here (affiliate; I found a dupe for the boots bc they’re old and from a brand I’m not shopping rn).

ICYMI, this piece is actually the 4th installment in a series I’ve been writing since last fall called The Sleep Apnea Diaries. I’ve also written about:

Weight stigma and sleep apnea

My fat neck

My experience with two sleep studies

And one cool thing about Patreon is that you can pay less than $15 to read the whole series (plus every new piece I add to it!), without having to become a member. You can also pick and choose and read whichever essays most intrigue you for just $4 a pop.

Or you can subscribe for just $10 per month and get The Sleep Apnea Diaries plus every other paywalled essay and episode in the Burnt Toast universe!

Join Burnt Toast!

Meanwhile on the podcast, we had Queen !!! And yes, you guys, she knows about divorce, ok?

I’ve been having many thoughts about The Lindy Discourse this week, and about how we respond to fat women/women making choices we’re uncomfortable with in public… I may write about that for Tuesday if I can nail it down into something coherent? Stay tuned!

Listen to Lindy on Burnt Toast!

And we’ve also started a new experiment where we release one beloved essay from the archives per month, as a little treat to free subscribers! (Because yes, we love you too!)

So go read the March pick — it’s a juicy one!

One Good Thing

New York had Fake Spring this week and it’s already gone but it WAS perfect Princess Diana Weather!! This romper is both largely weather-impractical and only available up to XXL (which I am wearing) so do with that information what you will, but I think I’ll wear it around the house quite a bit? Rest of outfit linked here.

PS. Making this reel made me laugh so much. But normalize CPAPs! I will die on this hill!

And did a great roundup of excellent therapist advice over on last week, and I was delighted to share mine. 🐈‍⬛

This was a big accomplishment for me because years ago, I had a far ore disordered, “all or nothing” relationship with exercise, and after several years of “all,” had to spend many years in the “nothing” camp to let it all go. I’m now back to working out most days of the week, but with a lot more flexibility and permission to do it on my own terms. If you’ve been struggling to fit exercise into your life in a way that helps but doesn’t harm, you might like the essay. And definitely check out by , who has taught me so much about how to do this!

21 workouts in 30 days

On the podcast, we had part one of the most incredible conversation with , author of the beautiful new book Good Woman: A Reckoning.

We get into Savala’s diet culture journey, the ways anti-fatness serves anti-Blackness, and how it feels to be staying fat in this current moment of Ozempic-fueled body positivity backlash.

Savala Nolan refuses to be good.

In two weeks we’ll be dropping the second half of this conversation — where we get into divorce, sex and Savala’s classy and trashy Butters. That conversation will be for paid subscribers only, so make sure you’re following us on Patreon so you don’t miss out!

Subscribe to Burnt Toast on Patreon!

And I also wrote about that RFK/Kid Rock fever dream, and why, if mediocre skinny men can drink whole milk in a hot tub… we can stop holding ourselves back from taking up space in literally any way.

Want to wear the swimsuit? Get on a horse? Try power lifting? Start online dating? Whatever it is, you can just do it fat.

On Tuesday, I wrote about that NYT body positivity influencer video — the one that went viral last week because it’s a fat person saying she doesn’t want to be fat anymore.

In other words, it’s a video published by a newspaper where absolutely nothing newsworthy happens — because every fat person has wanted, at least in some moments, to stop being fat. That’s what happens when you live in a world at war with your body.

Gabriella Lascano’s take did spark a valuable conversation about what it means to be a body positivity influencer —someone who makes a living selling messages about loving yourself but also, many, many beauty products, clothes, and other consumer goods— and a fat rights activist. Now I’d argue that you can be both, because bopo influencer is a job, and fat rights is a value system. But Lascano is not both and doesn’t appear to have ever been both, and it’s useful for us all to get clearer on the distinctions.

Why Body Positivity Was Never the Answer

Meanwhile on the podcast, Corinne and I are talking about groceries. They are crazy expensive right now! But also, is it normal for a family of five to spend almost $700 on a week’s worth of food?

We also get into our thoughts on meal delivery culture and I dig into my dependency on it and the (baby steps) I’m taking towards cooking at home more. There is a lot of Discourse happening around this topic right now — here’s Corinne’s excellent essay on the case for making some things harder, and here’s with practical tips for cooking more if you want to divest from meal delivery culture.

But I do want to say, clearly, that it’s not a moral failing to rely on delivery or to spend a lot of money on groceries. Disabled folks, stressed out parents, folks navigating eating disorder recovery or food allergies… there are lots of us who need extra support feeding ourselves and our people. And that’s because we’re lacking larger structural supports (thank you capitalism and an all-too-porous social safety net) and often, the kind of community support that would otherwise fill in these gaps. So yes, it’s worth looking at our budgets and our entanglements with bad systems. But it’s a privilege to opt out of those systems, too. And fed is still best!

Why does making dinner cost $700?

PS. Probably tacky to give you an affiliate link after that conversation but I do still use and love the reusable grocery bags pictured above, so do with that what you will!

One Good Thing

Because I am now trying to cook at home more and rely on UberEats less, here is one super delicious and fast dinner we made on Tuesday, and liked it so much we made it again last night. (When I say “we,” I do not include children but your mileage may vary!) As evidenced by my Tuesday essay (above), the NYT is getting an awful lot wrong right now but this recipe for sticky miso salmon bowls, they got right. (Gift link!)

Here’s my take (and a roundup of the best takes) ICYMI.

Mike Tyson WTF

And then RFK doubled down with this… situation. I just cannot with the way these men are using actual government jobs to live out their most deranged fantasies. We get it, buddy. You work out in jeans! You only eat between noon and 7pm! You’re almost as badass as a professional boxer!

Sir, I might be fat, but at least I’d never cosplay a sexual predator. (Though is it even a costume if you work for the Trump administration?) Let alone try to convince us that you’re doing it…because you care about our health? Are ears even that high in protein? Stay in your lane with the beef tallow, pls.

For something lighter, I tried to write about Martha Stewart’s personal Instagram, which has long been a source of absurdity and delight.

But while researching the piece, I discovered she’s in the Epstein files, which made things take a darker turn.

Read the whole thing here.

WYD Martha

And on the pod, and I get into the state of the GLP-1 discourse right now. Because it’s getting messy!

We get into the ableism of not wanting to be on medication for the rest of your life, as well as the expectation adjustments a lot of folks on GLP-1s are going through right now.

We also discuss hot cheese and whether Corinne should have kept the trad wife dress she ordered. Listen here!

GLP-1 Mess & Nap Dresses

One Good Thing

It’s still VERY cold, spring is ages away, and my Internet has been crashing out all week… so I will be living in these cozy and very bright pink sweats until further notice. (H/T who told me about the pants!)

(Full credit to who broke this story and has put in countless hours sifting through all of Attia’s emails and his subsequent “apology.”)

In Attia’s statement this week, he describes the version of himself who made jokes like “pussy is, indeed, low-carb” as “naive” and “juvenile.” He claims not to have known who Epstein really was — even though their friendship and correspondence all took place after Epstein’s 2008 criminal conviction and subsequent jail sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

This naivety — the performative shock and disgust that of course now that we know, we’re appalled — has been mirrored across the longevity and wellness industries this week. Which is to say: People working in, and profiting from, diet culture seem very surprised to learn that an associate of theirs could behave immorally. But nothing about this is surprising. As I wrote on Tuesday:

Diet culture is about rigorously controlling bodies at any cost. It is especially about rigorously controlling female bodies. It celebrates young, thin female bodies but also cages them, as Diana Fox Tilson wrote about so well recently. And diet culture conditions men to go hard and discipline themselves relentlessly in order to feel like gods who can do anything.

So it is not surprising that a doctor who wants to live forever would be entangled with a billionaire rapist.

And it’s not naivety. It’s not gullibility. And it’s for sure not innocence.

Read the rest of the piece here.

When Diet Culture Becomes Rape Culture

But to end your week on a better note, here’s this week’s podcast conversation with the delightful Lauren Muhlheim, Psy.D.

Lauren is my top go-to resource for all things eating disorders and teenagers. She’s the author of several helpful books and has been working to make eating disorder treatment less fatphobic. We get into how GLP-1s are complicating treatment, and what to do if your own kiddo is starting to sneak food or show other warning signs. Lots of useful info in this one!

And: Here’s a fun peek into my house, where I recently hung some great flower art painted by good friends.

(Links to most things in that picture can be found here.) Because it’s rough out there right now, and we need to find the warmth where we can.

They raised $2600 and I said let’s see what Burnt Toast can add! So far we’ve raised another $350, but I know we can get their total over $3K — or more!!

Donate even $5 if you can and email me your receipt (virginiasolesmith at gmail).

Support immigrant legal aid!

We’ve also been busy calling our reps and as of this writing, Senate Democrats succeeded in blocking the DHS funding bill that would have given another $10 billion to ICE. But this fight is far from over, so keep calling! Here’s a script.

Meanwhile, I wrote about struggling to prioritize rest when the world is…this. Here’s why I’m nevertheless teaching myself to nap.

Naptime is necessary!

And because you probably need a fun distraction right now, Corinne and I made a podcast episode that is mostly her thoughts on Heated Rivalry and a roll call of all of our pets.

Pets + Gay Hockey Ur Welcome

Plus One Good Thing

Grumpy Little Walks still help, even in six degrees. I wish it wasn’t so!

This week on the pod, we’re getting into another white man’s diet advice: Don’t be a restaurant critic (they’re saying it’s “the hardest job in America?!”), do cut out all added sugar.

My advice: Don’t take diet tips from white men who have never tried to feed themselves while working actually hard jobs (and I am sure, at least in RFK’s case, have never had to directly manage feeding a family either). But if you want to hear us rant about this plus The New York Times ripping off Cosmo circa 2004 plus justice for basset hounds… we got you!

Listen to the Pete Wells Diet ep here!

If you, like me, have been glued to the news out of Minnesota and feeling helpless and rage-y, then Tuesday’s newsletter will help.

We highlighted a whole list of anti-ICE orgs to support, as well as some delightfully fat positive Minnesota businesses you can help stay in business while they fight fascism!

And I talked about these waffles, which I ate for breakfast last Sunday and again for dinner last night:

Plus One Good Thing

We are back in a board game era at my house! If board games are a nightmare with your kiddos, my advice is to look for games that are more collaborative than competitive and/or just stop and wait till they are older. They work now, at ages 8 and 12, in a way they absolutely did not a few years ago, your mileage may vary! But fwiw, right now, they are our go-to after dinner hang mode.

Current favorites: Hues & Cues, pictured above, which is sort of thoughtful and chill and also very pretty but can be funny too. And Telestrations which is like Pictionary meets Telephone and just straight up hilarious, especially when played with an intergenerational group.

On Tuesday, I wrote about RFK Jr’s quest to constipate America by convincing us all to eat as gym bros do — ALL PROTEIN, ALL THE TIME.

To be clear, I enjoy protein and eat it daily. I do not enjoy the government telling parents to feed our families in ways that are unsustainable (lolol no added sugar under age 10) and more expensive (have you seen the price of meat?). And I especially do not enjoy a government-sponsored guilt trip about how to be “healthy” from the same administration that is throwing out childhood vaccine schedules, cutting off food stamps and healthcare subsidies on a whim, and shooting American citizens in the street.

Read Men End War On Protein here

Fortunately, on Thursday, we had the great Melani Sanders on the podcast.

Melani is founder of the We Do Not Care Club and wow, do I need more do not care energy right now!!!! To be clear, what Melani does not care about is external expectations about weight loss, house cleanliness, and being the perfect wife/mother/woman. This frees us up plenty for caring about important stuff like our own needs and saving democracy!

We Do Not Care Club on BT!

You can catch all of the above and more by joining our Patreon! Or read individual essays like my RFK rant for as little as $3.

Plus One Good Thing

Corinne and I are both longtime fans of the sustainable cashmere brand Naadam and they just sent me this dreamy soft alpaca sweater, now on big sale! (Up to XXL, which I’m wearing; ofc I wish they did full plus sizes on everything but FWIW I also love this cropped zip-up hoodie, which goes to 3X, and Jack loves their cashmere pants, up to men’s XXL, would def work for all genders).

You can catch part 1 here and part 2 here. Because these essays contain private medical information, they are paywalled — but if a monthly Burnt Toast membership isn’t right for you, you can pay just $10 to read the whole series.

Read The Sleep Apnea Diaries!

And here’s a sneak peek at part 3…

In my last installment of The Sleep Apnea Diaries, I reported that my doctor prescribed a sleep study and told me to wait 2-4 weeks or so for insurance approval.

Well friends, I dutifully waited through the rest of September. And then into October. Every week or so, I called their office and was told they were still working on insurance approval. And this after I agreed to be weighed purely to make the insurance approval process easier! Finally around the sixth or seventh week, I got a call: “Your insurance won’t pay for lab study, but you can do a home sleep study!” They told me. This wasn’t a surprise; Dr. K said she preferred lab studies for greater detail and accuracy but that basically no insurance company wants to pay for them now, especially for first timers. I was personally not sad to skip sleeping in a lab/having to arrange childcare to make that feasible.

Also not a surprise: “Your insurance approved the test but it will only cover it if you’ve met your deductible.” In other words: It took your insurance company almost two months to give you permission to do a test they won’t actually pay for. That’s just having a body in America though!

The surprising part was what I heard next: “We will have a sleep test ready to mail out to you the first week of January.” Dear readers, it was not yet Halloween. And let’s remember the whole point of getting sleep apnea diagnosed and treated is to make sure someone is getting enough oxygen while they sleep. Casually waiting through 3 more months of oxygen deprivation? This is what drives people (me) to telehealth.

Read the Tale of Two Sleep Studies!

PS. Paid Burnt Toast subscribers also get access to our Team CPAP chat room, where a whole bunch of sleep apnea-having Burnt Toasties are posting our questions and trading tips and CPAP wisdom. Come join us!

Join Burnt Toast!

Of course the best way to support Burnt Toast is still with an ongoing paid subscription. But the ability to pay to read just one thing is something SO MANY OF YOUHAVE ASKED FOR over the years! None of us can subscribe to every creator we love! Sometimes, you just want to get behind the paywall right now, on this one thing... and not get into a committed relationship.

Call it one night stand reading. Booty call listening.

Enter the Burnt Toast Shop, where you can browse all of our paywalled content, now individually priced!

Here are a few recent pieces you might have missed:

• You don’t need to eat like Marion Nestle.

• Why standing pants are different from sitting pants.

• How I’m navigating a lot of what-to-wear anxiety right now.

• The Rise and Fall of Lee Tilghman, America’s Smoothie Bowl Queen

• And yes… even my divorce essay is in there.

You can also pay JUST $5 to listen to any of these super popular episodes:

• Can Katie Sturino Be a Body Acceptance Advocate...Who Works for Weight Watchers?

• Mel Robbins Has a PhD in Diet Culture

• Does Dr. Becky Have a Privilege Problem?

• The Curious Evolution of Emily Oster

• Plus all of our other paywalled episodes here.

Find it all on Patreon!

Plus One Good Thing

Every season, I love to hone in on a weekday uniform — something I can throw on to work from home, drive kids to activities, and basically never think a minute further about what I’m wearing. This combo, featuring my forever favorite joggers is IT for this fall/winter. (I swap the Birk slippers for cute sneakers when I leave the house.) Rest of outfit here.

And you can see everything else I’ve been wearing this fall right here.

Find it all on Patreon!

The porch pumpkins, which started out so chic, are now becoming a not-so-secret shame spot, a concept we discussed in the latest Indulgence Gospel along with a question asked that really blew my mind: Why are sitting pants not the same as standing pants? Because they aren’t! They just aren’t!

Related, I got into a lot of thoughts about pants—and whether I have finally, truly, broken up with skinny jeans—in today’s Fall Outfit Report.

And I haven’t so much BEGUN my holiday shopping, but I did make you a pretty great Burnt Toast Gift Guide.

All this and much more over on Burnt Toast’s Patreon — you know where to find us!

The First Doctor’s Visit

My neurologist first referred me to her colleague, Dr. K, who handles sleep disorders back in March — but it took until early September to get an appointment. (In other words, I spent six more months possibly not breathing in my sleep. As usual, loving American healthcare!!) At Dr. K’s office, a nurse showed me into an exam room and asked me to get on the scale. I declined to be weighed, as I almost always do. She paused, then nodded and moved on to other questions. When Dr. K. came in, she was warm and straightforward, but immediately asked, “Why don’t you want to be weighed?”

Read the rest on Patreon!

To read this whole piece—including how it felt when the doctor MEASURED MY NECK— you do need to be an Extra Butter subscriber.

If you haven’t joined us on Patreon yet — we’ve extended your Burnt Toast gift access deadline!

All previous paid subscribers get a FREE upgrade to Extra Butter, and free list folks get a month free of Just Toast.

Check your email for “claim your free month by 11/20!” And do it TODAY! Because this deal is gone for good tomorrow!

How fat IS my neck anyway?

In case you’re new here: Sara and I used to co-host Cult of Perfect, a podcast about the intersection of motherhood, bodies, and public performance. Sara has also been on Burnt Toast here, here, and here. We retired Cult of Perfect last year, but every so often, a breaking Cult-esque story will come up! Most recently, it was Brooke Raybould’s white board obsession and whether moms need $700 calendars under patriarchy.

Today is one of those days and we are, in fact, talking about Lee Tilghman. Tilghman is not a mom, but she is a longtime wellness influencer who talks publicly about her complicated relationship with wellness. As such, she is a rich text—and an opportunity for all of us to consider how wellness culture continues to make us susceptible to pseudoscience and perfectionism. Plus why taking health advice from young, skinny, highly privileged white women was maybe just never the best idea! So let’s get into it.

Read the full conversation!

Sara

Okay, let’s start with the TLDR on Lee Tilghman for those who need it.

Tilghman (on Instagram as @LeeFromAmerica) was part of the first wave of big Instagram wellness influencers. She became famous in 2015-ish for colorful smoothie bowls; living her best, most well life; and trying ALL the wellness fads.

Feeding her plants with her own menstrual blood may or may not have occurred.

In the late 20-teens, Tilghman was “cancelled” for being out of touch with the average consumer and charging an exorbitant fee for workshops. She pivoted to anti-wellness culture and anti-influencer influencing, preaching against the falseness and performativity of the influencer industry.

And THEN, Tilghman got a book deal.

If You Don’t Like This I Will Die: An Influencer Memoir, came out in August, and was marketed heavily as a tell-all, exploring how wellness culture and her job (influencing) drove Tilghman into an eating disorder and psychological burnout. Except the book is not that.

Yes, the book sheds light on the pressure and extremes of lifestyle influencing. And it reveals how wellness culture in particular can be an insidious, toxic space. But Tilghman does NOT reckon with her responsibility as someone selling that ideology. She ends the book in treatment for orthorexia, but offers little interrogation of how wellness culture impacted her disordered eating. During press for the book (including this interview with Kate Kennedy), Tilghman claims she no longer identifies with the term “orthorexia.” Indeed, Tilghman thinks she was unfairly targeted for disseminating dubious health claims, and she’s made some WILD comments about body positivity and anti-wellness culture. If you want more context, check out my piece here.

So today, we’re going to talk about how Tilghman has doubled down even more in the months since she released her anti-wellness-influencing memoir. She’s now branding herself as . . . a wellness influencer.

Find the rest of our conversation here!

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Introducing: The Sleep Apnea Diaries

A few times a year, I dream that I can’t breathe. Sometimes I’m underwater in the dream, sometimes I’m doing something perfectly ordinary and my throat freezes. It feels like I have to cough, but I can’t cough – the muscles in my throat that need to make the cough happen won’t move or respond. I feel the cough start in the very back of my throat, but it’s not powerful enough to force its way through. I’ve had this dream often enough that I now start to tell myself, still half asleep: Wake up and cough, wake up and cough. I always do, finally sitting up, choking and gasping for air. But in those few seconds before I wake up enough to move, it feels like I might never inhale again.

For years I thought I only had these dreams when I was sick and took nighttime cold medicine; my theory was it knocked me out too deeply to be woken by a coughing fit. Then I decided they were a byproduct of my asthma, which is mild, but persistent during allergy season (which, increasingly, lasts most of the year). I’ve also, of course, considered that these dreams are an acute stress response. Who doesn’t feel like choking in their sleep when their life is imploding, as mine has in various ways in the past 12 years? Or when you consider the current state of the world?

But I never connected these fairly infrequent dreams with my much more frequent sleep issue: Waking up (usually between 4 and 6am) with a headache three or four or five days a week. Most days the headaches are mild and pass as soon as I get up. But a few times a month they are migraine-level and settle in for the day. The headaches are worse when I’m congested (see above re: year-round allergies). And when I have the choking dream, I always have a bad headache as well.

A few months into dating Jack, I was discussing my morning headache woes, and he said, “I think you might have sleep apnea.” Then, earlier this year, I saw my neurologist to discuss how these morning migraines seem to be increasing, but weren’t like the migraines I’ve struggled with in the past (which were preceded by auras and seemed clearly hormonal). She said the same thing — and referred me for a sleep study.

In case you don’t know, (I barely did!): Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes you to stop breathing frequently during your sleep. You can have obstructive sleep apnea, where breathing stops when your airway collapses or becomes blocked in your sleep, or central sleep apnea, when the brain fails to send signals to the muscles that control breathing, or a combination of both. Around 15 to 30 percent of men and 10 to 15 percent of women have sleep apnea in the United States.

Jack was diagnosed a few years ago and brought his CPAP machine to our second date. Which I found endearing, but let’s be honest: Sleep apnea does not have a sexy rep. We associate it with snoring (raises hand), old age, and, of course, fatness. Sleep apnea is one of those health conditions that critics of fat liberation trot out to prove, definitively, that being fat is bad for your health. So what does it mean for a fat liberationist to be diagnosed with her first weight-linked health condition? What do we know about the connection between weight and sleep apnea?

And how fast will I be pushed to start a GLP-1 in response?

Read the rest on Patreon!

The Anti-Diet Auntie Revolution!

Lisa writes The Auntie Bulletin, a weekly newsletter about kinship, chosen family and community care. As a long time Auntie herself, Lisa often focuses on the experiences of people without children who are nevertheless, in her words, “cultivating childful lives.”

We’ve been talking a whole bunch about community on Burnt Toast lately, and Lisa reached out to have a conversation about the systems that get in the way of our community building efforts—specifically our culture’s systemic isolation of the nuclear family.

This is one of those conversations that isn’t “classic Burnt Toast.” But we’re here to do fat liberation work—and so how we think about community matters here, because community is fundamental to any kind of advocacy work. Plus it brings us joy! And joy matters too.

I super appreciate this conversation with Lisa, and I know you will too. Listen (or read the transcript!) for FREE here!

The Anti-Diet Auntie Revolution!

PS. Don’t forget: Everyone on the Burnt Toast list is entitled to free access to our paid content right now. (Yes, including any previous paywall you were mad you couldn’t get past!) Check your email for the gift link you need! We resent them all last Friday! (If you’re having trouble, here’s how to get help.)

Join Burnt Toast on Patreon!

Most importantly: You get FREE PAID ACCESS if you come NOW!

Here’s the thing about changing platforms (at least the way we’re doing it): Your email addresses come with us, but we can’t get you IN to read paywalled content unless you click the gift link we sent you (check your email, trash and spam!).

We’re giving everyone free access to paid content right now, but you gotta click that link in your email by October 28!

Also: Is Potty Training a Diet?

And: Do Men Have Podcasts Instead of Friends?

Don’t Miss: The Question Tearing My Kitchen Apart

Plus: Corinne’s Fall Must Haves! (Our fav autumn ritual)

Not a Drill: Lyz Lenz is ON PATREON!

And: My New Fav Fat Positive Home Hack

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And don’t forget — Corinne and I will be hanging out LIVE tonight, on Patreon at 8pm ET! Join us here. (Bring your snacks.)

Hope to see you soon! xx

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